Unfiltered Thoughts

2022.08.18– 0595 – Why We Sound Different In Our HeadphonesSelf-feedbackYour voice is very personal to you – get used to hearing it, learn to like it – but be aware of what you need to do to improve it. And then practice!
Why do we sound different when we listen to a recording of ourselves?  It’s to do with the way we usually hear ourselves.
When we speak, we hear our own voice two different ways at the same time, one slightly behind the other (out of phase).
Convectively (through the air) – as the sound energy from your mouth, bounces around the room and then in to your ears where it vibrates the ear drum and small ear bones, which in turn transmit the sound vibrations to the cochlea, which stimulates nerve axons that send the auditory signal to the brain.AndConductively - through your bones and muscles of your head, neck and ear – which travels slower and is has much more bass. If you cover your ears and talk, all you hear is this version. So, when you combine both of these sounds, it’s the voice you are used to hearing, what you consider to be how you sound.
But when we play back a recording, we only hear yourselves one way, through our ears, the convective version of your voice, which sounds much more trebly and mid-range. To put it another way people generally think their voice is deeper and richer than it actually is to others.And that’s why you dislike your own voice the first time you hear it back – it’s not like you usually hear yourself or consider how you sound to others. And yet this is the only way everyone else has ever heard you.
This ‘new voice’ exposes a difference between your self-perception and reality and can be jarring because you suddenly realize other people have been hearing something else all along: you are not how you thought you were. It’s not necessarily a worse version, but it’s certainly a different one. A study published in 2005[1] had patients record and then listen back to their voices and rate them. Clinicians also rated the voices. Researchers found that patients tended to more-negatively rate the quality of their recorded voice, compared with the objective assessments of clinicians. So, if you don’t like the sound of your own recorded voice, don’t be too harsh on yourself. Others most likely think it’s fine. It’s all they’ve ever heard you sound like.

It is very difficult to know how you sound without listening to a recording. It is not ego-tripping; it is a sensible and professional monitoring of your performance.
[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2273.2005.01022.x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.17– 0594 – Wrapping Up Presenting Unboxing Videos On screen presenters, whether that is for livestreams, or video conferencing or pre-recorded videos for YouTube or webinars, often find it difficult to talk and do something else at the same time. It sounds odd as we do it all the time in real life, but whether it’s an unboxing of a new product or simply holding and describing a book, fluency often suffers. Be aware of this and plan for the possibility, make some notes and practice. However, remember that you don’t need to talk all of the time: as it’s a visual medium, people can see what you are doing or showing so simultaneous commentary (saying what you can all see), and one that is hesitant and repetitive may be entirely unnecessary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.16– 0593 – How To Practice Ad Libbing Skills Looking lotsReally looking at the world around you. On your walk or commute to work (be careful if you are driving!), take an effort to notice what you pass by. Perhaps take a different route occasionally to force yourself to see what’s different. And then sharpen your awareness and increase your confidence by giving an out-loud running commentary (a bit of a problem on public transport, I grant!) of what you notice.  Not just “a woman putting out the bins, and a siren in the distance” but specifics. Paint word pictures: “a middle-aged woman, I’d put her at about 45, is coming down her garden path with a small brown food-waste bin in her left hand. She’s used her other hand on her right knee to support herself as she bends down and leaves the plastic bin on the grass verge underneath a blossoming apple tree. Some of the blossom blows off the branches in the light breeze and lands on the woman, and as she stands up she brushes it off her shoulder as she makes her way back up her path to her front door. In the distance, the sound of an approaching siren, most likely from the ambulance station that’s based about 2 miles away…” The colours, what’s happening what someone looks like, what they’re doing … and don’t forget the sounds you hear as well as the sights you see. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.15– 0592 – How To Practice Talking To TimePractice Talking To TimeYou will also benefit from being able to ‘talk to time’, that is to fill exactly 10 seconds - or 7 or 12 or whatever - and to make sense and be a complete sentence. This is useful if you ever have to present a programme or bulletin that has a ‘clock end’, as well as knowing how to shave off a second or two (or half!) from a commercial voice-over script. As we saw in episode 427Take some copy which has a required duration indicated on it, and read it aloud like you might in a demo, and with a stopwatch to hand. How many words did you read in 30 seconds? Or how many seconds were you over? Keep practicing until you can sensibly get the copy in the seconds required, several times in a row. Then take another script and repeat the exercise before return to the first script and seeing if the rate and the rhythm are still there. Then go back to the second script. Then take a third one, of a different style and duration and word-count, and try it all again. A further exercise would be to take your 30 second script and elongate it so it when you read it, it lasts 40 seconds, or shorten it to 25: all of these are skills that will come in useful in the recording studio. You are often presented with a script that is just too ‘word-rich’ and yes, every single one is vital. It is up to you to ‘fit the words into the seconds’ in a clear and interesting way. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.14– 0591 – The ‘Two Brains’ Skill You Need To MasterPractice Having Two BrainsA way to practice receiving information and delivering it at the same time is to ‘parrot’ someone else’s news bulletin, or links on the radio. At home (and probably when you are alone!), listen to a station and repeat the script as it is being said. Or repeat ads a split second after the voice-over does so on the TV or radio. You will have to listen, process and repeat all at the same time, like having two brains: a handy skill to have for using talkback. It’s a skill not necessarily for voice-over actors, but essential for radio and TV presenters in a live presentation or commentary situation.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.13– 0590 – How To Practice Sight-ReadingPractice Sight-ReadingAnother way to help you sight-read is to read aloud and ad-lib around the credits at the end of a TV show as they scroll up. Doing this will help your muscle memory of sight-reading: being able to take almost any script and anticipate where it is going to get a good inflection and tone from the get-go. And if you have recorded it, play it back to yourself while looking back at the text. That way you can check your accuracy (it’s easy to misread or skip words) and your tone. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.12– 0589 – How To Practice Script-Reading AccuracyPractice AccuracyKeep up your eye-to-mouth accuracy by reading lots of every style, and out loud. It could be bedtime stories to the kids, newspaper or online articles, billboard ads as you are stuck in a traffic queue… some couples even read novels aloud to each other, taking turns at each chapter. Anything. To yourself, to someone else or even into a recording app on your phone. There are plenty of sites[1] with actual or mocked-up commercial scripts, use them to practice your technique.  Volunteer to read for the local school, or at an old people’s home or for the Wireless For The Blind[2] groups. You’ll be helping other people and sharpening your own skills at sightreading (and maybe character voices) at the same time, if you read new material out loud on a regular basis.
[1] https://www.voices.com/blog/voice-over-sample-scripts/ , https://bunnystudio.com/blog/entertainment-commercial-scripts-for-voice-over-practice/ [2] https://blind.org.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.11– 0588 – The Cheeky Hack To Sound Like Other Voice Artists Listen to Other Voice Demos Go onto voice agent websites and listen to the demos of other voice artists. After all, they have got an agent so must be doing something right! Work out what it is: ·        How are different voice used for different messages and scripts?·        How are they working to communicate the message and the meaning?The more you listen (really listener) and analyse what’s is already being produced, the better you will be at working out what works, what is wanted and why with script styles and voice trends.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.10– 0587 – Life’s Free Voice Training Opportunities
Listening lotsDon’t skip through the commercials on radio or TV, the internet or cinema! Watch and listen to every ad that comes on.[1] ·        Listen mindfully – that is, really listen·        Think:o  What is the service or product being advertised?o  Why is this ad being played at this time, on this station, on this show?o  Who are they targeting and therefore, what style is the ad written in? What is this script really saying and trying to ‘make’ the audience do (is it to buy something, inform them, persuade them…?) What are the key words and phrases? o  What about the voice? Its age, sex, tone, speed and so on? Is the style ‘announcery’ or ‘conversational;? Why? What technique is the voice using to engage and communicate with the audience? (Who is the audience?) How does the voice reflect the pictures and music in the ad?o  Part of this ‘reveal’ will come from the time of day and the style of the station or type of programme the commercial is in. As we said before, who the audience is will ‘inform your read’, that is, will give you a clue as to how to communicate with them o  How are the product, the message, the target audience and the voice, all married together?·        Copy the style a moment after you hear the ad·        Or transcribe the ad and record yourself reading it. You may notice similar products being advertised in a different way, and ask yourself why. Typically, car commercials can vary in their production values, usually reflecting their cost! A quality production for an expensive sedan, a faster, announcer-type read for a run-around. Listen for and identify the variety you come across.
[1] Visit https://www.ispot.tv/ for a database of television commercials on demand.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.08.09– 0586 – 10,000 Kicks To A Better Voice Continual Practice I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once,but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.Bruce Lee You have to be continually ready for your next live or recorded voice session, much like an athlete must always be ‘match fit’. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Practice won’t make you perfect (what is ‘perfection’?), but it will make you better. Only amateurs believe that rehearsal inhibits spontaneity. Professionals respect their audience andrehearse their script and links off-mic so that their performance on-mic will be brief, bright, smooth, natural, and personable.
But as ‘practice makes permanent’, make sure you do it right once you have read and understood the tips here, and maybe got some professional one-to-one advice as well to get skill-acquisition and skill-retention, one at a time. Practice is not just repetition, because doing that may reinforce a bad pattern. It’s like once you have got to your desired weight, or got your 6-pack, you don’t stop … you continue training… So, let’s start with what amounts to free training! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.