Stop trying to "improve" your voice. Really...

If you try to improve your voice, you're probably going to screw it up. Try this instead.

Sometimes we get a little too obsessed with things that don’t really matter.

Stop trying to "improve" your voice. Really... - 5:40

For new and aspiring talent, I am often asked:

"How do I improve my voice?"

Ooh… that’s an interesting one. Stick around — we’ll talk about it.

Be Careful

First thing I want to say about improving your voice, right, is:

Be careful.

Sometimes we get a little too obsessed with things that don’t really matter.

Men want to be deeper. Women want to sound brighter. Everyone thinks they have to have absolutely perfect diction —(Perfect addtion)—yeah, that one.

It’s a little excessive. And sometimes, what you actually end up doing in trying to improve your voice......is make it worse.

You’ll have experts and coaches tell you:

"Stop it. Stop doing that. Why are you doing that? That sounds so unnatural. That sounds really stiff."

So be careful that the thing you’re wanting to improve is in fact an improvement, and not going to be detrimental to your efforts.

Step One: Record Yourself

If you do have things about your voice that you’re not crazy about, or you think could be improved...

The number one way to achieve this is recording yourself. A lot.

On at least halfway decent equipment, okay? You’ve got to be able to get a mostly clean recording to do the kinds of things I’m about to talk about.

Desensitize Yourself

First thing you’re trying to do is just desensitize yourself to the sound of your voice.

I know that sounds crazy, but until you’re desensitized to hearing yourself,you’re always going to be obsessing over every last little freaking fracking detail that comes out of your mouth.

You’ve got to get to a place where you’re so comfortable hearing yourself that it really doesn’t even faze you anymore.

You just kind of go:

"Oh yeah. Okay. There I am again on mic."

That will take time. By itself, that could be months. That could be a year.

And I’m talking about really consistently recording and playing back — like every single day.

Develop Your Ear

As you start to desensitize, another thing is going to happen:

You’re going to begin to develop your ear in other ways.You’ll begin developing your hearing abilities on the nuances of sound and sound quality.

And that’s where we start getting into the things that are important for improving your voice:

• Avoiding plosives

• Avoiding clicks and pops and mouth noise

• Making sure all your words are understandable

• Keeping your volume relatively consistent

• Ensuring your breathing is appropriate

• Not exhaling on top of words or incorporating your breath into a word
  

Avoid Plosives and More

Those sorts of things — that’s how we improve.We get better at hearing ourselves, and you start to make alterations that are going to benefit the recording itself.

Does that make sense?I hope that makes sense.

It’s More Than Just “Voice”

What I’m really getting at is:

It’s less about your voice, and more about the technical aspects of audio recording and audio engineering.

And the sorts of things that make other people’s lives — i.e., producers' jobs — maddening. We’re here to make their lives easier, right?

You don’t want them doing a ton of:

• Post-production to fix your files

• EQ

• Stacks

• All kinds of manipulation because your audio is riddled with problems

I’ve said this before in other videos:

“It’s like Photoshop… for audio.”

And it’s pretty bad in most cases — we can hear it. So people want to avoid that at all costs. The better you are on mic, and the more aware you are of these sorts of things,the easier time you’ll have avoiding them.

Advanced Control

Then you get into other little things too — like:

• Vocal fry

• Rasp

• Breathiness

And maybe qualities or traits of your voice that you need to be able to manipulate at will — to make less or more, as needed.

And yes — pitch and that sort of thing gets in there too.

Conclusion

So, these are the things that I recommend.

This is how you start to improve the quality of your voice.

Now — if your problem is with things like reading, and being able to read while speaking,that’s a different technique — and that is a different video.

We’ll cover that another time.

As always, guys — if you need me, feel free to reach out.I have loads of different classes that cover these topics in detail,and we can certainly take a look at what’s going on with you,and ways that I can help you improve your voice.!

704-674-8294 / GabrielleNistico.com / gabby@voiceovervixen.com

Gabrielle Nistico, Gabby Nistico, The Voiceover Vixen, The Business First VO Coach, #VoiceoverVixen #VoiceOnFire #BusinessFirstVOCoach Voiceover, Charlotte, North Carolina, Voiceover Demo, Voiceover Coaching Advice, acting technique