Using Your Voice

In this workshop, you will learn to use and, maybe, love your voice. Before the workshop session, please watch the videos and background materials linked below, and complete the assignments.

Material

• Finding Your Voice.
• How to create 100 distinct voices.
• Watch the short videos linked in Finding Your Voice.
  • Voice of Homer Simpson
  • Voice of Homer, Krusty, Grandpa, Barney, and Groundskeeper Willie in The Simpsons
  • Bill Burr on Antivax Conspiracy Theories

Assignment

Using your phone or PC, record yourself reading the following sentence in the following styles:

The sample sentence: "I dropped my uncle's birthday cake on the sidewalk. So, I hope your day is going better than mine is. So, watchya wanna talk about?"

And the styles:

• Your normal speaking voice
• As if speaking to a room full of kindergarteners who you are trying to get interested
• In a ridiculous accent or character voice of your choosing
• As if bored and disinterested

Listen to the recordings, and make observations. Pay particular attention to how you thought you sounded and how you actually sounded.

After doing the tone exercise above, watch this foreign language video and try to understand the context through tone and body language.

Session Instructions

General activity. During the entire workshop session, you are required to use your voice to sound engaged and excited.

• (1 minute) Everyone is required to begin the session by making "siren" noises together.

Cohort Instructions

• (10 minutes) Practice saying the sentence "Your baby is handsome". Each time, emphasize different words and change your pace, then articulate why that changes the implied meaning.
• (20 minutes) Take turns giving a short (1-2 minutes) speech to the group, pretending that you are trying to persuade a panel of interviewers to give you a job. The speaker should focus on creating an appealing voice tone, pitch, timbre, and tempo – the words themselves are less important. Tell the group what type of feedback you are interested in (i.e. "constructive but critical" or "things that you liked only"). The group will then give feedback.

Optional

Find a celebrity that you can practice imitating. The greater the difference between your style and theirs, the better.

Also, break down your speech pattern in the context of the 100 voices video above.

Example. I have a slow, breathy style, or a powerful flicking tone.