I’ll give you all a project you should try in a separate thread:
Learn how to use your diaphragm, the way stage actors must do to survive hours of belting their lines out on stage. (I only know how to do it, not how to teach it. But someone here should be able to tell you how to do it. It’s easy and you should be able to use the technique in a matter of minutes. Honest. Once you’ve got it…
Read a passage in your regular voice.
Pause, and then read the same passage in your newfound (more resonant) voice.
I forget…when I kill a thread, do I just need to carve a notch onto my keyboard, or do I have to actually plant my foot on the server, thump my chest, and howl into the night to scare off my rivals? :smack:
Well, you offered this clip, presumably to showcase your voice. Perhaps there were a couple of things not so hotsy totsy about it, so people chose not to comment.
First, the subject matter is somewhat gruesome - which, I must admit, isn’t always a minus here at SDMB. It didn’t bother me.
Second, you “swallow” some of your words, making them very hard to understand. You have no problem understanding all your words, and maybe the audience got them all, too. But in the recording things get lost. It could be my sound system, but I had to work to understand some of your stuff.
Third, you talk - like all of us with untrained voices - from the top of your throat, so your voice is a bit higher than it could be, lacking in energy, and maybe a little nasally, as well.
The main problem is you don’t use your diaphragm. You could also work on your diction, too. Learn these and you’ll be a damn fine speaker. You have a pleasant voice and (I think) a sense of presence.
Want a role model? Listen to Jose Ferrer. (I may have misspelled his last name but he was the guy who played Cyrano de Bergerac in the eponymous film, and the defense lawyer in the Caine Mutiny.) According to his story, his weakest attribute (for acting) when he was starting out, was a terrible voice. He got a voice trainer, and the rest is history.
By now you’re probably seething with anger, but I won’t apologize. It’s like that old TV program: You asked for it.
Sure, I’d like to hear your voice, but I was wondering if you have it anywhere besides real.com. I refuse to have anything to do with that site or their spam-filled service. Nothing against you, of course.
I’m still unpacking my house, but I mean to eventually record myself reading something short. Until then, you’ll have to make do with crappy recordings of me singing with my old band.
More likely people just didn’t know what to say. A lot of folks have posted voice clips in this thread – including some professional v/o people – and not all of them have gotten comments.
FWIW, I don’t think Ranchoth had a problem with “swallowing” any of his words; I think the problem was the quality of the recording. I had the volume turned all the way up and could barely hear it. What I could hear, though, sounded fine to me. But maybe you have a more sensitive system/more sensitive ears.
Or, he could just do what Otanx said in post #13 in this thread, after Mangetout voiced the same objection.
Somewhat gruesome? I take offense to that, sir! That was entirely gruesome—gruesome and callous!
And I wouldn’t say I was posting the clip just to showcase the ol’ Vox, but I do thank you for the input. (Though I thought a kind of nebbishy persona worked best for that speech—it went well with the lab coat, tie, glasses, etc. A mild, harmless, professional feel for a creepy, mad scientist-y subject. )
A good, booming voice would have worked well for the vampire-killing speech, though. Hmm…
Hell, I’m just glad someone here was interested enough to point out my flaws! Hurrah!
OK, here’s one of me, with video; but it’s got a bunch of caveats:
First: I don’t talk in this overdramatic way. This video was made as a parody, for an informal short-film exhibition.
Second: I know that most of what I’m saying is gibberish French. We wrote this in English, then used www.freetranslation.com to put it into French, and I recorded that.
Third: Sorry the subtitles are hard to read; that’s a shortcoming of YouTube.
I do most of the poetry reading for a poetry podcast. The above is one of mine, but I mostly read other people’s poetry. (And I butchered “splintered” but haven’t fixed it yet.)
Thanks, Lissla! I’m glad you liked it. Leacock is a favourite of mine too, as you can probably tell.
You may be interested to know that I’m currrently trying to record his Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town and hope to have it done by Christmas. Whenever I do get it finished, by Christmas or not, it will be on the Web. Watch for it!
)