I was watching SNL last night, and, as usual, was blown away by Jimmy Fallon’s incredible impressions. So my jealousy brings me to wonder: how does one get so good at that? Is it all in the vocal chords you inherited? Can anybody just practice enough and be good at it? I can see maybe being really good at a couple celebs…but he can do 'em all, it seems! Any tips for becoming a master impersonator?
I think this is one of those “talents”, like being able to sing or act professionally, that your’ve got to have some degree of innate ability for, even prior to practice and development of the skill.
You can probably improve your ability to do impressions with practice but it seems (IMO) that a lot of it is innate.
We’ve all known people that just seem to have the ear and voice tone control to be able to accurately and amusingly imitate people and I can’t really see how any anount of practice is going to “give” you this if you don’t have the
built in ability.
I rememer hearing an impersonator on TV describing the process he used. He got an audio tape of the person he wanted to sound like and on another tape, recorded himself trying to say exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. He would record and play back until he got it just right.
the main thing you have to do is know your voice. If you know how you can change it, whether through accents or vocal cord contortions or whatever, you have already taken the first step.
There’s also an ineffible power at work, the ability to hear timbres and tones in another’s voice. When you combine the self-knowledge and the analysis, you are on your way to becoming an impersonator.
Sometimes it’s good to think about it in terms of algebra. If you only have a voice or two that you can do, mix and match. Just randomly combine the things you can do, to build your range. For instance, my Garrison Keillor is nothing but Bill Clinton + Jimmy Stewart.
Finally, remember one important thing. No one, not even the best impersonators, can do everyone’s voice. A big reason you get blown away by people like Jimmy Fallon (he’s a great impressionist AND a hottie) is because they are only doing their good impressions, leaving the bad ones for drunken nights with their friends.
I think it’s like being good with foreign languages.
If you have a lot of accents around you as a kid, you tend to differentiate them and notice and mimic the fine points.
If you live in a small town and only hear the Wisconsin Cheesehead accent, that’s all you can produce as an adult.
It takes practice, a given, as well as knowing the person you want to immitate.
That’s the one thing that people take for granted. It’s not the ‘outwardness’ of an impression that make is great, it’s the subtleness.
I for instance can imitate, Jim Kirk, Dr. Nick (From the Simpsons), and Sean Connery. (To name a few.)
Doing Sean was took a long time to get. (And I’m still not ‘perfect’ at it.) Everyone knows what he sounds like and those that do imitate him know that he slers his ‘s’, (More of an ‘sh’ sound than ‘s’). But the ‘subtlety’ that most people miss is that he doesn’t do it with EVERY ‘s’. (There is the actual Scottish accent that people forget too. I, myself, am Scottish, so I have that advantage. =)
IE: There are imitations I have heard where people would pronounce the ‘s’ in the word ‘so’ the same way they would ‘show’. But that’s not correct and even though the impression is good, there is that ‘something’ that just doesn’t seem right. (Any one living in Toronto may have heard the ad on Q107…now THAT is a bad impresson.)
The point is, study the person you want to imitate. It may take a long time, but you’ll get it. =)