Article. Underscoring your own voice
Can you adequately evaluate your voice? Are you faithful to it or are you trying to sound like somebody else? Don’t you try to imitate other voices? Your voice is the gift given to you by birth. You can’t change it for the better and this is the fact you must accept. But on the other hand, your voice is like a fingerprint: it makes you different from others, thus ensuring your individuality.
Certainly you would like to have an ideal voice. But what is it? Nobody can provide a proper definition today. Practically any voice can be considered ideal at present, whereas in the recent past an ideal voice was a standard baritone, richly colored, well resonant. It was an ideal voice but at present predilections gave changed. Now it can also be a woman’s voice and it must primarily possess naturalness. The notion of naturalness is not so easily explained but mastering it is much more difficult. This feature is obtained on long experience and only after one becomes aware of its originality and peculiarity, after one comprehends its resources and fully controls them.
But most Russian voice talents, both young and old, do not try to sound naturally, all their efforts are directed to imitating somebody (everyone chooses one’s own object of imitation) and here starts torturing one’s voice.
This is the result of underscoring. Don’t you think you are suffering from this inferiority complex? Don’t you feel disappointed listening to your recorded voice? Of course, certain dissatisfaction is a good stimulus to self-improvement and your ears may serve as a severe judge.
But instead of trying to achieve impossible (another voice talent's timbre) you can do much better analyzing your own voice and the way of using it. Be sure it is not the voice itself but intonation, mood and emotional implication that matter. Master the basics of conveying the verbal information and, which is no less important, put all your personality, all understanding of the theme to be voiced in your work, try to understand your listeners and see things with their eyes. As soon as you master these skills you will feel self-reliance and confidence in your voiceover work.
