Accent

OOOH lord am I bad at accents. Like Bad. There are some people who have such a skilled ear that they can talk to someone with an accent and immediately parrot it. That's not me. Not to say I can't learn them. With a lot of practice and a coach  and tapes and private sessions with native speakers, I am actually passable. I did alright learning a Liberian accent a few years ago for a play (photo at left),

and a British (RP) last fall. But in both situations I had only a few scenes. I could break things down line by line. I wasn't living in the accent as much as memorizing tones.
Of course, the next play I'm in is British. And I play the lead. And the accent is outside of London, Upper-Class, contemporary (Estuary). Growing up in a place with a widely known accent (Brooklyn) has given me a huge appreciation for people who can do accents well. Listening to a terrible accent feels like someone taking a cheese grater to your brain. Case in point: The latest Terminator movie. I spent the whole time trying to justify whether the machines had inserted the language chip upside down.
Regardless, people in glass houses cant throw stones so I'll refrain from criticizing. But trying to pick up this accent is like training for a marathon. I find myself doing oral excercises, getting my tounge placed just right pushing my voice forward, making kissy faces. What worries me the most is learning the accent so well that I can be free to make any choice while using it. Just as bad would be to have a perfect accent, but not being able to react or make in the moment choices because I am bound by the parameters of the dialect.
So I have a lot of work ahead of me. And I'm starting now. A great site (for anyone learning any accent) is the International Dialects of English Archive. They have native speakers giving samples in any version of English you could imagine. Wish me luck!

--Sharina Martin

Comments

[Steven]

Best of luck to you! Learning accents isn't easy for me either, so I feel your pain. Just don't give up and make sure you work on it everyday.

[stacey jackson]

Sharina, I can totally relate. I am terrible, horrible, HORRENDOUS at learning accents on the fly. HOWEVER, i do think that people who believe they can pick them up right away are short-changing the process and, ultimately, do the language a disservice. Accents are meant to be studied seriously. You will be wonderful and flawless because you care so much. Good luck!

[Chris Kifun]

Thanks for that website for the International Dialects of English archive, I found it quite useful, but I have noticed the accents are toned down, they are not as strong as I thought they would be, for instance the NY accent, the dude from the Bronx, sounded like a RP New Yorker.
For me I have trouble with keeping the accent, because as a Brit, doing a US accent I seem to go from east coast to west coast, lol.
I think your doing great though, keep up the training, good luck!

[susan]

I love IDEA. I've used them for Irish, British and even a Polish accent. I download the MP3s to my iPod and listen whenever I can (before an audition/show).

On the flip side - I just found out we won't be using British accents for the British show I'm starting next week :( Which seems very odd to me. But... I am not the director...

Good luck with your project. And good for you for being concerned and trying very hard - too many people just shrug things like that off figuring it doesn't matter all that much, when, in fact, it sort of does.