Do We Celebrate "World Voice Day" With Feats of Strength?

Thank goodness for the American Academy of Otolaryngology. In addition to teaching me a new medical word I now don't have to look up, they sponsor the US observance of World Voice Day.

"Every year on April 16, otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeons and other voice health professionals worldwide join together to recognize World Voice Day. World Voice Day encourages men and women, young and old, to assess their vocal health and take action to improve or maintain good voice habits. The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery has sponsored the U.S. observance of World Voice Day since its inception in 2002." link to source

I must admit a certain prior ignorance concerning this event, but through the magic of social media and the sticky web it weaves, I no longer have an excuse....

World Voice Day 2010

The theme for World Voice Day 2010, "Love Your Voice," reminds people of the value and significance of vocal health in everyday life.

They have provided a fancy pdf which includes 10 ways to love your voice. Embrace hydration, "Kiss but don't yell", "...don't clear your throat", "Think good breath support..." are all helpful hints on how not to destroy your voice.

The rest of the World Voice Day site is fairly pdf-heavy, so I'll let you prowl around there tap on the pertinent links. It seems to have a few good things here and there. Since I plan to continue to rely upon my voice (and, of course, the choices which direct it) for the forseeable future, there's a little light reading in my future. And of course, cupcakes for everyone on World Voice Day!

...and maybe a little 'airing of grievances' for exercise.

Didn't Know It Was Tricky Until I Read It Aloud

part of a continuing series -

"global climate crisis..."
"intricate texts..."

Invitational Character Reality Check - 12/09

A two day seminar at Voicetrax SF with Natanya, focusing on characters, character scripts and how your efforts play in the fields of competitiveness. I've taken a couple of other workshops with her, and as always, Nantanya manages to hone in on the one or two things that your performance needs to really soar. She always provides feedback of the highest caliber.

The class started a few weeks ago, actually. We had to send in 5 character scripts in advance, which she went through and evaluated. This was an excellent exercise in itself, as finding good contemporary scripts which both challenge and present you well is an excellent task.

There were three basic "rounds" over the two days. We listened to a couple of everyone's "auditons" and she went through her notes publicly, talking about the good, the bad and the ugly. There were definitely some common themes - pitfalls almost everyone succumbed to. But, I won't go into detail here, as those lessons are probably best learned individually.

After the playback and critiques, we received a couple new scripts from Natanya, got a chance to digest them, and then started diving into the booth. The scripts were very diverse, from contemporary films to television shows and games for very specific viewing audiences. It was an excellent chance to quickly create a character and then gear the presentation for the needs of the script. It also demanded a quick change between the characters, as each person read their second scripts immediately following the first.

The emphasis of the class focused on really taking these performances and making them competitive. The level of the students was quite high - competency was assumed - so it became a matter of specific tweaks. Sometimes it was just finding something different in the performance, other times it was a different choice in the fundamental approach. It was inspiring to see everyone react so quickly to the feedback and hit the mark.

After three rounds of listen/perform, she had us grab a script which had been given to someone else and use that. It was a good opportunity to show off some stuff which hadn't been demonstrated earlier. I think that may have been the most fun round for everybody - Natanya included.

Another superb, high-level character class. Nice.

Live! Radio! Theatre!

...with a studio audience, mind you.

OK. Not precisely accurate, in that we weren't actually, you know, broadcasting over the radio. But, hey, the longest journey starts with a single step and that sort of thing.

Voice-buddy Alex put out the call for folks who might be interested in a very short reading on a classic radio play. She's been taking an acting class through the local college, and the assignment had been to "do something." Bless her creativity, she realized she might know some folks who liked to talk and act. Four of us - Wendy, Jess, Marilyn and myself - signed up, worked the script up a bit in a short practice session last weekend and gave the performance to the class.

It was more than pretty cool. The class room had a proper stage and elevated seating for the audience, so it had that proper feel. Alex had brought in her travel microphone, rigged up the laptop to record and had music beds and sound effects under her control. The rest of us jockeyed for position at the single mic, made too-loud rustling sounds with our pages and acted away.

The stylized text of the play - a 1948 classic story - gave it that "Radio Era" feel. You could imagine the actors working through it, the engineer watching the time cues... The audience even laughed where they were supposed to.

Ended too danged early. But, the students - actors themselves - generated a more-than-kind round of applause. We gathered our gear and left quickly (first rule after finishing a gig, eh?). But, as we made our way out, we chatted about how much fun that had been, and more importantly, how cool it would be to do some full radio scripts - for podcast or just for our own fun.

The "live" nature was probably the most fun - it had all the great dynamic of dialogue work, but as acting teacher/director Frank Coppola pointed out in the last class I had with him, when you are onstage, you don't get to go back or start over. If a wrong word comes out, you have to correct and move on - seamlessly is helpful - and work with the other actors to make that happen. Pressure is on, but in an invigorating way.

Gotta figure out how to do this again... Thanks Alex, Jess, Wendy and Marilyn!

Ultimate Acting Challenge - 11/09

This one actually took place a couple of weekends back (Saturday eve/Sunday all day), but between the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend and me trying to get my thoughts together, some time has certainly passed.

Fact it, this was also one of the more difficult classes to write about. Mind you, that's a good thing, actually. Just makes it more of a challenge to describe in a meaningful way.

The thing about this class is that the specifics vary significantly with each person in it. It's a bit like that thread in The Matrix about visiting the Oracle. You end up hearing exactly what you needed to hear, and it's different for everyone.

For me, the class created several instances of, for the lack of a better word, consideration. - those times when you have a moment of clarity, you see how things fit, interact and influence one another. Things seem possible. Tenuous threads of confidence seem more tangible.

Those moments didn't necessarily happen during the class. Most have come afterward. Maybe it's just the way I'm wired - that I end up pondering things abstractly before diving back into the technically specific. And voice acting is a doing craft, of course.

Which more or less brings me back to talking about the class. This was my second one with Dean, who had traveled up from LA. It started by a one-on-one meeting with him wherein we told him what we felt we needed to work on. After meeting with everyone in this manner, he talked about some of the common themes we had all mentioned, adding a tremendous amount of perspective to such topics as acting choices, self-directing of auditions, sound quality and more.

Of course, we worked lots of scripts and got stellar feedback. When a student had a specific need, Dean was not hesitant to jump into the booth for private directions. By midday Sunday, everyone was sounding pretty amazing. One of the great things was that the better we sounded, the more excited Dean seemed to get. He really throws himself into the direction and feedback loop, with pretty stellar input.

To wrap things up, he met with everyone individually again, and while I certainly am unable to talk about those interactions, I came away feeling more of a core confidence that's been forged. As always, lots of work to do and things to keep mindful of, but this was really a class that helped to keep the momentum and optimism rolling.

Signal Path Test

Everything plugged in, uploaded by Jim Edgar Voices.

Testing... Testing...

Hey.

This setup seems to make noise.
I mean, it's not noisy. I talk in one end, sound comes out the other.
Just like the manuals say it should. One should never dismiss any success as trivial.

It is actually rather clean sounding, as near as I can tell while tweaking some knobs and playing around with the settings at 11:30 at night. Yep, gear-geeking at its best...

This weekend, I'll put it all together where it's supposed to go, rather than on the kitchen table.

Getting Interfacey With It

UA-25EX, originally uploaded by Jim Edgar Voices.

Sweetwater sent candy...

...both in the box, and in the wrapper.