I was once told a story about the magic spells of the sun god Ra who, it is said, told the goddess Isis that the power of the spells he taught her was not in the words themselves but the sounds of the vowels and the intonation.
The voice is indeed powerful, but in the 21st century, authenticity and credibility trump all, whatever material we are voicing. These days there are so many, many voices out there, and beating the mediocre talent is in part to do with sounding authentic.
I’m Ashley Howard, a professional voice coach: I have an MA in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, I’m Head of Voice at The Oxford School of Drama in the UK, and I’ve been coaching for over 12 years. I’ve coached hundreds of actors and voice over artists, such as Claire Foy, Babou Ceesay and Sophie Cookson, and I want to share with you my top 3 secrets for sounding authentic.
#1 The ‘Who’
Whatever the script (advert, corporate, character, narrative) there is always a ‘who’:
• Who am I the speaker?
• Who is the listener?
• Who is the writer?
Maybe you ask yourself these questions and answer them, but do those answers actually manifest in your voice? Are you flexible enough vocally and imaginatively to bring the nuances of these answers to life on mic?
We may think that asking ourselves ‘who am I the speaker?’ is simple, right? If we have a sales script, we might be the happy customer or the friendly salesperson. If we have a corporate script explaining a new process or aspect of the business we might be the educated voice of the organisation. Or with a character script we are simply the character.
But just finding the ‘happy’ voice of the happy customer ain’t gonna cut it with your listener. It’s like a stock photo next to a testimonial on a website – we smell the lack of authenticity (or in our case, we hear the lack of authenticity in the microtonal qualities of the voice).
So who is this happy customer? Why are they happy? What makes them want to come onto the radio and broadcast to the world their satisfaction? What’s in it for them?— Ashley Howard
We might start with a reflection about the last time we felt genuinely happy about a customer-service experience. Maybe there is something in that memory that might change the tone and nuance of the voice to bring that quality to life with the script?
Then there is ‘who is the listener?’. Personally speaking, talking to my mother is a very different experience than talking to my daughter or a stranger or someone in authority. Talking to a stay-a-home dad is different from talking to a hard-nosed business type or a social worker or a group of kindergarten children. Talking to one person is different to talking to many.
And these differences are a product of the way we feel about that person or people and how we feel about ourselves in relation to them.
Are you strongly connecting to these qualities when on mic? If in our minds we can call upon the physical image of those kindergarten children as we speak, or we bring into our bodies the feeling of addressing a group of children, that information is going to supercharge the voice with the tone of authenticity and credibility. Couple that with a sense of how they are looking at us and what their state may be, is like jet fuel!
And then there is ‘who is the writer?’. I don’t mean the actual person who wrote the script. I mean, from the vocabulary, syntax, grammar and layout, who do we imagine the writer to be and does that affect the voice or our choices? Do the word choices suggest something about the intellectual image of the writer? Might short, direct sentences suggest something about their attitude to what they are writing? Might endless repetitive questions or statements suggest something about their attitude toward the listener? The thinking and feeling behind the writing, if discovered, automatically enriches the voice with meaningfulness, and this captivates the listener.
#2 THE WANT
