Customer Reviews

Make Your Voice Heard: An Actor's Guide to Increased Dramatic Range Through Vocal Training

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This small book, only 141 pages in length, offers a most refreshing, lively and accessible guide to practical voice training written for actors and voice students who strive for honest performances using a voice that responds naturally to their inner selves. Chuck Jones, a remarkable teacher, has pioneered his voice training practices through many years of acting and teaching experience, guiding innumerable voice students and performing arts professionals to integrate fully expressive voices into their work.
Jones' approach to vocal training is unique since he clearly and very convincingly focuses on the relationship between vocal training and acting, thereby supporting American actor training in which actors are encouraged to draw on their own emotional lives and resources. Jones explains that "....voice training does more than solve vocal problems: Voice training allows actors to extend their range, develop power, and create that mysterious quality known as presence....helps put actors in touch with their deepest emotional states and allows them to connect to their roles in a profound way....helps actors to develop the capacity to reveal the full range of their inner lives." (page 23)
In the first half of the book Jones examines fundamental acting issues that relate specifically to the vocal instrument such as, being heard, character choices, and vocal power. In the second half of the book, Jones introduces a very specific, logical sequence of exercises as part of a daily vocal workout that release, stretch, strengthen, increase the expressive range, resonance and flexibility of the vocal anatomy and physical instrument leading to a heightened physical and emotional awareness.
Jones brings the book to a close by defining how to connect the voice to the emotional life, breathing as part of acting, and finally, how to get used to the new sound that results from his vocal training practices; thus Jones addresses practically the full integration of the expressive voice into acting work based on an honest connection that includes the physiological, the physical and the emotional aspects of the actor's instrument eliminating the "mystery" from voice training.
I first met Chuck Jones about 15 years ago when I attended his voice class as a student and his work and who he is as a teacher changed my life and my work as an actress! He took the "mystery" out of voice production for me as an actress and he is my inspiration for becoming the voice teacher I am today.

Make Your Voice Heard is a useful book for actors interested in increasing their vocal power and range. The exercises are simple, concise and easy to follow. And they really work! Actors who use these exercises notice improvement almost immediately. We use this book as the text for the beginning voice classes at the Atlantic Theater.

I can't praise this book highly enough!

I'm a student at a conservatory actor training course in Australia and had struggled with my vocal training for the first year and a half, but after reading the reviews on Amazon I decided to buy this book and it has absolutely changed my acting.

Jones sets out the daily vocal workout (warm-up) in a logical, easy-to-follow way and, more importantly, explains exactly WHY each exercise is important and how it will directly affect the voice. He also has excellent exercises that help with release and the connection of thought to breath and emotion, in a way that is natural and which bypasses the 'head'.

While there are many other books on the market which cover similar ideas (Freeing the Natural Voice, The Right to Speak, Voice & the Actor), Jones' book worked for me because it is so simple and to the point.
I found that this, along with Alexander movement training, completely changed my voice and allowed me to access parts of my vocal range that I had never been able to before, as well as making me a much more open and emotionally connected actor.

If you're serious about your development as an actor and want an accessible and effective approach to voice training, then I'd highly recommend getting your hands on a copy of this book.

A very interesting book!

The Chuck Jones' method is efficient, very effective, and clear. An expressive voice can be developed doing the exercises just 10 minutes a day.

He has coached many actors including Edie Falco, Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Jason Leigh, William Hurt, Stanley Tucci, Jeff Daniels, Wesley Snipes, and Parker Posey.

FORWORD by Caymichael Patten, Director, the Caymichael Patten Studio.

I first met Chuck Jones when I was a young director coaching an actress for an audition for The Actor's Studio. The scene was from "The Country Girl." Her partner was Chuck. Both of them were more experienced than I was, so I was nervous, but I blossomed working with Chuck. He may not have known it, but he was teaching even then. That was when I was first exposed to the way he could put his whole concentration on someone, with open attention, without judgment, listening for the essential. Guess what? My notes to these actors got better, because I could pick out what was germane in what I was trying to say-because that's what Chuck was responding to.

I've seen that kind of attention when he was talking to a new student, who had come to class complaining, "I've never been able to breathe right and act at the same time." Chuck zeroed in on this fellow and said, "What is breathing right? There's no special voice-class breathing or proper acting breathing. One of the ways we know what's happening with people is how they take a breath."

I could see the actor's face soften as it dawned on him that Chuck's work wasn't going to be the typical voice-class hokum, that it emphasized connecting the actor's voice to his or her emotional life. That's what we all recognize as truthfulness.

So I've sent him many students over the years, saying to them, "If you think this work has nothing to do with your acting, you're wrong. Do the exercises, and your acting will get better." And it does. They come away from his work more in touch with themselves, more relaxed, more deeply connected emotionally, more responsive to their core acting selves.

I hope I'm communicating what a terrific teacher he is and what a boon his work is to the actor. If you can't study with him directly, or if you have worked with him and need a reminder, this book is for you.

I'm a director always looking for ways to improve (especially young) actors' voices. This book has good advice (mostly related to relaxing and creating a habit of vocal exercises.) The first 30 pages are just talking about why you should do vocal exercises. Then about 30 pages of the exercises (6 of those pages being the short review and the truncated reminder). Then the last 80 pages are more tales to tell you how important voice training is (along with a couple extra exercises).

I don't argue that Chuck Jones' exercises are bad, or even that an actor necessarily needs more than these (I'm NOT a voice trainer, so don't pretend to comment on his approach), it's just that you need to know you aren't getting 140 pages of detailed and wildly varied vocal exercises or "tricks." I dare say Jones would argue (and I would agree) that you don't need tricks, you need to exercise the basic skills. These are the musician's equivalent of scales - use them as such, and I don't doubt you'll improve your voice. BUT, I can't say that this is "the single best treatment of voice training I've ever read." It may be the truth of the success of simple exercises applied regularly, and I look forward to seeing more people who've put the exercises to the test review the book - that's where the rubber meets the road.

I did not feel there were enough exercises. Instead, there are a handful dubbed "The Daily Workout" which, so it claims, if done daily for months and months, will improve the quality of your voice. The rest of the chapters amount to the message "Relax and don't try to control your voice or use a 'stage voice'."

I wanted to see exercises that dealt with placing emphasis on different parts of speech or demonstrated tricks like voice cracking. Instead it's a bunch of "Ah's and Ooh's".

I must say I have seen an improvement of my voice by way of the exercises, primarily simply by improving air-flow and force. Overall, like I said, I wish there had been more.

As a vocal train. teacher in Mexico, I must say this an enlighting book!

The information on the back cover of the book, especially the quotes, was great. I thought that it would help other readers to be able see it.


During my time as a student of Chuck Jones, I learned more about acting than during any other period of my training. I can't say enough positive things about him as both a teacher and a person.
Edie Falco

Chuck's work is an extraordinary gift. It connects the voice to the imagination and emotion every actor prays for - I am so grateful.
Jessica Hecht

Chuck Jones is a major American voice teacher whose work actively implements careers.
Michael Howard

A life saver. Chuck's exercises have not only greatly improved my breathing and vocal range, but have allowed me more freedom in my work. They have become an indispensable part of my daily ritual.
Carla Gugino

Chuck Jones is the most influential teacher I've ever had. He deepened and strengthened not only my voice but also my acting.
Francie Swift



Chuck Jones is a graduate of Cornell University and has taught voice at S.U.N.Y. Purchase, New York; California Institute of the Arts; Playwrights Horizons, New York University; University of California, Berkeley; Circle In The Square, New York University; Circle Repertory Company; The Working Theater (Kristin Linklater, Joseph Chaikin), Caymichael Patten Studio; and the Michael Howard Studios. He has fifteen years of professional acting credits on and off Broadway, in England at the Royal Court Theatre, South America, and in British and American television. In addition, he has been a vocal coach on many films and Broadway productions. Among the successful actors he has coached or taught are: Edie Falco, Keanu Reeves, William Hurt, Holly Hunter, Carla Gugino, Wesley Snipes, Jessica Hecht, Marisa Tomei, Parker Posie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Steven Weber, Stanley Tucci, Francie Swift, Kathleen Chalfont, Ellen Barkin, and Jeff Daniels.

this book is very good for teaching the actor to use their voice, and make it stronger. i recommend it to everyone who wants to make their voices stronger and more powerfull.