No, not those French guys…the people who can do celebrities voices, like Rich Little. Well, ok, not Rich Little, but maybe Dana Carvey…
We all know that what you hear as your voice isn’t what your voice sounds like to others. So, it stands to reason that if you could imitate someone’s voice so it sounds to you like that person’s voice, it wouldn’t sound that way to others. I can see professionals practicing to get it just right, but what about friends who can do it? There’s a guy at the office who does a perfect Tom Brokaw, among others, and yet I can’t begin to imagine he sits at home fifteen minutes a night and three hours on Saturdays to get his Brokaw perfect.
Not a professional impressionist, but as one who can do accents, I’ve found that it helps to shape the mouth until a certain tone is reached, then hold them in place and continue to speak. Sort of like how you whistle.
Mimicing is not just a matter of getting the tone right, however. With the pros like Frank Gorshen and Rich Little, it was also a matter of getting right the facial expressions, gestures and catch phrases. Capturing that can rescue a moderately weak voice. Start a Jimmy Stewart with an enlongated “Waaaalllll” and the audience will start to go along with the rest of it.
They listen to the celebrity speaking and practice the handful of speech characteristics that are easily reconigzable. All Rich Little has to do is say “Well…” in that typical Reaganesque voice and the association is instant. Most everything else can be fudged if you nail those few unqiue characteristics. Patience and practice.
It also helps if you have a good ear so that you can tell when it doesn’t sound right and make instant corrections.
It also helps if you’re not afraid of your own voice or the weird sounds it might make. Too many people are timid about their voices.
It is a natural talent to some extent, but it’s definitely about listening.
I have a blind friend who is a wonderful mimic. Whenever she recounts a conversation, she does all of the voices. I’ve always thought it was very cool, but it wasn’t until I opened this thread that I realized that she probably has a distinct advantage – she knows people almost exclusively by their voices, so she is aware of all of the nuances.
this is true, at least for me and a lot of others. that is why the key is listening to yourself do an impression ** on top of** a recording of the person you are trying to mimic. if you hear them together, you can close the gaps and perfect the sound.
Lots of people can do Sean Connery - they put on a scottish burr, and then slur it with a lisp and a husky charm. Sounds pretty good.
But I managed to listen to other people’s attempts, steal their hard work, and then evolve it until it matches Sean Connery’s voice pretty much exactly. I’m very proud of my Connery, it is, frankly, the best I’ve heard short of the man himself.
Even though you can’t hear exactly what others hear, if you get it 90% right, that’s better than those who can’t do it or only get 40% right. And as pesch said, fill in the gaps with the right facial expressions, gestures, or a convincing piece of make-up, and you’re home.
As someone who does a pretty good Marlon Brando, Hank Hill, Marvin the Martian, and a few others, I have to say most of it comes naturally. I hear a voice and try to manipulate my vocal apparatus so that it approximates the sound I hear. Sometimes I simply can’t. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart I can’t do. Not surprisingly, these men had similar voices, with a raspy nasal quality that I can’t reproduce.
As for it sounding different to me as the producer than it sounds to another listener, I think the close approximation to a voice not my own is enough to bridge any gaps. Thus, other people say, “You sound just like him!”
One of my favorite things to do in my spare time is practicing doing impressions. The most important thing to do is to sit down and really listen to their speech patterns. Practice the most obvious characteristics of the person’s voice. For example, Elmer Fudd’s raspy voice and lisp, or Walter Brennan’s variations between high and low, and loud and soft. Then practice the impression reciting something they’ve actually said. Really good impressionists can do the voice of the person saying things that person never said. Some people have speech patterns so distinctive that you can mimic those without getting the voice perfectly. Bob Dole is an example. Think of Norm McDonald’s imitation of him from SNL. He didn’t really sound like Bob Dole in his voice, but he was able to imitate his speech patterns and things he was known for saying that it came out OK. I can do lots of different voices. It helps if you really like the person or character you’re imitating. I can do all four guys on King of the Hill, Homer Simpson (my friends say I’m so good at that one I could take over for the real guy), Otto the busdriver, Grampa (that’s one of the ones where if you do the voice reasonably well, you can get by on speech patterns), Troy McClure from the Simpsons, Tom Brokaw, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Walter Brennan, Leslie Nielson, Beavis & Butthead, and a whole bunch of others. It comes in handy when you run out of conversation sometimes.
The impressionists that are REALLY good (Jim Carrey, Rich Little, etc) practiced for hundreds of hours. Carrey tells stories of standing in front of mirrors for hour after hour, day after day, working on the tiniest facial gestures. They record themeselves on tape and play it back, spot their problems, practice, tape it again, etc.
The other little ‘trick’ is that you only do people that have voices you can naturally match. If you don’t have a deep voice, you can’t impersonate James Earl Jones. So pick celebrities whos range and tone closely match yours to start with, then learn to tune your voice through endless amounts of practice.
Too many people are timid about their voices.