Try the priest(s)

My first official brush with teaching was last summer, when I led a two-day workshop on scripture reading at Bon Air. This came out of discussions between my mother and I, largely centered around how scripture is heightened text (Shakespeare is also heightened text), and while we learn about heightened text, how to interpret and present it, in theater school, the average lay reader probably has not gone to theater school. Anyone having to speak heightened text could be helped some of the tips and tricks we have. Of course, going into this, I was quite panicky. "I'm not even twenty, I've only had one year of college, who am I to be leading a workshop on this?!" (To which I'd chastise myself with, "You're someone who understands the importance of operative words. Just DO IT.") Bon Air was a wonderful environment for me to have this first experience; most people there had known me for many years, and everyone was very enthusiastic. We did some individual coaching in the sanctuary and I thought, "Yep. I really do want to teach voice and speech."

I'm reading in worship tomorrow. Since my mother is now in charge of scheduling lay readers, she's having me read both services (of course). She also chose me to read on a Sunday when one of the scriptures is a very long passage from 1 Kings. (She does like to put me to work when I'm here.) And in the spirit of ongoing attention to scripture reading at Bon Air, I thought I'd blog about what my process is like, working on scripture.

I see that my job, as a scripture reader, is to present the word of God to the people of God. This means reading, understanding, and speaking the word in a way that is clear and understandable - not JUST that the individual words are understandable, but that they are linked together in a way that is easy to follow. God has given me a mind, a body, and a voice that I might use them in His service. I am doing no honor to God if I do not work to develop them. There's this mythical thing many people are obsessed with. It's called "talent" and I am not convinced it exists. I assume it doesn't because that helps me move through life working hard. People tend to think that there are people with "talent" and they can read well and there are people who don't have "talent" who can't. This is stupid. I don't have talent. I have training. People talk about my singing voice - my singing voice it what it is because I have parents who had me doing vocal exercises before I could talk. Effective scripture reading comes from respect for the role, and the respect enough to work on the scripture.

The first thing I do is I read the scripture SILENTLY.

Yup, you heard me. SILENTLY.

I do this to read and study it for what is actually happening in the scripture. If I start by reading it aloud, I jump ahead to vocal interpretation before actually considering what it means. Often, when reading the Bible, I notice a word or phrase I hadn't paid attention to before, which changes what the scripture is specifically saying. I find, personally, if I start voicing immediately that I'll revert to previous interpretations of the scripture instead of discovering something new. So I work first to read and understand the scripture and the message it conveys. Is it a message of hope? Is there awe? What is the most important thing it is saying?

Then, I'll read the scripture aloud and slowly, paying particular attention to the individual sounds of the words. Often, here I'll find new information about the scripture as I play with the words, stressing them differently than I heard in my head, noting repeated sounds or types of sounds (are there a lot of diphthongs? voiceless stop-plosives? this is the speech dork in me coming out).

Next, I'll look at the scripture for the trouble spots. Looking at the 1 Kings 8:1, 6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 scripture, here's what I've identified:

• There are two different voices: the narrator voice and Solomon's voice. Also, Solomon quotes God; does his voice change?
• There are a lot of long noun phrases. Like, "the ark of the covenant of the Lord" and "the altar of the Lord". These have to be kept sounding like one thing for it to make any sense.
• Solomon is slightly repetitious.
• Transitions during Solomon's speech, particularly, have the potential to be awkward, since they're taken from different parts of the chapter.
• The word "priests" is difficult to say and occurs a lot at the beginning.

The next step for me is to go through and score the text, paragraph-by-paragraph. This literally means I go through making marks on my copy of the scripture, so it looks like a musical score. My mother already formats the scripture nicely for this - in a large font, double spaced. I start with identifying my operative words; words that I will emphasize to help me tell the story. The emphasis people put on words helps them convey a message. "I LOVE you," tells something different than, "I love YOU." The latter would most likely be used in a situation where someone was trying to tell the other person that they loved them more than or instead of another. I mark my operative words with various degrees of underlines, from a dotted line through a double line.

The next thing I do with my score is make any markings about sounds. I'll mark aspiration of t's, k's, and p's, and any other difficult sound, or sound I know I particularly will want to use, or pronunciations. While doing this, I'll also practice tricky words or phrases (like "priests"). I don't make as many markings on scripture as I would on Shakespeare, but it the same idea. I'll also sometimes draw lines on my paper to remind me of the structure of the sentence, particularly for the longer sentences.

Most of the work occurs during the scoring process. While I'm working on this, I'll usually also develop solutions to the "bigger" questions. I find ways of building with emphasis that lessens the repetition. I work on placing the narrator voice more towards my sinuses and Solomon's voice more towards my chest.

And the rest is rehearsal. Running it and running it and running it.

Here's a picture of my score for the first page of the 1 Kings reading. At the top it reminds me to drop my jaw, because while rehearsing I kept... not.


Tomorrow I will do a vocal warmup before church. I do vocal warmups daily, but I'll make sure my warmup specifically prepares me for this reading. I believe in warmups to ground and prepare physically, vocally, and spiritually. My warmup will include lots of touching into sound, rolling up and down the spine, warming up the jaw, tongue, and soft palate, the resonators, tremors (Fitzmaurice-style), and articulation.

So that's what I do. It's very theater school of me. Also, the pause I take before I read? That's the "Oh God please help me" prayer pause.

I will now spend the rest of the night saying the word "priests".