Learn Cockney Accent Intonation

I want to talk about Cockney intonation, specifically physicalizing it.

Cockney Dialect Tutorial - Introduction

So Cockney is that working-class London accent, typically supposed to be the East End, although it's basically that more expanded working-class London accent is sometimes given this term. Cockney originally meant simply an urban accent. Then it got more specific over time.

So what I want to do with pretty much every accent, but I think it's crucial with Cockney, is that we want to start by going way over the top with it. So we want to go with like this really strong sort of stereotype of it, because if we start which is something that's a little bit more like the way people talk what I find is that actors start to get really mushy, and they just don't get it. So I want us to start with this like super over-the-top My Fair Lady sort of thing to get it going, and then we can back off. But I want to focus on the intonation.

How to Do Cockney Accent Intonation

There's a couple of elements that are very American like. One of them is how it tends to operate in Stairsteps. American speech is almost like stair steps like this. And I find that Cockney's very much like that same thing, only two leaps up the steps. You might be taking a couple of steps at a time because there's a little bit more willingness to cover a wider range. And again I'm starting with a strong stereotypical version of it, but then we can start to mellow out and make a little bit more realistic, right? But if we go really strong to start with and you do this physicalization of the stair steps, this might be helpful.

Another thing that's an incredibly Americanesque sort of quality to it is this punchy quality, that Americans tend to do a lot of stressing of words, and Cockney does that as well. So thinking about doing a lot of punching in your work. This can be really helpful for working on a Cockney accent. Very much like working on an American accent. You could work on the punchy quality of that, especially if you speak with an accent that's a little bit more legato in its quality. American in general tends to be much more punchy. Same sort of thing with Cockney, and so physicalizing it tends to help a great deal.

Now one little tweak to that and that is sometimes helpful because, probably because of the glottal stops that can exist in it, glottal stops like "little bit of luck." That sort of thing right. The way the T's especially can can turn into a glottal stop in the middle of a word or at the end of a word, something like that.

That that sort of stop and go quality, instead of necessarily punching, sometimes it's helpful to think of almost taking a car and shifting it into reverse. So you're going along like this, and you start to pull back a little bit more. And the more sort of violent that you make that pull back, sometimes the more helpful that is. So there you go. With like pulling away back on that, okay?

One more that I just have to throw out, even though it's such a bizarre thing, but I find it helps people a lot when they're working on Cockney, is to do an arm swing. It's almost like you're holding a beer mug and you're swinging your arm like this. So this sort of arm swing, I do find that suddenly when people do this, they tend to do a little bit better. And it seems to sort of mirror some of these physicalizations that I've been talking, about almost the punchiness, and a little bit of that sort of shifting back, shifting backwards, as well. So that sort of thing that can be really really helpful.

One Key to Learning Any Accent

So again you want to start really really strong with all of these elements, going, like, way over the top with the Cockney, and then you can start to mellow out and make it much more realistic, without ending up, if you just start realistic, you're going to end up being really mumbly. And these qualities usually help people to keep it much more clear and much more easy to communicate on stage. So there you go!

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