If you're looking for training techniques for voice overs, a simple internet search will pull up all kinds of topics from how to deepen your voice, how to raise the pitch of your voice, how to increase your stamina, or how to change the character of your voice completely. If you are new to voice acting and you are looking for some tips, be careful about which pearls of wisdom you opt to follow!
Following the pros and taking their advice to heart is a valuable practice, but don't make the mistake of following some bad advice in order to further your voice over career! There is definitely a lot of bad advice out there that will actually prevent you from ever becoming a success in the industry.
This is by new means a complete list, but it's a good start!
1. Regularly drink and smoke. You might think this is common sense already, but many DJs were (and still are) told to drink alcohol and smoke on the job to help give their voices more resonance. While regular smoking and drinking will help them gain resonance, it comes at the cost of their range of pitch. What many people don't know is that this is a natural process that comes with age. Smoking and drink will speed up this process so that you lose your "youthful" voice when you're young so that you have a richer "mature" voice. When you actually become old though, you might not have much of a voice at all!
2. Take the edge off with a shot. Leading up to a live recording session, you should only be drinking water for the health of your vocal cords and to prevent pops and smacks in your mouth. If you are doing a live recording session, it is normal to get nervous if you are working in front of the client. It is not advised to take a shot of alcohol before you go into a recording session though! While alcohol helps some people relax enough to get a couple good takes, you don't ever want to risk your professional relationship with your clients. A client may not say something at the time, but they may decide to call a different voice talent in the future if they even think you have been drinking. Instead, try exercise to help calm your nerves.
3. Vocal cord surgery. This one baffles me. There must have been successful operations in the past, otherwise no one would even think about it ... The bottom line is vocal cord surgery is likely to be expensive, and there is no guarantee what your voice will sound like post-op. If you are unhappy with the quality of your voice and want to work in a different niche, consider taking voice over training classes to enhance your technique. Especially because more and more clients are opting for voice actors with good natural speaking voices to market their products, there's simply no reason to mess with what you were born with.
4. Stress your voice to the breaking point. Regularly testing the limits of your voice by speaking in a very high or very low range will not give you the skills to talk naturally in a very high or very low range! Pushing the limits of your vocal range will only break your voice. In the short run, your will hurt your throat. In the long run, however, you could do permanent damage to your voice so that you're not able to speak will in your own natural range.
Basically, if a suggested technique is painful or bad for your body, it probably isn't doing you any good anyway. Stick to your common sense, and don't listen to everything you hear. What works for one voice actor might not work for you, but one thing is for sure -- drinking vodka tonics or whiskey won't help you rake in the voice jobs! There is no quick fix when it comes to your vocal technique, and there's no substitute for hard work.
Following the pros and taking their advice to heart is a valuable practice, but don't make the mistake of following some bad advice in order to further your voice over career! There is definitely a lot of bad advice out there that will actually prevent you from ever becoming a success in the industry.
This is by new means a complete list, but it's a good start!
1. Regularly drink and smoke. You might think this is common sense already, but many DJs were (and still are) told to drink alcohol and smoke on the job to help give their voices more resonance. While regular smoking and drinking will help them gain resonance, it comes at the cost of their range of pitch. What many people don't know is that this is a natural process that comes with age. Smoking and drink will speed up this process so that you lose your "youthful" voice when you're young so that you have a richer "mature" voice. When you actually become old though, you might not have much of a voice at all!
2. Take the edge off with a shot. Leading up to a live recording session, you should only be drinking water for the health of your vocal cords and to prevent pops and smacks in your mouth. If you are doing a live recording session, it is normal to get nervous if you are working in front of the client. It is not advised to take a shot of alcohol before you go into a recording session though! While alcohol helps some people relax enough to get a couple good takes, you don't ever want to risk your professional relationship with your clients. A client may not say something at the time, but they may decide to call a different voice talent in the future if they even think you have been drinking. Instead, try exercise to help calm your nerves.
3. Vocal cord surgery. This one baffles me. There must have been successful operations in the past, otherwise no one would even think about it ... The bottom line is vocal cord surgery is likely to be expensive, and there is no guarantee what your voice will sound like post-op. If you are unhappy with the quality of your voice and want to work in a different niche, consider taking voice over training classes to enhance your technique. Especially because more and more clients are opting for voice actors with good natural speaking voices to market their products, there's simply no reason to mess with what you were born with.
4. Stress your voice to the breaking point. Regularly testing the limits of your voice by speaking in a very high or very low range will not give you the skills to talk naturally in a very high or very low range! Pushing the limits of your vocal range will only break your voice. In the short run, your will hurt your throat. In the long run, however, you could do permanent damage to your voice so that you're not able to speak will in your own natural range.
Basically, if a suggested technique is painful or bad for your body, it probably isn't doing you any good anyway. Stick to your common sense, and don't listen to everything you hear. What works for one voice actor might not work for you, but one thing is for sure -- drinking vodka tonics or whiskey won't help you rake in the voice jobs! There is no quick fix when it comes to your vocal technique, and there's no substitute for hard work.
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