Important Techniques of a Great Voiceover Artist

Ive always been captivated by the radio. Its not the music that draws me in, but rather I am oddly fascinated by the voiceover talent! I dont know if its because you cant see them, and there is an element of mystery about the talent behind the voice.

I guess it was because of this fascination and curiosity, that I decided to use my writing skills to get a job in the advertising industry. My lucky break was for an audio production agency who specialised in recording, cutting and mixing professional voice recordings and royalty free music for multimedia productions and corporate videos.

I was employed as the copywriting for this audio production company, but when management saw how interested I was about learning to become a voice artist, they soon put me into training. And let me tell you, I really, really, really sucked! Lending your voice to this craft is not as easy as they would have you believe. Standing in a booth, with head phones on, a large microphone in front of you, script in hand and someone listening and scrutinising your every word is really kind of nerve wracking. After many, many months of practice I did eventually improve, but let me tell you - it really does take a special person to pull off the professional voices you hear on radio, TV, on hold messages or even your corporate videos.

As part of my training, I listened to many professional voiceover artists and asked them for advice, and to be honest, they all had their own techniques on how to improve your voice and speech, but the two tips that were a constant from all the voice talent, was:

1. Breathing, and
2. Posture

Breathing
Just like our finger prints, every single one of us has our very own, individual voice. We might sound like our mother or our sister, but nonetheless, our voice is our own and there will always be variances.

Every sound we utter comes from our breath, and our breathing increases our capacity and control. This is extremely important to a voiceover artist, as this ability to increase capacity and control will determine how loud you can be and for how long. Obviously, the louder your voice, the less time you can keep it up - but if you can master your breathing the louder youll be for longer. A good voice artist has their breathing technique down pat.

There are three types of breathing:

Chest Breathing
Most beginners breath from here - breath - lungs - breath

Diaphragm Breathing
This is expanding the chest just below the frontal ribs. It does give you a better sound than chest breathing, but it is not as effectual as ...

Abdominal Breathing
For this you expand the abdominal area. Pressure is exerted against the lower back muscles and abdominal organs. Tuck the pelvis in. This makes the abdominal muscles nice and firm.

Abdominal breathing is by far the best method, and your posture can dramatically help you control
your abdomen.

Steps to achieve good posture
Hold your head up straight and tuck your bottom in.
Stand tall. Your rib cage should feel expanded
Your body weight should be slightly forward on the balls of your feet.
You should feel a stretch between your shoulder blades and navel.
Do not spread your feet apart.
Your back should be flat.
You should feel comfortable and not forced.

Seriously, once I started to really focus on my breathing techniques and posture, the more
professional my voice recordings sounded. I practice my technique every day and in return, the
audio production company I work for have given me more work and I have slowly built a
professional portfolio of audio productions that I have voiced for various businesses.