Free The Art of Voice Acting: the art and business of performing for voice over by James Alburger Page A

horn, tuba
String: violin, viola, cello, upright bass, guitar, piano
Wind: flute, piccolo, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, saxophone
Percussion: xylophone, tympani, drums, cymbals, bells
    Voice actors are no different than the instruments in an orchestra. As you study this craft you’ll begin to discover things about your instrument. Do you have a smooth, mellow, clear tone like a trumpet? Do you have a voice that is high pitched, or as a friend of ours says: “baritone challenged,” like a piccolo? Or perhaps you will discover that your voice is deep and resonant with limited range, like a bassoon.
    Your determination of the tonality and texture of your voice is a very important discovery because it will ultimately guide you through your study of this craft. If you have a voice with deep “golden tones” you’ll find it a challenge to perform a script written for a high pitched, fast-talking character voice. By the same token, if your vocal tone resides in the midrange, you may find it difficult to work at either extreme without sounding artificial and unreal. All music uses the same written notes, just like all voiceover copy uses the same words. Although you might hear a tuba solo, you’ll never hear a tuba trying to sound like a flute.
    There is still one instrument I haven’t mentioned yet, and you may discover that this is where you fit in the voiceover orchestra. That instrument is the digital MIDI keyboard. Press a button on this keyboard and you have a string section. Press a different button and you’re playing a piano. Press yet another button and it’s now a trumpet. The possibilities are endless.
    Many voice actors specialize in mastering the skills for performing within the primary range and tone of their voice. They become the best violin, trumpet, or bassoon they can be, with an ability to convey the subtlest nuance through their performance.
    Most voice actors who work in animation or video games fall in the digital keyboard category. Through their years of study, they have mastered the ability to create a wide range of very real and believable voices on demand.
    What instrument do you play? Are you a highly proficient first violinist capable of playing complex melodies at ease? Or are you a third trombone, able to get all the notes right, but still learning how to master the nuance of your instrument? Maybe, just maybe, you’re a digital keyboard with the ability to create radically diverse voices with different tonalities and textures, all of which sound completely authentic. The only way you’ll know is to discover your unique talent, study performing techniques, and experiment to learn what works best for you.
    The beauty of both music and voiceover is that the performance is not dependent on what’s on the paper. The performance is the end result of how the performer plays their instrument.
    All about Breathing
    Your voice is a wind instrument. To do any voiceover work that reveals subtlety and nuance through a performance, it is essential that you know how to play your instrument properly. In other words, you need to know how to breathe. Proper breathing provides support for your voice and allows for emotional expression. It allows you to speak softly or with power, and to switch between the two styles instantly. Proper breathing is what makes possible the subtleties of communicating a broad range of information and emotion through the spoken word.
    Breathing comes naturally, and it is something you should not be thinking about while performing. From the moment we are born, we are breathing. However, during our formative years, many of us were either taught to breathe incorrectly, or experienced something in our environment that left us with an improper breathing pattern. It may be that we learned to breathe from our chest, using only our lungs. Or perhaps, we adapted to our insecurities and created a mental block that inhibits our ability to breathe properly.
    YOUR VOCAL PRESENTATION
    Arthur