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Power of Human Voice – Hi, Ella

June 27, 2011 by George 1 Comment

Ella in ultrasound at 20 weeksHi, Ella.

It’s your daddy. I’m that low rumbly sound you hear talking to you through you mommy’s belly. I try to talk to you every day, so you know what I sound like when you make your big arrival in October. I know, it will be different when my voice comes through air instead of skin and fluid. But I want you to hear me and know me.

Did you know your mommy sings? You found out just how good she is a couple of weeks ago, when she sang “Quando me’n vo’” from La boheme and “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess when her friend Keri was here and played for us. Mommy sings MUCH higher than Daddy does, and wow, she can hold a note for a long time! I sang “I Got Plenty of Nuthin’,” but you probably didn’t hear it quite as well as you did your Mommy.

One of the coolest things you do now is when I talk or sing to you, Mommy tells me that that you pat inside her when you hear and feel the low frequencies. So I know you can hear me…and you probably can feel me. Until you are big enough to see when you move, it’s nice to know that you are responding by Mommy pointing to where she can feel you move. Oh, did you know all your brothers and sisters sing too? Jordan, Grace, Logan, Naomi and Sean all sing in one thing or another. They all love music…big brother Jordan, you almost never see without a headphone in his ear. All the others have been in musicals, choirs, everything…using their voices with music to communicate, entertain, and have fun.

Daddy sings, but he also talks a LOT! People ask him to talk like an announcer, like their best friend, like someone they have never met…like all kinds of things. Just this past week, I had to sound like a guy who needed to go to the hospital, needed to take his wife to the hospital, talk about a sad moment in North Carolina history, and give people options for going to college. I love doing that, and I can’t wait to do the same for you, when I get to read stories about saying good night to the moon, or that Velveteen Rabbit, or any of the hundreds of books you will get to grip and mouth and watch and listen to and eventually read yourself.

Ella, did you know who you are named for? Your name comes from someone people think is the greatest jazz singer of all time, and one of Mommy’s favorite artists, Ella Fitzgerald (we’re still working on a middle name). She was incredible, and she could scat sing better than just about anyone. When you get older, we will show you this video of her scatting to “One Note Samba.”

You know, you will do something like this as you learn to talk, making up syllables that make no sense to anyone but you. And we will love every minute of it. I keep talking about singing and talking. Ella, there is no pressure on you to be a singer. You go ahead and be a teacher, or a scientist, or a basketball player or anything you want to be. We love you so much already. I just wanted to tell you that, Ella.

We love you, and we can’t wait to see and hear you. Looking forward to meeting you in October, baby girl.

Filed Under: Power of Human Voice, Random Thoughts Tagged With: baby, Ella Fitzgerald, family, frequency, music, pregnancy, singing, voice

5 Things Aspiring Voice Actors Do Wrong

March 24, 2011 by George 1 Comment

The four capital mistakes of open sourcephoto © 2011 opensource.com | more info (via: Wylio)When talking with people who want to get into voiceover, I love the initial interest and excitement that comes with it. There is a rush to get through to the cool stuff, the documentaries, the cartoons, the big money, baby! Well, hold on. This isn’t instant hot chocolate: add hot water, stir, POOF! A CAREER!

That desire can lead to some serious mistakes and setbacks that can put your right back where you started. This isn’t to say that you won’t have setbacks; everyone does. But these are things you can avoid.
  1. Making your voice over demo too soon. Yes, you can spend a couple of thousand dollars and make your demo any time you want, thankyouverymuch. You could conceivably have one made by the end of this week. Of course, if you haven’t prepared, you haven’t practiced, you haven’t had some coaching, you haven’t found out what your “money” voice is, you haven’t picked out scripts appropriate to your voice…you are going to waste a few things. Your money, your time, and the time of the studio you engaged to get the demo made in the first place. There is no rush: you have time to get these things done. Take it.
  2. Making your first demo on your own. So rather than waste your money and time at a recording studio, you figure “Hey, I have the programs I need. I’ll just whip up that demo myself, get it out there, and let the jobs roll in!” Erm, no. You already have the burden of getting the script interpretations right. You really want to take on mic placement, editing, background music and sound effect selection, engineering, timing and all that plus more by yourself? Some things you should leave to the professionals. Recording your first demo is definitely one of them. Experienced, professional studios have the skills, the royalty free music and effects libraries, the experience and the overall wherewithal to make you look your absolute best in the recording. Down the road, you may be able to do some of this yourself, with training and experience. But do not, under any circumstances, make your first demo on your own. You will pretty much guarantee it will be listened to for 5 seconds and tossed. If you go to Voice123, Voices.com, or any of the P2P sites, you can find plenty of demos that simply should not be used as a representative of anyone’s abilities. Don’t be one of them. Get it right the first time.
  3. Assuming all you need is an agent for voiceover success. There are hundreds, nay, thousands of people out there who operate as voiceover agents. And for every one of them, there are many more times that amount of voice artists. Your agent can and will get you access to auditions you may not have access to as a layman. But they cannot and will not be your only source of work, unless you have that kind of bolt-from-the-blue “success” reserved for Ted Williams. A note on Ted; he did get a national commercial gig for Kraft. If it went according to rates I am familiar with, he may have made upwards of $2000 for that job. And that’s it. He’s still trying to put his life together, and I wish him all the best. But his kind of success didn’t necessarily result in long term productivity. Your agent can work with you to achieve that, but you need to be willing to invest your own time in looking for contacts and work wherever you are, and just add the agent into your toolbox. Speaking of looking for your own work…
  4. Assuming all you need is Pay-to-Play sites for success. The argument remains the same; multiple sources and multiple paths are the way to go. Many people are successful in finding work through the P2Ps. Some people eschew their use entirely. You have to make that decision yourself. But don’t make that decision that you are going to get your work exclusively from that channel, for the same reasons you shouldn’t assume your agent is going to get it all for you. Here’s a sobering note: on Voice123, if I check for voice artists with the following criteria; commercial, middle age male, English – North American, no union necessary in the United States, I find 1,158 voice artists. Competition for gigs will be challenging. And you may win some. But this isn’t going to be the only way you get work, unless you are planning on eating quite a bit less than you do now. Your success is directly connected to your ability and will to network, engage, help, and listen.
  5. Losing patience with the process. You simply can’t do this if you want success. Today may not be the day you win that regional network gig, or that national spot for McDonalds. Tomorrow might be. But in between, you want to fill the space with phone messages for Joe’s Dry Cleaners or Aunty Em’s Frozen Toast on a Stick Shoppe. There is always the chance you cannot move forward with this career the way you want. From experience, I can tell you the readjustment period can be rough. But folks, these things take time. You have to keep working, keep reaching out to potential clients, keep reaching out to experienced voice over talents for advice. Patience, grasshopper.
You must use the tools and resources available to you to find your way. But don’t expect “the way” to pop up like some Yellow Brick Road. It’s going to take some hacking and slashing to get there. In recent weeks I have seen a few posts from people I respect and have seen great success in the business, pointing out in essence that “the way is hard, nigh impossible. You may not want to go that way.” That’s the challenge you face, folks.
Are you up to it? I hope so. Exercise patience and persistence, mix it with training, talent and skill, and you just might make something of yourself.

Filed Under: Agents, Career Development, Marketing, Sales and Contacts, Networking Tagged With: demos, music, patience, professional, rush, sound effects, studios, the long game

Power of Human Voice – Bobby McFerrin

December 6, 2010 by George 1 Comment

I tend to think that “Don’t Worry Be Happy” was one of the worst things that could have happened to Bobby McFerrin.

I had the album that the ubiquitous song appeared on for a full year before it came out as a heavy rotation single in 1988. By the time it became overpoweringly popular, it was old hat for me and my friends. It made a lot of money, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it.

But what it obscured was McFerrin as one of the most flexible and incredible artists we have seen in this generation.

He is not just a gimmick song singer. He has won 10 Grammy awards, been a guest conductor at the Cleveland, London, Chicago and London Symphonies, and worked with giants of the jazz, classical, and folk music worlds like Chick Corea, Bela Fleck, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor. Because he can so easily flip into his falsetto and use it so quickly and subtly, there is simply no one like him.

This video is a great example of how he works with some of those greats. Ma, Meyer, and O’Connor have done multiple albums together, including one of my favorites, Appalachian Journey. Together, the perform “Hush Little Baby.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GczSTQ2nv94&feature=related]

Filed Under: Music, Power of Human Voice Tagged With: Bobby McFerrin, cello, jazz, music, singing, viola, violin, vocals

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