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

Joseph, a voice specialist and creator of Vocal Awareness, describes vocal presentation as the way in which others hear and respond to you. The way you are perceived by others is directly related to your perception of yourself. If you perceive yourself to be outgoing, strong, forceful, and intelligent, your voice reflects these attitudes and perceptions with a certain loudness and assertiveness. By the same token, if you perceive yourself to be weak, helpless, and always making mistakes, your voice reflects your internal beliefs with qualities of softness and insecurity. How you breathe is an important factor in your individual vocal presentation because breath control is directly related to the loudness, tonality, and power behind your voice.
    Your perception is your reality. So, if you want to change how you are perceived by others, you must first change how you perceive yourself—and that requires awareness. In most cases, a problem with vocal presentation is a habit directly related to a lack of vocal awareness—and habits can be changed. Changing a habit requires an extreme technique, discipline, conscious diligence, and constant awareness. A number of vocal presentation problems, and exercises for correcting them, are discussed later in this chapter.
    Many of the exercises in this book will help you discover things about yourself and your voice, of which you might not have been aware. They will also help you improve or change your breathing technique and vocal presentation, and maintain the new qualities you acquire. The lessons you learn about your voice from this and other books will help give you awareness of your voice and will be of tremendous value as you proceed on your voice-acting journey. From this new awareness, you will be able to adapt and modify your vocal presentation to create believable, compelling characters.
    Joni Wilson has written an excellent series of books for improving and maintaining the sound of your voice. The first book of the series, The 3-Dimensional Voice is the much-needed owner’s manual for the human voice and introduces her ideas and techniques. You can learn more about Joni and her books by visiting her web site at www.joniwilsonvoice.com . On Track 2 of the CD, Joni describes 20 facts you should know about your voice (CD/2).
    BREATH CONTROL FOR THE VOICE ACTOR
    The first lesson you must learn before you can begin mastering the skills of voice acting is how to breathe properly. Take a moment to observe yourself breathing. Is your breathing rapid and shallow? Or do you inhale with long, slow, deep breaths? Observe how you breathe when you are under stress or in a hurry, and listen to your voice under these conditions. Does the pitch of your voice rise? When you are comfortable and relaxed, is the pitch of your voice lower and softer? Feel what your body is doing as you breathe. Do your shoulders rise when you take a deep breath? Does your chest expand? Do you feel tension in your shoulders, body, or face? Your observations will give you an idea of how you handle the physical process of breathing that we all take for granted.
    Of course, the lungs are the organ we use for breathing, but in and of themselves, they cannot provide adequate support for the column of air that passes across your vocal cords. Your lungs are really nothing more than a container for air. It is the diaphragm, a muscle situated below the rib cage and lungs, that is the real source of support for proper breathing.
    Allowing your diaphragm to expand when inhaling allows your lungs to expand more completely and fill with a larger quantity of air than if a breath is taken by simply expanding your chest. When you relax your mind and body, and allow a slow, deep, cleansing breath, your diaphragm expands automatically. Contracting your diaphragm, by pulling your lower abdominal muscles up and through your voice as you speak, gives a constant means of support for a column of air across your vocal cords. For a