Category: Vocal technique
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Duck tape, anyone?
Occasionally partial to a bit of DIY, I was in Screwfix last weekend looking for tape to finish fitting up a kitchen extractor fan. I couldn’t remember the name of the tape: ‘Gaffer tape, you know, the stuff the baddies use to tape hostages to plastic chairs in the movies. It’s for the extractor fan…
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Maintaining consistency for Voiceover
Consistency in voice recording is a hugely important aspect. I’m not talking about consistency in accent, pronunciations or character voices – that goes without saying – I’m talking about consistency in sound. The physics of sound is a deep and complicated area and I can’t pretend to even understand half of it. Soundwaves bounce around…
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Achieving a natural sounding voiceover
The world of voiceover has moved on from the cheesy announcer who over-emphasises every other word (although there is still some place for this style!) – today it’s far more common to hear natural voices that sound like real people. But sounding like a person, can be surprisingly hard! Here are a few examples of…
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Breathing for voice work
Many voice over artists spend a lot of time editing out breaths from their work – and indeed some types of jobs may require this. But if you learn to breathe instinctively and quietly, you won’t have those big breathy bumps on your waveform. Natural breaths should blend into your voiceover performance unnoticed – make…
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How singing can improve your voiceover
Singing regularly is a fantastic way to improve your speaking voice and the advantages for voice actors shouldn’t be underestimated! Speaking and singing require good control of the breath, the vocal folds and the muscles of articulation. Exercising your voice doesn’t have to be about set vocal warmups. Singing along to whatever comes on the…
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Surmounting the North-South accent divide
I’ve never considered myself one for accents and impressions. I grew up with a mixed influence – starting life in a small, nicely spoken Buckinghamshire village before spending my most influential years at a somewhat less well-spoken school near Slough, yet still sounding slightly ‘posh’ at university in the Midlands. The majority of my voiceover…
British Female Voiceover Artist 