ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the practices and writings of practice of Cicely Berry, Kristin Linklater, and Patsy Rodenburg. It examines two practices that evidence a significant shift in voice pedagogy, away from the "voice beautiful" approach popular in the 1950s, towards the "natural/free" approach: rejecting the use of rib reserve breathing in favour of "natural" breath and repositioning the use of or discarding the use of an articulation teaching tool called "bone prop." The "blocked" voice is often characterized as one in which habitual tension disrupts the "natural" anatomical and physiological functioning of a voice. The "natural/free" voice is defined, in part, through the comparison of those earlier techniques from the Voice Beautiful era that were deemed "unnatural," or "unreal." In the "natural/free" voice approach, "natural" and "organic" processes are taught in a similar way that "technique" is taught, through sequenced exercises repeated "doggedly" over a length of time.
