Please Share Your Aha!!! Moment Here......

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Permalink Reply by Steven Mane on April 30, 2009 at 6:13pm

I was walking alongside the side of the road, with my dog Toto at the side. Suddenly, a tornado came and sent me to the land of Oz, where Dorothy had just left with her dog with the same name as mine. I was surrounded by Munchkins, and their voices were golden. All higher pitched, all cartoon gold. When I tried to copy their voices, I realized my voice was too machismo for higher pitched characters. The Munchkins, enraged at my terrible mimicry, assaulted me with tomatoes, toilet paper, and leftover bricks from the yellow brick road. I ran in fear, leaving Toto behind in this horrible place (although today, I'm sure he's now king of Oz; he was a great dane/pitbull mix).

Suddenly, I woke up, realized that I had been hit by a car, and limped to my house, where I had an audition waiting for me in my inbox. When I read it, I realized they wanted HIGHER PITCHED VOICES for their project. I screamed in terror, knowing I could never give what they wanted, and I abandoned all hope of being a great voice artist. For years, I lived in a cave, with only James Alburger's The Art of Voice Acting to keep me company. Finally, my mother and my agent found me and returned me to my former home. I was fed, cleaned, and clothed. My agent urged me to try an audition involving children's voices. At first, I was reluctant. But then, I swallowed my fear and went for it.

"Aha!", I said. "I can do higher squeaky voices!" But I found out quickly that it came at a terrible price: years of living in a damp, unsanitary cave permanently damaged my vocal cords. My voice sounds like Mickey Mouse, and I am cursed with this timbre and resonance, FOREVER. My "Aha!" moment and the moral of the story? Do not go mad if there is a voice you can not do, for change is not always good.

Heck of a story, but it's better than telling you the truth: I realized I sucked at voicework, was depressed for 15 minutes, then gave myself the benefit of the doubt and realized I'm just as good as anyone else. BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Barry Trussell on April 30, 2009 at 7:30pm

Oh my.

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Permalink Reply by Bettye Zoller on May 2, 2009 at 7:00pm

Hi Barry. Always love reading your posts. About changing the pitch or the colors in a voice: It's very dangerous without the guidance of a degreed voice speech instructor or therapist. This involves changing the length and width of the vocal folds in the voice box. Damage can very easily result. I suggest vocal study and at least take one lesson and let a professional show you some things without hurting yourself.

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Permalink Reply by Barry Trussell on May 3, 2009 at 6:11pm

Thank you Bettye, and I yours. Excellent advise as well.

Barry Trussell

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Permalink Reply by Bettye Zoller on May 2, 2009 at 7:02pm

Take a listen to my series of podcasts on www.voiceoverxtra.com and it's free. I have done eight so far.

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Permalink Reply by S. Michael Leier on May 13, 2009 at 5:56pm

My "aha moment" happen one night in bed... Now that I have your attention, I shall continue... I was doing my vocal exorcises, which in this case included listening to vocals on TV and parroting them for style. It is something I did - and still do which irritates my wife to no end - so that I can practice multiple stylings and deliveries depending on any given circumstance or client preference. Anyhoo, one night while doing this I discovered the back of my throat. I found a spot that when used properly gave me an extremely deep resonounce, and in conjunction with the diaphram I could get some power behind it. In the past I had been tightening my throat for a more severe sounding vocal. By learning to relax the back of the throat and pushing from the diaphram it came out more natural and still gave a strong resonounce. It was like finding a muscle I didn't know I had. I have, over time, been developing that techiques (or muscle if you will) and still work to bring it to full useage.

Anyway, that was my "aha" moment, because it was a sound in my voice I had been looking for and struggled years to find. It may sound weird, but when I finally found it, I rushed to the studio and practiced for hours on old scripts into the wee hours of the morning...LOL

Talk Soon,
mike

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Permalink Reply by Barry Trussell on May 13, 2009 at 6:07pm

SML- Wow that is powerful stuff man! I'm no throat-ologist, but sounds like you are doing it correctly too. It's cool that you recognized the key difference in the strained delivery and the natural relaxed delivery, and that's just kind of the cherry on top of the whole thing. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Barry

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Permalink Reply by Barry Moore on September 14, 2009 at 3:33pm

Smoke a cigarette.

;^)

The "other" Barry

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