 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop George is back from his glamping trip. Oh, it was glampere. All right And our guest tonight is Amy Chapman who was a vocal therapist. We're gonna talk about your voice You got questions throw them in the chat room in either Facebook or on YouTube and Mr. Whitom here is going to be Monitoring the chat room grab it. So get those questions in but we're gonna have a great time talking about how to take care of your voice Right now on voiceover body shop From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe. They bring it to you now George Whitom the engineer to the VO stars of Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice of our world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voice over body shop Voice over body shop is brought to you by voice over essentials.com home of Harlan Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VOheroes.com become a hero to your clients with a word-winning voice over training Jmc demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hi there, I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George with him and this is voice over body shop or VO E Alrighty Well, we're back. We have a live in studio guest, which we had last week. Although you are here Tim was here Amy Chapman is with us Amy is a Well, we have to go over all the letters here. There's a lot of letters yet. Amy Chapman MA CC dash SLP she's a vocal therapist and singing and voice specialist Amy's a licensed licensed guys absolutely licensed And board certified speech and language pathologist who has dedicated her career to helping professionals improve and optimize their voice As a trained singer and performer she has combined her expertise on the stage with a scientific knowledge of health and physiology to help her clients achieve optimal results and Your operation is called Voice Lab LA. That's right. Tell us about Voice Lab LA First, I want to know what all those letters mean. Yeah, that's a good place to MA masters CCC is your Certificate of clinical competency that took me a while because I actually haven't thought of what those letters So this was like a good recall moment. I'm really proud of myself for that one SLP speech language pathologist Now that I have that cleared up because I actually was nervous I was nervous I wasn't gonna do do my my field justice, right? So I voice lab LA. That's the name of your your your practice tell us about that and how you got to that How I got to that so how far do you want me to start like from real early on or the practice birth or my birth? Just prior conception. What were you doing before that and got you into doing that? I so I worked with a ENT a laryngologist and As a speech pathologist and worked in voice Specializing for just people who use their voice professionally So that's not just singers or voice over actors But anybody from a teacher or an attorney or a speaker a public speaker speaker anybody who really uses their voice professionally because everybody has The ability to have a voice disorder who uses their voice a lot. I mean it can happen to anybody So that's always started very very medical very clinical and then from there It turned into well, there's such a great area Sometimes you could just have a little bit of a husky voice, but you don't have a disorder It's just my voice is a little bit not on today And so what can I do about that doing necessarily need to see a speech pathologist Do I need to see my doctor for that? Do I need to go to a vocal coach? Where do I go? And so this was a little bit of a middle ground voice lab LA is a Mix of coaching and healthy optimizing as well as rehabbing. So it's a little bit of all of it Okay, so what are some of the common vocal problems people have? I mean, I know the ones that I have I but you know, but what are some of the ones you generally run into well a day-to-day basis a day-to-day basis always vocal fatigue Because everybody uses their voice too much and that's just what it is and it's not gonna stop So we're just saying how can I use my voice too much? You know, how can I do more? While still being able to do what I need to do. So that's one Is that too much as in too much volume pushing or too long both? Oh, it depends on what you're doing, especially voice over acting think of somebody who's narrating a book or doing Long-form okay, you're speaking hours and hours and hours and is it long? No, sorry is it loud? No, but is it long? Yes, you're sitting here and all the time and you can be at a quiet tone, but it doesn't matter You're speaking for eight hours a day. That's a lot or somebody who's doing let's say a short video game and They're yelling a lot. They're screaming, but maybe it's only for a half an hour So you get different disorders different people different people using their voice different ways So it's all over the board, especially now I'm seeing a lot of people post quarantine who are a getting back into something. They're starting Luckily for a lot of voice actors. They're like, I've been doing the entire time Like my office was always in my closet. So nothing changed for me, you know It's mostly the singers who are saying now I'm going back on stage and I need to rehab my voice I need to strengthen back up a lot of the voice actors are saying I'm I did the same thing throughout the entire year and a half of this pandemic and nothing much has changed Maybe auditioned a little bit more, but that's it. Right. Yeah, of course I always said that, you know, if this this disease if the COVID-19 came out and wiped out mankind The voice actors would rule the world because we're all stuffed up all the time. They didn't know nobody knew Am I doing a commercial on a vaccine? Let's Get your COVID-19 vaccine today and we're going through this together But apart So there's lots of things that can go wrong, but why does someone get horse? I mean, you know, I'm a little horser today than I usually am and these are things you have to pay attention to because if you're Recording say something that's long format and then you got to do pickups and your voice Doesn't necessarily sound the same Yeah What causes that I mean what what exactly is going wrong that someone gets horse and it's like boy I really sounded like like crap that morning when I and people's voices change during the day So what's actually going on there? So damn. Yeah. Why are you why are you horse? Why my horse? Yeah I don't know. It's just That's the way it sounds today. I haven't been talking a lot. Would you do yesterday? I Did a lot of driving yesterday, where'd you go I went to Anaheim back here And then back to Anaheim and back with the air conditioning on blast. Of course it was Yeah, did that feel a little dry a little cold on your throat? Yeah, a little bit. Okay, that could be Okay, so there are different reasons why somebody can get horse Sometimes it has nothing to do with using your voice at all It could be something as simple as acid reflux from the night before I had too much pizza and wine Which is you know a weekly activity in my house, right and I woke up saying I feel so good and the next morning. I was a little husky probably because some reflux all over the night went and Visited my vocal cords all all evening long causing a little bit of irritation a little bit of reflux induced laryngitis Or let's say And it's just like sometimes you've woken up with heartburn. We've all had it It's the same thing. It just creeps up a little higher and it seeps over the esophagus level on to your vocal cords So that's just that acid spilling over and that's what that is. So that's reflux laryngitis causing reflux hoarseness You could also have allergic laryngitis meaning the allergies dust Anything going on California has a lot of California has a lot of dust barometric change mold Anything that's going on outside Including maybe some dust in your car when air conditioning is blowing it straight at your face for four hours Maybe that could do that could do it Okay, so that could do something that causes your vocal cords to be slightly irritated making you sound a little bit more hoarse So that's one you had we had a dinner party here last night. Well that could have done but I sounded fabulous at that so Well gosh, you know And usually it's a mix of a lot of different things so when I find most people come in to see me It's because they've been sick and they've pushed through it and Everybody knows that muscle through it push through it that they're like, yeah, it's not there today But you know what I'm gonna give it my all right and that's when you get in trouble That's the number one cause not technique That I would say 99% of the time. That's what I hear. Do you find a lot good? Let's let's keep to voice acting sure primarily Talk about some of the other things. I Know a lot of you know people who begin in voice over tend to over project They forget that they're only talking to one person sure and not a thousand just far away. Yeah You don't talk, you know half an inch from somebody's ear drum so I Take it there. You know people who start off probably end up getting kind of horse because they're not constantly pushing their voice like this It's like no just relax that sort of thing Do you teach people? You know in your vocal therapy to perhaps not project as much unless of course they're singers, but So it actually just depends on the person. It's so individual some people. Yes, they're loud talkers They are just loud talkers in general However, I find that those are not the people that necessarily need to lower their voice Because they've been loud talkers their entire life and they've been fine their entire life and Now something's going on and usually what happens is Maybe a doctor or speech pathologist or somebody says well, here's the problem. You're screaming at me But They've been screaming their entire life. So why is it a problem now? Right, so we can you kind of have to do a little bit investigative Voice journalism in stuff like that where you have to say, okay, but you're always a screamer now in a case like this If they're doing voiceover, they're just screaming too loud into a microphone. Yeah, that's gonna cause you some difficulties So that's a time that's a little bit more in the voice coaching world to say, okay You're talking to one person and you've got a really powerful mic right here. You don't need all that, right? I think for new people too. It's like you're talking into this really unnatural Space like this room is pretty dead as it is Yeah, but when you shrink it into a really small booth and especially if you're not wearing headphones Your voice is just sort of sucked away. Yeah, so then I think it's disorienting. Yeah, you don't hear people say it That compensate that way. Yeah, but I've had like singers That have to go into a voiceover booth Which is so dead and for them it's really disorienting. Yeah, it's really uncomfortable. So It's I know we're spokes focusing on voiceover But like I can see how like being in a weird an unusual space You have to readjust your voice to now sure work in that really small intimate space Everybody loves a live room an echoing room. You sound good. Think of singing in the shower Why do you sound so good? You're in a shower. It's echoing off and you're like I sound amazing All these formants are floating around in my brain and I sound like Pavarotti So that's I mean my office, which you know, we spoke earlier George has given me crap on Because it's so live and it's so echoey and it's horrible for recording anything But if you're singing or speaking live in there, you just look around and you're like, man, I sound so good Wrong space for voiceover. That's it wrong space to voiceover. Thank god. It's not a voiceover studio And then it probably is great and it's fine. It's fine. Yeah, it makes our job trying to find that Goldilocks between being super dead and clinical sounding Kind of natural and yeah, so it's that's that's the science of the acoustics part But now think about it. I just didn't think about how it supports the vocal Health too in an interesting way. Well, and that's essentially in ears and And headphones is what that does is it allows you here to hear yourself? So you don't have to push so much Because you can hear yourself So I always tell people to have the trick of taking your hands and cupping them and putting them right here Just around your ears and then you can hear yourself like you have cans on I watched bill riner did a thousand times tonight Will you do that and it immediately channels your voice back to your channels all Right up here. Yeah, and you can hear yourself perfectly So especially if I'm in a loud place or a dead place and I feel my voice is getting tired I just kind of do this just to remind myself like you're at a normal level Doesn't matter what anybody else could hear What can you hear because that's pretty discrete like I mean, you don't have to call attention You can just do this and it's like wow that is really effective. You hear that reflection. Yeah, that's sure But as you were saying some people yell and they're getting Vocal injury some people are too quiet and they're getting vocal injury And I see that a lot because if you're talking like this all the time you can hear how unsupported my voice is It's raspy and it's just my in the vocal fry area And that can be really hard on your vocal cords because you're squeezing so for some people I'll say Actually, you should speak a little louder because then you're more supported You're putting less pressure on your vocal cords themselves more pressure on your body and the support in general I forget to warm up a lot And generally it's like You know, if I've got some long copy and I get it. It's it's like I get into it. I start off And it sounds fine. And then after a while it's like I gotta gotta cough a little bit and then it and then it recovers and I'm able to go right back into it But I know there's gotta, you know some mornings It's like excuse me. I have to go warm up and it's like me me me You know, and I'll I'll do that for a little bit but not often I take it that's something that everybody should do before they start doing their voice over work So listen, okay. I'm listening. Okay. That's why you're here. That's why I'm here. I'm not here To tell everybody what to do because some people say, you know, why I like to gargle with a cup of milk and coffee And I am good to go one shot at a kilo later and my voice has never been better And I'm not here to say well, you better stop that and do my warm up right because everybody's different What are you doing in your recordings? Does it require a lot of warm up or is it so Similar to your day-to-day voice And it's actually just a little bit more of what you're already doing right That's what I normally sound like so then if that's normally what you sound like It's probably not that big of a deal for you to get up and Me me me, you know, you don't necessarily have to now with somebody's doing so much more if they're doing animated If they're doing well characters and they have to do all this crazy stuff that they're not used to doing That's somebody who I would say you got to do a little bit more warm up because you're doing more Acrobatics with your voice right if I'm walking down the street, and I'm just walking I'm not going to stretch before I do that. Okay If you're just joining us you've missed a lot already our guest is a b. Chapman. We're talking about vocal therapy She is a licensed Vocal therapist Actually got a california license and we all know how hard those are to get So if you've got a question for throw it in the chat room in facebook or on youtube and or hey here's going to Write those down so we can ask you those questions from our massive audience Across the fruiting plane and around got a couple on on it. I hope it's handy. All right Now you train people For proper vocal hygiene. Now. What do you mean by vocal hygiene? I mean I tend to not care about my voice because It just works most of the time But what what to you is good vocal hygiene? So the second somebody goes from Being the very famous Dan Leonard and my voice just works. It's always worked I've never had to think about it and then all of a sudden boom. You got to think about it Something happens and you say it is not working the same way it used to right amy help And that's when we go into vocal hygiene. What's going on with your voice? So there are The specific vocal hygenes that everybody knows of drink water stay healthy What I'll eat pizza warm up eat pizza and wine and Of all those things I don't what is this? What are we gargling with alcohol? Yeah? Yeah, yeah nasal rinse sure there's those things and that's the hygiene part and that's That's the stuff you find on google. I think you could look at my wiki how Where I talk about all that stuff and that's the easy stuff you can look it up The vocal hygiene that I'm more talk about is very personal for each person Each person sounds different each person needs something different each person Is very individual in how their voice works and how it needs to be working and what they're doing That's incorrect and if they're doing something incorrectly that they have to do for their job like A weird animated voice that's like this that you shouldn't be doing all the time What should we do to counteract that? So it's one of these things it's a balance it's a yin and yang It's it's you got to take that pressure and release it somehow if you're doing narration all day long What are we going to do on the other hours when you're not? What is it how is it causing a problem and there are some people who there is no problem whatsoever and these are probably the people who are not Going to be watching this episode. Oh, no, they're watching There's going to be something new here that I didn't think about Yeah, but there's so many people who they're fine and it's what you know Everybody says I want to be like that person who has vocal chords of steel. What's wrong with like why can't I have that and my Phrase that I tell so many people is god just loves them a little bit more and I don't know why Like it's just it that's what they they were given that And you're not for whatever reason so let's work on it. So that's that's essentially my hygiene Oh, okay. Well, because we're all unique. We're all snowflakes as far as our voices are concerned That's what's important about voiceover and why you know, you have to exploit what's unique about me What's unique about my voice? You know that sort of thing. Yeah, people are like, you know, they just audition and sound like everybody else And every audition not at all. It's a vocal fingerprint Alrighty, okay. You got a question. Now's the time. There's some funny comments like John Carlson mentioned After ripping out an old carpet from the previous owners. I was able to do an awesome christopher walker The dog and cigarette dust did wonders For a week That's the last thing you want to do is like rely on some Extremely healthy situation to get a voice and then cast the gig that well. Yeah Well, that it's so common that people say I loved my voice my post covid voice You know where it was tired and gravelly and it sounded really good You know, but it's always walking a really thin line between can I keep this and then you just Flip on over into real injury land And it's very difficult to stay on the non-injury side when you sound like that. So christopher walken That's a good one for a couple it record a couple of times and then move it on and don't do that anymore Yeah, that's kind of the way that is When you hear when you hear somebody else, uh, jim mcnicholas mentioned tony robbins When can you hear that voice in your head? I have tony robbins stuck in my head What does it make you think when you hear his voice like cavernous and and but also like Is that damage that's been done to his voice irreversible like that will be with him the rest of his life He's such a distinct He also has a distinct look and face and size. I mean he's huge He's huge, but like think of the size of his throat. I mean that's a cave in there His vocal cords are probably the size of my hands. You know what I'm saying is like it's so different I like by the way, I would love to See what's going on in those vocal cords, but he might have something on his vocal cords themselves, but It's it's not an issue for him. It's not a problem with him. It's nice Seems to be whatever it is is consistent. Like every time I hear a year after year on whatever It's like that's tony robbins. Yeah, it's consistent. Yeah, I studied with tony like 35 years ago and He was much younger than and now I listen to him. I'm like, you know, his voice sounds Older But he all he does is he's a public speaker. Yeah and talks to these huge audiences and stuff. So You know, it hasn't it hasn't diminished his ability to communicate when he communicates at all Yeah, I hope not. I mean, that's the thing. It's like whatever damage whatever his vocal whatever's going on in there Is it something that will just maintain for years and years and years at that level, you know, probably Probably did did you see? Obviously people who had coven Did they have to come to you after they recovered and what type of what type of things did you find with that? Some people had I mean, there's a lot of lung issues So if you have lung issues and your breathing is labored your voice is going to be labored because that's the gas to your voice So if you're having that difficulty, so it's doing a lot of lung exercises also fatigue Your complete body a lot of people still have those long symptoms of fatigue So then you can still feel extra fatigue after and how are you going to get a nice loud sounding voice? If you yourself are so tired, so it's strengthening. It's conditioning It's learning to breathe and support and do everything you need to do for your voice That's like some true rehab versus technique and placement things like that. So it's it's working those types of muscles I thankfully I haven't seen too much good I haven't seen too much, but there's been there's been some people who say I I don't have my Falsetto or I can't hit this voice or I can't squeeze the same way as to So it's just working it back into it. Very good Uh, one of the things you do as you talk about is vocal massage Splain So these muscles are So important With vocalizing right your throat muscles Help to support and squeeze and release and do everything and if you're and I I go back to I'm not a voice actor But I have to make lots of voices and I'm staring at Debbie Derryberry's picture right there that she does She does a couple of them and I'm channeling her right there And if you're squeezing right here and everything squeezing so much your voice wants to keep that Muscular moment right there And then let's say you have your next job, which is low Commercial certainly your Kathleen Turner. Thank you. That's you're doing something else Maybe not as PG rated but whatever it is. It's more released, but you can't release it because you're so high up So what the manipulation does and I'm just giving one example for what that is the voice massage It releases these muscles. So then it allows these Muscles to relax. It allows your larynx to lower It allows it to go higher and lower and move about and so you have much more agility in your voice What does that what does the massage involve? What it involves massaging I wave a wand I sprinkle some magic voice dust So I massage muscles and I start doing a manipulation on your actual larynx So moving the muscles in a different way. So it's not just a massage, but it's a manipulation of the muscles It's myofascial release It's tongue. It's jaw. It's throat. It's Upper shoulders its chest. So it's everything in this whole area Because this is all really affected by the voice. So not necessarily I'm not giving back massages Get your feet away from me keep your shoes on. I don't want it Yeah, I would think that you know every each one of these muscles affects your voice in some way, you know You know, you you know your jaw muscles, you know, if they're tense, that's going to change the way Do things. Yeah, or if your shoulder muscles or your neck muscles You're turning your head a certain way. It's it's going to strain your vocal chords one way or another. So if those are nice and relaxed Yeah, no, that's something you do like someone, you know before a performance all the time all the time. Um, I had one one voiceover Uh actor who would come to me a lot and she always she was cast as the baby for everything. So Constant but then she would also do she wanted more lower things and she couldn't get lower Unless she came to me for a manipulation. So she would do the manipulation and turned her into Kathleen Turner right away just And then it just lowered it all So yes, some people do a before a show something before a big record some people You know before a lot of singers come as well for that But I've had a big number of voiceover actors who come for that Once again, we're talking with Amy Chapman vocal therapist vocal massage masseuse masseuse But you've never been told that as described as that before Another thing that you deal with Is aging voices. We were just talking about tony robbins who's older than he was a kid when I met him He's like, you know much older than now um but What happens to the voice as you get older? I mean if I listen to my tapes From 1978 I don't sound anything like this. Well, do you look anything like that? No, not even remotely. I had hair then too So elasticity in our skin also exists in our vocal cords in our tissues So we lose elasticity as we get older, correct So we're losing elasticity not just in our skin in our vocal cords. So they've become less pliable they become stiffer As men get older their voice gets higher as women get older our voice gets lower Very interesting, right? You lose testosterone. We lose estrogen So we all kind of even out to be gender neutral in the end We're all sort of the same. No, but so different things happen Especially there can be something called presbylerinjas, which is called aging larynx presbylerinjas And it's a weakness As in the rest of our body gets a little weaker as we get older again, less pliability less collagen less elasticity and We need to work harder so a lot of the things I do for aging voice is strengthening exercises like Like Bringing your vocal cords together and I don't want to say that I'm making somebody yell because I know that somebody's gonna be Oh, Amy just told me to yell But if I want to bring my vocal cords together I want a pure tone You can hear the tinny quality to it. You can hear my vocal cords coming. You don't hear any breathiness That's a breath of your quality and that is not going to be as strengthening as a pure sound Getting my vocal cords to come all the way together Give it a little more oomph Oh Yeah, so you heard there was less breath, but you're starting from a horse place today So for you, I would not have you do that because great what that means So stop done for the day. Thank you. You're done. I just ruined your career So what I actually Would do for you is say let's rest your voice. Let's make sure that your vocal cords are clean and healthy and Feeling fine before we start because if you already have a little bit of huskiness today I mean, do you have a little bit of irregularity on your vocal cord level? So they're a little bit swollen. So if I'm squeezing them together to give you that pure sound, uh And they're already a little swollen. That's when we get into muscling through it push it through territory Disorder territory So i'm not gonna have you do that. So don't do that anymore You're done. You're done. That's it. George you're the only one I can talk to Take over. Take over, George I'll take over. It'll be the amy show now We're talking with Amy Chapman. We're gonna try and fix our voices. Um Breathing exercises, um I find people just don't know how to breathe singers know how to breathe singers who get into voiceover Have a distinct advantage because They understand that you should be able to do a sentence or two without taking a breath Breath support breath control, right? It's all part of singing and training. Yeah training and singing. Yeah And singing and training. Yeah Anyway What what are some breathing exercises that we always be beneficial to people so they It can read two sentences at a time without taking a breath. So Um Let's talk a little bit about breath first and the d word which is My least favorite word which is diaphragm. Thank you. Oh Is that right hate that damn word? Oh Because anybody who says breathe from your diaphragm. Oh Do it. What does that mean exactly? I don't do that. Thank you Thank you. Good because we don't know where it is. We're like somewhere in here But breathe from it and you're like I can't I actually I think I'm doing it. Maybe I don't know so It sort of does its own thing on it. That's exactly right except for I've heard and even today I heard somebody who said well, I actually have good technique. I breathe from my diaphragm and I On zoom you could still see my eyes roll behind my head saying Uh again with this So yes, our diaphragm does play a huge role in our breathing However, we don't control it. It's involuntary. What we can control is the muscles surrounding the diaphragm And that's where we need to focus. So I don't put too much pressure on breathing for every single person I wait to see if it's an issue because sometimes you're focused on breathing so much that you can't do anything else And then you're just breathing you have a weird voice because you're working on your breathing And it's going to do more harm than good, especially if you say Let's work on breathing. You've never had a breathing issue. I said, why why are we gonna work on it? If it ain't broke don't fix it. So for you, I wouldn't for some people who are having breathing Things I'll call them as opposed to issues or difficulties or Disorders, it's a very individual. Why are you having this? What's going on? You want to go a little deeper? Has it always been happening? Did you break a rib? Are you not doing any cardio or you're not doing, you know things like that? So you really want to see what's going on with your voice Cardio great always good for your voice always good for voice over actors Anybody who's recording? I will say do some cardio in the morning Even midday If Your voice gets tired and you're saying I just don't feel it right now Do a little bit cardio get out of breath because what that's gonna do is get your lungs moving Yes, your diaphragm will be moving too. Again, you're not doing anything to it But it'll get your lungs moving It'll get everything becoming stronger and cleaner and clearer and then After that your lungs will move. They'll be just much much more stretched out Much more open much more pliable And you'll be able to use your voice a lot better. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense I mean, you know, I I find it is generally people who are starting in voiceover who are older Who have a lot of trouble with that That they're constantly breathing. I mean george and I get audio from people all the time. So my studio sounds like Yeah, they're just a raw audio sample. You know often they have to Inject a breath into a phrase sometimes halfway through a phrase and now they have to edit all that out And so it's a lot more work for them. So So if they can learn how to breathe that will help we're not brief Or yeah, or at least plan where your breaths are supposed to be That's right You know, so I actually have an elliptical in my office that I have a lot of my Voice professionals jump on and do whatever they need to do. Well completely out of breath and once they can get that done Oh, they're singing to be or not to be that is a question. Whatever it is Nobody's doing to you or not to be in my in my studio. It's just the first thing that came to my My big old head But once they can do that and they stop and they catch their breath and then They go on and start doing it. It comes out so much easier. They have no problem All right. Yeah, all right. We're gonna take a break right now. If you got a question for Amy Throw it in the chat room right now and we'll get to those questions in just a minute So stay till we'll be right back after these messages. Don't go away. I think I heard the voice of a body shop I did I did hear the voice of a body shop body shop Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice to announce her guy on your new orientation training for snapchat Stick around you don't want to miss this Power 1039 at target. We want you to come as you are be comfortable Okay, maybe not bathrobe comfortable Pants for the customer on aisle four, please Watch anywhere anytime on an unlimited number of devices Sign in with your netflix account to watch instantly at netflix.com The ice cream maker is a big risk that can have huge reward Until you forget to turn it on. Well, that's it guys Time is up. Hey, it's jmc. Thanks for watching the voice over body shop If you're demo ready or looking to get there check out jmc demos.com and see a sample of our work Now let's get back to dan and george and this week's tech wisdom From voiceover essentials.com. It's the relationship savior the multicolor led vo recording sign Not just a stock on the air or recording sign. 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That's voice over essentials dot com Well, hey there hero, it's david h laurance the 17th of vo heroes dot com in this past week We opened registration for the brand new updated vo heroes pro 2021 program and we closed registration No more registration Everybody's got to wait until next year Except for one group of people and it may be you if you went to the registration page and you thought I'd love to do this, but I can't come up with all the money at once Okay, we we've created a payment plan for you a four month payment plan You start right now you get right into class you get everything that everybody got that registered during the week the equipment The the courses the support the discussion group the workouts every month the accountability everything Just by simply going to vo heroes dot com slash four PMT You go there the payment plan is yours and I would love to hold your hand and help you build a successful and satisfying And profitable voice over career vo heroes dot com slash four PMT and we will see you in class This is the landlover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voice of our body shop And we're back with amy chatman talking about Taking care of your voice And i'm sure lots of you have questions We've got room in the chat room for you to ask your questions. So Get them in there george you get to ask the first question Well, the first one that came in was from jim mc nicolas one of our regular viewers. Thanks jim How much daily exercise would amy recommend for vocal exercises? To build up strength and your vocal cords because when I was in radio, I did six hours a day And now it's only two hours maximum so i'm a little unclear so If he was doing six hours a day before and now he's doing two hours maximum Is there something he needs to do What would you do to build up strength if oh, I guess he's trying to say he wants to get back to those days Where he did six hours A day Well Six hours a lot, but if you're doing I wouldn't say do six hours of strengthening That's a lot But if you're working as a radio host for six hours a day Um, and now you're at two hours a day and you want to go back up I Suggest when somebody wants to do some strength training to not do All six hours at once all four hours at once all one hour at once I break it up 15 minutes 15 minutes an hour 15 minutes an hour 15 minutes an hour that I find Is a lot more sustainable for your voice To do small increments and then you're not worn out because the whole risk of doing way too much is You get swollen and then you're pushing on top of it and you're working through it And then you wind up in a worse position So you really want to take it easier vocal cords are really delicate. They're really small Tiny bits at a time, but still strengthening 15 minutes an hour. I would say what do you do to strengthen your voice? so Like I was saying before bringing your vocal cords together So that means anything in a pure tone that's easy for you to create so nothing that's Nothing that's pushing too hard. Just a nice pure Nice clean sound depending on where your voice sits If you're A higher voice a lower voice I want you also to stretch and strengthen all parts of your voice So it's not just one part of your voice. It's not just your bass. It's not just your falsetto You really want a well balanced voice. So that's big for for me for strengthening as well Is it important to find the center of your voice like the whatever the natural pitches of your voice? to the column Optimal pitch Yes, and so usually So if I say If I ask you a question, I want you to answer with okay, so is your name Dan? Yes, that's not the question. I said to answer with it. Mm-hmm. That's it. There you go. So that Is your optimum pitch? So I want you to And hold it And now open uh one two three four five One two three four five one two three four five. So that's your that's your national optimal pitch one two three four five One two three four five you try it So the first one not not the second because the second one usually goes up too high. Oh, I see so you go One two three four five So that's like my most yep, so that's your optimal pitch We'll make a voice actor out of you yet. Oh, I can voice. I just can't act So That's the problem It says it's that other part Um This is another one. This one came from another one of our regs j. Horace black What do you feel uh Oh, what's your feeling on the metal singing straw? You might know something about this Is this a beneficial way for warming up and keeping the voice healthy? Yeah, I have Am I allowed to toss that affiliates one here? Yeah, sure Shameless promotion is what keeps us going Pays the bills, right? Uh, so I work a lot with uh singing straw company called the singing straw easy enough And I have a 15% off or 10% whatever it is affiliate code voice lab l. A and I do like I like the professional one so there's different kinds the professional one is different sizes And the smallest straw is actually my favorite what I like about it And I Like all my singers and voice actors to do this as well When you push so much air through these tiny little straws you get a back pressure there And it goes down on your vocal cords and then you bring together So it's a really good strengthening exercise. Let's go back to the aging voice. It's good for that It's also good for relieving stress and tension So when you have vocal cord stress and everything's squeezing too tight This helps blow everything out and relieve that stress. How does how does it work? So it's a straw. Okay. That's it So when you when you push so much air Through that straw and you're really working it you get a back pressure of that air So that air now goes down towards your vocal cords Your vocal cords have air coming from your lungs up So now your vocal cords are balancing air coming up from down down from up So you're strengthening your vocal cords on different levels So you can hum at the same time as you're blowing air It's it's called a semi occluded vocal track exercise. The same thing happens when you're doing a lip trill You get that same pushback of air Same thing happens if you're There's different ways to do it that explain like when I I I haven't played in a while, but I used to be a trumpet player And like so you're forcing a tremendous amount of air pressure through very very tightly Squeezed lips and you can they did it all the time in band class like let's see who can play the longest notes You know and it was so not fair because the trumpet players could do it the longest every time because we were Constricting the air flow the most. Yeah would win players that no chance because they're just They're just blowing. Yeah, but the trumpet players we could go for a minute or even longer Because yeah all that back pressure, you know a lot of horn players Very good voices I found and I think it's because of that So like chet baker. He was as much known for singing as playing trumpet. Yeah, I have another client abrilogan who is Amazing she plays a trombone And she and then she starts singing jazz and it's out of control I mean check her out. She's so talented But it's so incredible back and forth and back and forth and I think that motion which is the same thing as the singing straw Helps with your vocal cords and helps with the strength of your vocal cords So there's been a lot of studies a lot of sciences a lot of hubbub around all of it as well Useful this time of year during the jewish high holidays when people are blowing shofar That's right Trust me. I was at rest of shana services last week and I saw them Which they tied a little mask on me on the other day really? Yes, well last year. I mean like brass groups were putting like a little Uh It's hard to describe it. It was just like a thing. They'd slip over the bell of the instrument. Yeah to catch Whatever might fly out of the bell. Yeah, what like a hair net like what are they doing? Yeah, you just sort of like tie it up. Yeah. Yeah, they were doing that Big long rams heart. Yeah, it's not coming up. Yeah Anyway, but every's like a one two three Anyway, again, if you've got a question about vocal health with Amy Chapman Yeah, we got some room in the chat room for it and uh, we would love to answer those questions for you I bet you she'd like to answer them too. What do we got next one more in here from john carlson? Um, he says I wasn't sure if this was mentioned because I was putting the kids to bed But I feel like my voice isn't is different in the morning before breakfast As opposed to after breakfast. Is it in my head? Probably not. No, no, not at all. So you wake up. You're so relaxed and john I also have kids that I have to put to get me second you wake up and now you're on dad duty or mom duty or parent duty and You're no longer relaxed from waking up and the day starts and you drink your coffee and you're all tense And your voice gets tense. That is so very common. You know, if you asked me to sing a note in the morning I am Kathleen turn and oh Everything's so low But the second you get tense. I can't hit those low notes anymore So absolutely your voice can change from right after you eat right after you have some coffee. Coffee. Yeah coffee ampia ampiana can't do without it and um, even eating you're swallowing you're using essentially your vocal cord muscles Are swallowing muscles. So once you start eating start that Body moving it's going to change your voice not always in a bad way and you can always manipulate however you need to But yeah, absolutely can change. Yeah, just assuming it was literally something that he's eating or whatever I mean, that's a contributing factor, I guess, but it's not probably not at the moment Unless you have a ton of mucous from something Some people get a lot of mucous from dairy or yogurt and you get very viscous in your throat clearing That's something that can affect it or You typically wouldn't have instant reflux. It doesn't happen right away where you eat something all of a sudden You're feeling the reflux. Um, you typically wouldn't have instant drying effects from any sort of caffeine So the only thing Would really be maybe the mucus, but probably not something having to do with what he's really more just like your state of mind Energy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, muscle tension energy I know I've had voice actors tell me like I can only do this one kind of job First thing first morning. Yeah, or like they get up extra early. Yeah, because they're so tired And when you're so tired you have nothing nothing supporting so you're able to get a lot lower Yeah, I've never found that to be a problem. Sometimes I do a lot of work with companies in europe And they're like, well, can you get up at like 6 30 because that's when we got to do the session Yeah, sure fine get up All right, but I get in the booth and it's back to my normal voice Do you do anything? Do you do you still do the same like morning routine? When you get up that early you just shipped it earlier or do you like I just get up earlier or anything You still hit the coffee machine and yeah, you know, it's like I'm not going anywhere until You know, I get my caffeine sure But I don't think that affects my voice very much Is caffeine is is caffeine a yay-nay or neutral thing when it comes to the voice So for me, it's a yay And I will always say it's a yay Don't drink coffee all day long But if you have one or two cups I'm fine with that The only thing with coffee is one the reflux it can be a reflux trigger is caffeine And it's slightly dehydrating but as long as you're drinking water with it I drink water before I have my coffee and I drink water after and I don't feel any dehydrating effects from the coffee So good news drink your coffee if you want to What kind of stuff is really bad for your voice like I I hear don't eat Mexican food before you do a So it's it's different for everybody Of course, some people can have honestly anything like I can have dairy all day long and I get no mucus Some people have one teeny tiny bite of cheese and that's it. They're done So it's really what for you is going to cause it I Again also with a reflux trigger some people get it some people don't It's very commonly over diagnosed That is very common. And so it really just depends on you and your own personal voice I don't think that there is one thing that you just should not have maybe gargle with bleach. That's the one thing Don't do that Other than that supposed to get rid of COVID. You know, yeah, that's right Anyway, um, how can people get ahold of you if they they want some uh, some assistance with their their vocal technique and You know, and also how much can you do from a far versus? Yeah, I was the same. What can you do on zoom? So I've been doing a lot of zoom and if there's something that I can't do on zoom I will tell people because it That's not fun The energy on massages. So I it is very hard, but sometimes, you know Grab you just strangle I could stick my hand to the computer and grab and bring it That's right, but I have been teaching people how to do some self manipulation stuff Whatever they're dealing with so there are different ways that I can help through that, but um Through my website voice lab la.com through my instagram. It's just a Amy Chapman Uh, don't call me. I'm really bad at picking up. I'm really bad at calling people back I should even take off my phone number I just haven't done that yet because people find it no matter what Um, but email me email me You know, let me go to my website. It's the best way very good. Alrighty. Well, thanks for being with us Great to have you back on our show. I know one was the last time. What was it five years ago? It was a while when we first came out to california. Yeah, I think we were here, but you weren't you weren't physically here I wasn't physically here. Yeah, I was zooming in before it was cool to zoom That's right. What we've been doing zooming in the long before it was cool to zoom in You know, so was I people used to give me so much crap for making them download zoom Oh, yeah, and they were like, oh, I have to download this new applique. I'm like, it's not that bad It'll be the wave of our pandemic future. Just yeah Wish I would have invested right wish I would have Oh, come on. Why didn't I see college right as as things started to go south? And thank you for being with us. Thank you. Thanks for having me Alrighty, we're gonna think quick break and george and I are gonna re-rack it for tech talk and get ready to wrap this one up So don't go away. We'll be Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of Rocco and you're watching voiceover body show In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept To live online in a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the You know what? This is the part of the show where we get to talk about source elements the creators of source connect And a lot of other tools that allow engineers to work remotely with voice actors Engine musicians anybody it wants to collaborate with audio all around the world And it has really become a mainstream tool a very mainstream tool In the use in in commercial production Production for film post etc. Why because for one thing they've been doing it a long time 15 plus years just in perfecting and improving Source connect alone and then the fact that in the studio the side that you're not in the one one that you're connecting to It's plugged it directly in integrated into their pro tools production workflow So they love that they love that your audio goes straight into a track And actors love it because when the session's over It's over. You don't have to do any editing. You don't have to do any post So during that session your microphone is like on a virtual mic cable that goes from your studio All the way to that studio halfway across the world wherever it happens to be Anyway get signed up go to source dash elements dot com and get a 15 day Free trial just so you can get it up and running and become familiar with it If you're really feeling overwhelmed head over to my site I've got a page on there all about source connect with some videos and some help info To help get you up and running and we can also do a little one-on-one to get you up to speed a little bit faster Anyway, thanks source elements. Let's get back to the show and answer some tech questions Hi, this is bill farmer and you are watching voiceover body shop. It's great All right, I suppose we could like move that camera and make a two shot out of it Should we do a camera move? There we go with our fluid head tripod. Is that a fluid head? Okay, that's cool Alrighty well, uh, that was great having run. I it always is good having her here Having anybody here. Really? Yeah, really? It's like So it's still weird. It's still weird getting used to having people physically here a year and a half We were let alone me being here. Yeah Praying that the internet would work so we could all be in the same place at the same time. Anyway Uh next week on this very show which we're about to do now if you want to watch it Uh tech talk we think 63 And we lost track somewhere along the line Can you uh We'll we'll go back and take a look and see what's going on and then on september 27 for that entire week We have voiceover legal eagle rob siglampaglia. We'll be joining us author of vo legal And so there's lots of interesting questions about Legalities and contracts and stuff like that Rob knows that stuff inside out backwards and upside out And explains it really well. So we'll uh, we'll be talking with him I don't i'm not sure if he's gonna be out here in la or if he's gonna be back in new joey z or whatever But he'll be here one way or another Who are our donors of the week? Our donors and there's a long list of them. Maybe we can alternate them this time Let's do it. Okay. It's easier. We're here together. So I'll start with Rob rider uh patty gibbons ant land productions. That's uncle roy by the way Uh michelle blanker. Hi michelle Christopher epperson sandra man willard. Oh, that's a new name. Yeah. Well sort of new new to me Phillips appear uh tremosly Shelly avaleno thomas pinto. Oh, he's a name. He goes way back. Greg thomas Shayna pentington baird Martha con martha You know, yes icon productions if you want your kids to learn how to do voiceover martha's the person to do it Uh don griffith Stephen chandler robert ledum michael cairns and graham spicer up there in the great light north a All right. He's gonna hear his name. Yeah, you can still join our mailing list By the way, if you go to our website if you can go to our website it says Join our mailing list uh do that so we can send you what we're doing and who's coming on and those sorts of things Uh personal thing. Well business personal, please My long time assistant and friend rebel claire Is retiring from being my assistant slash customer service person So if you if you or anybody you know would like to do that kind of a role And i'm gonna you're gonna have to learn a lot of stuff He'll put you to work and i'm gonna keep you pretty busy But if that sounds interesting to you, maybe you want to supplement your time as a voice actor Maybe you're not working as much as you thought you would whatever Hit me up. Send me an email at uh, send me an email at george at george the tech dot com And uh, let me know send me a resume. I'm reaching out far and wide To find a replacement and it ain't easy because rubble is an amazing person, but uh looking To find someone soon All right, we need to thank our sponsors as well like harlan hogan's voice over essentials voice over extra source elements Vio heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos Uh, george did all the chat room stuff tonight. Wasn't that bad? No, I was a little distracted sometimes That's the only problem with doing that job at the same time. We don't get to fully focus on that No, you were too late, but it was you were fine. You were fine. Thank you. I don't mind. All right, uh Let's see sue merlino We're all together again here in the in the in the big studio. So sue great to have you back in here Yeah, look, uh, there we go. Yeah No, you gotta change the camera to show her show that she's actually there now. She's not gonna do it She's not gonna do it. All right Yeah, it was the wrong camp. Okay. There she is. All right. Yay Look at her. She's all just from work. She looks nice. Yeah, put her on camera. Yeah anyway, um Thanks to her for getting it done tonight because it was flawless absolutely flawless All right, I'll watch I'll watch it later. We're gonna re-edit it later. There's one thing we gotta fix it in post Yeah, and of course the one I only leave penny for being well We're gonna re-rack it for tech talk stick around if you got questions for us about your home voiceover studio Now it's a good time to ask and you can throw them in the chat room and all these places that we tell you to throw them So do that right now in the meantime We're here to help you out with your home studios and with all sorts of great information for your voiceover career So be with us every week not a problem. I'm dan lennard and i'm george wittem. And this is voiceover body shop or v o b s