Double Dutch

The Holidays are a great time to meet new people and catch up with folks you only see once or twice a year.

This season I noticed a new trend. I’d be quietly munching on a Christmas cookie, and a relative of a friend of a friend would come up to me with a glass of eggnog in his hand.

“I hear you do voices, right?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m a voice-over, if that’s what you mean.”

“You do books for the blind?” he wanted to know.

“No, not really. I….”

And before I could finish he continued:

“Because everyone’s been telling me that I have a great voice and I should be doing what you’re doing if you know what I mean. No offense, but it can’t be that hard. I bet you make some pretty good money. I said to the wife: “I talk all day long. I might as well get paid for it.”

“I wish someone would pay him to shut up for a moment,” said the wife, who had been listening to the conversation.

No matter where I went in these past few weeks, I’d always run into guys with eggnog, ready to show off their Sean Connery impersonation or some version of a “movie trailer man voice”.

All of them had three things in common:

1. They knew as much about a voice-over career as a rodent would know about the art collection at the MoMA.
2. What they did know was based on misinformation and unrealistic expectations.
3. They all wanted me to tell them how to “break into the business,” preferably in two minutes or less.

In order to make my Holiday experience a bit more enjoyable and less repetitive, I thought I’d prepare a short slide show debunking some common misconceptions about what I do for a living.

Instead of having to listen to grown-ups single-handedly reenacting entire SpongeBob episodes, I now hand them a link to my YouTube-presentation:

Have an inspirational New Year!

Paul Strikwerda © 2010
www.nethervoice.com

PS Be sweet: please retweet!

PPS Next up: Ted Williams: The Revelation behind the Internet Sensation

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Do you get hoarse after a long recording session? Does your throat hurt? Have you ever lost your voice?

Voice-over coaches often advise their students to take acting classes. That’s an excellent suggestion, but I can’t tell you how much I have benefited from singing lessons.

VOCAL WORKOUT
Just as every sportsman (or woman) has to train each day to keep those muscles strong and flexible, we as voice-over artists are vocal athletes. We have to do everything we can to keep our voice in great shape. For me, singing is the preferred exercise routine that gets me ready for that marathon recording session.

SACRED SOUNDS
For many years I was a member of a choir specializing in the ancient art of plainchant. Gregorian chant is just about the oldest western classical music known to mankind. The fragile, meandering unison melodic lines of certain songs can seem deceptively simplistic. Most of the vocal techniques I use today date back from my time as a member of this choir. We sounded like this:

This is what we sounded like…

Here are just a few things I learned from being in a choir:

* effective warm-ups

* the right posture

* voice projection

* diction

* word coloring

* supportive breathing

* text interpretation

* taking directions

ADDED BONUS
In our profession it’s so easy to become a recording recluse. In the old days, we had to go to a studio to do our work. We’d actually see the people we were working with and really connect. Nowadays, we’re often home alone, locked up in a dark whisper room, glued to our computer screens and we text, twitter and blog till we’re blue in the face. Rumor has it that some of us have even started “talking to the hand”. In this case that hand looks very much like a microphone…

Here’s a suggestion: get out there and join a choir! It’s not only a fun-filled feast for your vocal chords; it’s the perfect excuse to get out of the house. You’ll meet lots of interesting people and you’ll even get a chance to perform in front of an audience. Most of us rarely get a chance to observe how people respond to the fruits of our labor. I’m telling you, it’s a thrill to see audience members magically moved by marvelous music. And it’s an amazing experience to fill a void with the sound of many voices blending together in (hopefully) perfect harmony.

RESOURCES
The National Center for Voice & Speech has a terrific site called “Voice Academy”. Although it’s mainly geared toward teachers, many of the tips apply to voice-over talents as well.

If you love to twist your tongue, I have the ultimate site for you. It has 2790 entries in 109 languages.

And for those of you who are already a member of a vocal group of some sorts, I hope you’ll forgive me that I’ve been preaching to the choir…

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

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