Imagine for a moment you’re a musical note with a stutter. What does your dynamic and texture sound like next to the other notes in your song? What kinds of conversations would you have with other musical notes? What would that conversation sound like to a human ear? In the summer of 2024 I began exploring these questions while I began research on my own stutter.
The Stuttering Beginnings
I’ve had a stutter my whole life. As it is lower on the severity spectrum, it has a noticeable affect on my day-to-day speech.
I find it hilarious to look back on my high school years and think there was a time I believed I wouldn’t take to acting easily - not because I wasn’t dramatic, but because I had this thought replaying in my head; “What if I stutter?”
In school, I remember raising my hand at lunch time to tell the Lunch Duty teacher that I wasn't putting on lipstick, that it was llllllllllllllllllllip chap… Not long after that, I was taken out of class once a week to meet with a speech therapist. During our weekly sessions, I never heard the word “stuttering”; I heard the word; bumping. I attended speech therapy for a year until I learned enough to “graduate from speech therapy”!
The truth is I learned techniques; how to slow down my speech, breathe before I speak, elongate the vowels and long consonants and make my hard consonants lighter. However, those techniques didn’t take it away; in fact, subconsciously, it created a space where I was taught to learn how to speak to someone who I knew was keeping track of the flow of my speech. Cut to 18 years later and here I am still stustustustustuttering and - here’s the irony - I’m now making theatre about it! So if there is ever an award ceremony one day about my theatre career, I’ll thank my speech therapist then!
Speaking about a stutter is a double edged sword. You’re bringing awareness to it, but you’ve also created space for folks to really, really listen to you. Add a little sprinkle of neurodiversity and now there’s not only eyes on you, but you feel they might start counting all the times you stutter, creating a tally in their minds.
Within the past year, folks have questioned if I’ve always felt something negative towards my stutter. In my experience, the flow of my speech can feel like a leaf floating down a river, trickling along and feeling the ease of the words flowing out and then BAM! Now there’s a rock in the middle of the river and me, as the leaf, is bumping into the rock, stuck and trying to get out. Those are the moments I'm truly being seen! So how do I cover it up? Well, sometimes I’ll cough and say excuse me, I’ll apologize and say “It’s been a long day”, I might stop and start again, or I might just give up and say “You know what I mean?”
Take It Away
In the summer of 2024, a monologue I wrote gave me an idea; What if a musical note had a stutter? As a pianist, singer, music educator and theatre creator, I constantly say the words pitch, texture, tempo, and rhythm to my students and colleagues. So it got me thinking about the structures of music and speech and the connections between. As I began speaking about this idea, it was starting a bigger conversation about speech, how folks who are neurodiverse feel when they speak in school, work, interviews, as well as speaking around family, friends, etc. The conversations became impactful and I could see there was passion in what they were sharing. In the beginning of 2025 a group of theatre creators and myself gathered together and created Take It Away - a devised theatre piece where voices are the instruments that carry us through our daily lives, exploring what happens when we have conversations with our voices as characters and bring them to life through music and movement.
There are many artistic ways to express yourself. The arts exist in the forms they do so artists can tap into their creative side and express themselves in their art. As a musician, I use songwriting and the exploration of piano instrumentation to express my voice. As research has found, stuttering can be eliminated while you’re singing. In the moment of performance, it can feel amazing to sing, but it also can become confusing to understand why your voice sounds and feels different when you’re singing versus speaking. I chose to only pursue music for a while instead of acting because it was easier, and the truth is I liked the sound of my singing voice better.
The Stutter in Speaking/Singing/Acting
Later in high school I began acting. I quickly learned that when I’m acting, my stutter decreases; it’s not as easy as singing, but it certainly is easier than just speaking. The one thing that stands the test for me is the rehearsal process. Every actor has their own process to prepare for performance; text work, finding their character voices, and memorization. For myself, I have my own process with an added layer of speech preparation. My character won’t stutter, therefore I can’t stutter on stage. The pressure is the same as a job interview or working customer service. You’re constantly feeling that pressure of being watched and listened to as you speak. You’re trying your best to use those speech therapy techniques but sometimes, they simply don’t work.
What I’ve learned so far in my acting and music career is that your voice and body is the most powerful instrument there is because you have control over it. How you choose to sing, play a piano, guitar, drums, etc., you choose the power you put into it. You have control of the intentions and character you create on stage through your voice.
It’s hard to feel safe when stuttering. There aren’t a lot of spaces where comfort exists. Sometimes you have to create that comfort for yourself and others. I strive to make that effort in my work, giving space for people to express their authentic rhythm in their voices. I’ve seen the power they feel on stage and in their creations they can move mountains.
What if you allow your voice to flow and bump along rocks? It knows where it’s going and it’s creating its own path to arrive at its destination.
Hannah Smith is a Music Educator, singer and a multi-disciplinary artist who lives in North York, Ontario. She is a graduate of York University.