Introduction to Accents 6: Prioritizing Learning Accents
What accent should you learn when it's not immediately demanded by a project?
Coach Jim Johnson leads you through a list of which accents and dialects to work on as a part of your personal "Accent University."
Part 1: Accent vs Dialect vs Idiolect
Part 2: Phonetics
Part 3: Placement
Part 4: Intonation
Part 5: Helpful Hints
Part 6: Prioritizing Learning Accents
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What accents should American actors work on?
People oftentimes want to know what accents should I work on? What's the order that I should work on them?
What I would say for American actors, the primary things for them to work on, especially if we're talking about stage actors now, is that they should start with some kind of a General America, being able to do something that is this Neutral American sort of sound.
And then after that, they need to spend a lot of time on Standard British or RP. So that's one that they need to spend a great deal of time on because that's going to help them to also handle the varying levels of General American, because the more that you heighten the General American, the closer that it gets to taking on elements of Standard British. For example, whether you say "not" or whether you say "not." That distinction. "Not not." The slight rounding on it is something that comes from RP or Standard British, so being able to learn from that and have it carry over helps you with that.
That also will bring you towards Transatlantic - which is part of the Generican materials. Transatlantic, in many ways, is sort of like slightly Americanized RP Standard British, and part of that Americanization is the diphthong oh not going to eo, but simply going to oh. And the fact that the R dropping is not quite as extreme. Instead of saying "more" to go to "more." There you start to getting to that land of Transatlantic.
So start with GenAm for American actors, head on to Standard British, and then I would say the next good thing for you to work on is that London working-class accent of Cockney because then you are already getting into working-class, and remember that almost every accent other than GenAm and Standard British is really working class.
So you've got to be able to drop your G's. You've got to be able to casualize your speech in a way that you may not be able to do if you only focus on these two for too terribly long.
So then I suggest you move into Cockney, because one you get these two you've got a lot of elements that you can play with in other accents. Like in the land between these is Estuary. That accent. So once you establish these two, it helps you to be able to take that on.
Then I suggest you come back to the US, and that you take on the New York City accent, especially being able to take on the the Brooklyn stereotype, which is what our New York City download focuses on, the Brooklyn, more low in the jaw. And then eventually being able to play with the Bronx which is higher and flatter, but being able to get that sort of Brooklyn stereotype and be able to do it to varying degrees is very useful.
And then I would suggest that you do something that's like American Southern. And this, again, you need to find variations within this. If you're doing primarily stage work it's not a bad idea for you to go with the non-rhotic one, what we call the soft R. But eventually you also want to be able to handle the hard R, and the big variations that I talked about with regard to the hard R being the more twangy, more mountain sound, versus the more drawl, which tends to be more lowland sound, or the extreme lowland that's a little bit more dated now is that soft R where you end up dropping some of those Rs as well.
And then once you get a handle on those I would suggest that you actually take on Northern Irish. Part of why I encourage that is that there's a huge challenge in the intonation of this, being able to do that Northern Irish lift, and being able to take that on with the extreme sound changes there.
What you have to learn to be able to get this accent, it's gonna help you with a lot of other accents that you want to work on down the line. I find this one a challenging one for people, so this is where the challenge really steps up.
I think Cockney is more of a challenge than RP, for example, for most American actors.
Then if you can I suggest you get into sort of that Western Irish, and that's sort of a good follow up in the same way if you kind of branch off and do a little Estuary, that Western Irish is a really good one to be able to devote to, because it's a good Irish sound that's not very heavy, that's going to be perhaps the most understandable and yet distinctly Irish sound for American audiences to be able to get.
And then I would suggest that your next progression be about getting some accents.
Foreign Language Accents
The one that I tend to try to head into next is French. Now French has a ton in common with German, so I think that taking on one or the other can be useful.
I find the French very useful, finding that French intonation, the the sense of the lift at the end of things, being able to extend a little bit there that will help. And then the German is a lot of the same sound changes, only start with the more northern or the lowland German, where you get more of this sort of, where it's broken up, and it can feel more staccato. And then you eventually you find more the flow of it which happens is more the high German or the highlands german and starts to become Austrian that sort of sound. So that's what I would suggest that you do next is French.
And then after that, Italian and that, I think, is a little bit of, if you needed to stop there that's great but I like to go into Italian if I can getting into that Italiano, that sort of intonation pattern where they're having to really deal with the repeating the intonation pattern of this sort of cycling.
And one of the challenges with that is that often times it wants to go into Russian or Slavic, oddly enough, because it seems like it's incredibly different but there's a lot in common between there. So it starts to become sort of in that land in between a little Transylvanian sometimes in working on the Italian becomes a Transylvania, and suddenly you're Dracula. So pulling it towards the Italian, and then being able to dabble a little bit in Russian, I think, is useful.
Accents for Film Actors
The other thing that I would say that you could do, if you are a film person, the number one thing would be GenAm, and then I would say branch off into these other two that I'm going to mention, which I would suggest be what you do somewhere in here if you're focused on more theater work.
And that is first of all, what do you look like? What is your type? So you need to be able to take on looking like, you know, are you do you have a lighter hair color a lighter complexion? Do you have a darker complexion, a darker hair color?
You need to be able to pull off African American vernacular if you are black. You need to be able to pull off variations on Spanish-based accents if you are Latino. So you need to be able to go a little bit towards what do you look like, especially for film work.
And then the other thing that I would say, interestingly enough, is what is your market? If you're outside of LA, what is your film market? Because a lot of times if they're coming to Atlanta to shoot it's very possible that they are looking for a more Southern sound. If they're coming to Louisiana to shoot, if they're coming to Texas to shoot, they probably ,very possibly, in many films, they want that Texas sound from the people that they're casting locally, especially when you're looking at larger feature films they're gonna look for the small one liners and two liners from the locals who can be the true Texans in the midst of it. S
o that's what I would suggest, that you create a sort of, your accent university. There you go. If you need more info, check out AccentHelp.com.