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Getting Back To The Vocal Groove ...
July 18, 2017
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From time to time air personalities lose their verbal balance and flow. The trick is to fix it before you lose confidence in your abilities and become a shadow of your former self. It's kind of like Kevin Costner in the movie "Tin Cup" when he started to shank his golf shots to the right. The look on his future girlfriend/phycologist's face when she stopped by and caught him with various golf aids that guaranteed to straighten out his swing.
Off Your Game...
The same sort of thing can happen to an air personality's delivery for a variety of reasons --strained vocal chords; too cold or hot in the studio; engineering adjusted something and you sound strange to yourself in your headphones, allergies or a cold have your ears stuffed and it's hard to modulate your voice; or you just don't feel good in general.
My Problem
I was working the evening shift at a station and I could never get comfortable in the studio. It was nothing I could put my finger on, but every time I listened to the recording of my show, something felt odd to me. The chief engineer and I were discussing something when I noticed he was writing with his left hand; six months of being there and this was the first time I had noticed. At that point, the light bulb turned on inside my head and it became clear why I never felt right in the studio. The engineer had designed the studio in his image ... for lefties. To a righty, everything was backwards.
The Solution ...
I devised a way to adapt to learning how to use my left hand with certain functions of the board. Therefore, I stated feeling comfortable again on the air and my voice sounded like me to me again.
Recent Conversation ...
As I mentioned earlier, air talent can fall into a vocal funk and if the PD says something about it, the personality can experience doubt, anxiety, and self-inflicted fixes. A friend of mine just got hired at a new station and he said he was having problems on the air. He said he was talking too fast on the air and was having problems with his rhythm of speech. He's a veteran talent and this is the first time he's experienced a problem like this. Apparently, his PD had tried to help him, but to no avail. I suggested he try a vocal coach, call a couple of voiceover friends of mine, and I gave him a couple of my own vocal rhythm solutions. I'm a big fan of using my right hand to control my speech ... perfect for radio, but not TV.
Conclusion
My friend's mouth was spewing words out faster than a speeding bullet, but his brain was in synch. Instead of trying to do it himself, he connected the dots for a quick solution. You don't have to know everything, but you do need to know those who know how to help you connect the dots; it will save you time and effort. Through one of the names I gave him, he got back on his verbal game. Moral of the story: It's not what you know, but who you know.
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