Build a more present, charismatic, flexible, responsive and resilient physical instrument.
What is mVm?
The mVm Miller Voice Method® (mVm) is an academically-recognized communication technique for actors and public speakers at elite Universities throughout the world.
mVm has been taught at universities around the world, including NYU Tisch graduate and undergraduate acting, Juilliard, the Yale MFA acting, Southern Methodist University, UNC-Chapel Hill (Drama and Public Policy), Brooklyn College, TEAK in Finland, and many others.
mVm focuses on breath as the basis of active presence and vocal musicality, strength, health, and flexibility. Integration with a speaker’s or actor’s performance requirements is an essential component to the work, so it can include scene work, on-camera work, media training or mock scenarios, etc. in its advanced exercises.
mVm is a training system grounded in compassion, transparency, frankness and curiosity. Our training program teaches people tangible and repeatable skills to embody these core values with breath and expression. We desire a world where people of all walks of life can use mVm’s tools in private and professional relationships to increase their patience, compassion, effective listening, and conflict management.
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mVm has been refined through decades of field and scientific research at world renowned institutions including NYU Tisch’s Graduate Acting Program, UNC’s Department of Peace, War & Defense/Public Policy, NYU Langone’s Voice Center, UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, NYU’s Department of Psychology & Neural Science, Native American communities, the Institute of Core Energetics, the Miller Voice Method Studio and countless years of guidance and generosity with genius collaborators around the world.
mVm has been taught at universities around the world, including NYU Tisch graduate and undergraduate acting, Juilliard, the Yale MFA acting, Southern Methodist University, UNC-Chapel Hill (Drama and Public Policy), Brooklyn College, and TEAK in Finland.
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Applying principles from professional sports training and the latest neuroscience on memory, mVm uses physical exercises to train your body and mind to stay in the present moment.
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By investigating one’s breath and voice habits, mVm exercises develop habits that balance on the razor edge of minimal effort for maximum efficiency.
By helping each individual speaker release their full melodic range and vocal dexterity, mVm enables practitioners to share their perspective and help their audience see them more fully.
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One of the mVm hallmarks is practicing the work under duress and with distractions. Just like in sports, you can’t build voice and breath habits in calm studio conditions. For lasting benefit, you’ve got to practice your new skills with other stressors pulling your attention.
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mVm is a community of people who hold each other to task to be present to the moment in front of them.
A core value of mVm is evolution: evolution of the method, evolution of ourselves, and evolution of the species. mVm believes that each individual has a unique perspective and way of seeing the work and the world that can benefit the whole.
By providing tools to enable each individual to transparently share their perspective, mVm invites that individual to share their perspective on the methodology itself—refining, challenging, and even rejecting aspects of the methodology. This active participation in the continued evolution of the method can seem incredibly intimidating and scary, but the more we do it with each other, and the more voices that are invited in, and the more we can take ourselves less preciously, the more these tools can benefit humanity.
Who practices mVm?
Actors & Performers
mVm was first developed through decades of training American celebrity theater, film, and TV actors at the NYU Tisch School Graduate Acting and Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.
Politicians & Public Speakers
mVm has been practiced by thought leaders, lawyers, sales people, and journalists. mVm has been taught at the UNC-Chapel Hill Public Policy development.
In 2018, Scott Miller coached 13 U.S. Congressional candidates running in districts held by the opposing party. 12 of the 13 candidates won.
Humans of all kinds
mVm tools help develop confidence, clear communication, transparency, good listening skills, and an inclusive mindset that has been used by humans in many walks of life—managers, parents, therapists, children, athletes, and many more have used the mVm tools to benefit their relationships.
Relevant Academic Papers
What we mean when we say…
If you’re new to mVm, use the definitions below as a glossary.
If you are an mVm regular, consider developing a practice of re-connecting with the core of these words and why they might be important to you. Words that are used often within a technique can start to lose meaning or context.
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A cyclical breath cycle that includes only inhale or exhale, without any holding of breath.
This is the core technique of mVm. We’ve found through classroom experience that the Active Breath encourages our teachers, students, and clients to stay out in the middle of the room, interacting with all the information, and maintaining buoyancy. We have found that it allows us to stay present with the most potent and relevant information. We’ve found that it enables us to stay curious and engaged, improving our ability to pivot and adjust as new information comes our way.
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A phrase we use for when a speaker focuses their attention internally (often on a thought). This is usually accompanied by a hold or constriction of breath. At this time the experience of the speaker is often hidden from the listener(s) rather than shared forward.
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Anything that competes for your attention other than the task at hand.
In the work we acknowledge how the realities of duress can interfere with one's ability to work efficiently and effectively. For purposes of our work we define "duress" as anything that competes for one's attention other than the desired task at hand.
Much of our work focuses on developing habits that keep us out of the inefficiencies that occur when we are under greater and greater amounts of duress.
That lozenge being unwrapped slowly in the theater? Duress!
Your internet connection freezing the Zoom square? Duress!
Forgetting what you were about to say? Duress!
Having to Swing AND maintain an Active Breath? Duress!
500 people looking at you? Duress!
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mVm was born out of a deep desire to bridge gaps between technique and application.
Can you find ease and resonance in the rehearsal room, or in front of the bathroom mirror as you prepare for a big meeting?
Does that ease and resonance disappear when it's go time or time to perform?
Integration is where we work on bridging the gap between technique and application. It is connecting the thing that you can do in the safety of the classroom or coaching session into the event itself.
Like elite sports training, mVm exercises are designed to build in complexity and distraction so that the essential habits remain even when the stress of the actual experience distracts you.
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We call our mVm classrooms “laboratories” to underscore that each mVm exercise is an opportunity to discover something new. Each mVm practice is a series of attempts, and by approaching these attempts with curiosity, one may continue to deepen one’s experience in the work. “Mastery” is not a static destination at all, but a byproduct of continuing to show up in the lab and stay present to the moment.
At mVm, we value the rigor of searching, learning and staying curious above the preciousness of holding onto what came before. If something has become ineffective or irrelevant to the needs of the 21st Century communicator, we will discard it. This way, mVm is able to evolve with the needs of the day and with new information and science.
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The range of your vocal instrument, including tempo (rhythm/pace) and melody (pitch journey).
This is the main tool we use to verbally convey point of view and the most complex form of communication.
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Distraction, duress, the stress of performance.
Like lifting weights in a gym, we can add payload to bridge the gap between the coaching/classroom/rehearsal space and the event/performance/speech itself.
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The angle from which you view present information and the lens through which you perceive that present information.
We can also call this your unique perspective.
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“Voice,” of course, refers to the literal voice that can be controlled and trained like a specialized muscle. But Voice also refers broadly to the unique character, personality, and deeper presence that can be conveyed in human communication, sometimes explicitly, but more often implicitly. At mVm, we train the physical instrument that helps your whole voice be conveyed.