Creating Diverse Distinctive Voices

Hello again and welcome back to improve your voice. My name is Darren McStay and today I'm going to show you how you can create 100 distinctly different voices. I know it sounds crazy but anybody can do it I swear to you and by the end of this video you're going to understand completely how easy it is. This is a big one folks so get comfortable because i'm going to blow your socks off so if you're here for this video i'm guessing that you're one of three people you're either an old pro currently stuck for ideas and looking for inspiration a newbie who's completely clueless or someone who just stumbled across the video and so happens to be curious about how it all works either way welcome we're going to be playing with our voices today so i hope you're prepared and warmed up if you're not i suggest going away and doing a warm-up first because we're going to be using our voices today and I want to make sure that you're ready and limber to go. If you don't have any warm-ups, check this video out here, go away, do that, come back and watch this video. And of course, if you can't be arsed, then fine, let's carry on. So as promised, I'm going to show you how you can make... hundred completely different distinctive voices not only that but these 100 voices should be completely unrecognizable from each other that's a bold statement right but you're gonna see why soon are you ready to get started i don't like to mess around so let's just get into it how can you make a hundred different voices first we'll need a pen and paper so pause this video go grab one or get notes up on your phone because we are going to write a checklist together. So the first thing I do when developing a voice for a character is I look at something that's called Laban Efforts. Laban comes from the name Rudolf Laban. I'm not going to go into who he was right now but if you want to know more about him and his work then there's a link in the description box below. But in a nutshell he was a movement teacher who developed a system of working to be able to describe the action that was being made which acted as a vocabulary between himself and dancers and later actors so basically a way of communicating what you wanted them to physically do i use his efforts as a way to change up the characteristics of the voice i'm creating so you need to use your imagination a bit now why is this useful for the voice well When we start out developing a character or a bunch of characters, it can be difficult sometimes to really separate them apart from each other. And we can get lost without a checklist to kind of make sure that they are very different from each other and they stand out and it doesn't all sound like you. So this list is the first port of call I'd go to to make sure that they're distinctly different. Now there's eight of these efforts. So automatically by following each one, you've got the possibility of doing eight different voices. So let's talk about what they are. You could think of these as physical traits, you could think of these as emotional traits. However they inspire you and however accurately you are able to make them will give you distinct differences already. So if we consider different elements of the voice to be light or strong, then this is the weight of the voice. And if we think of it as being direct or indirect, this is the spatial quality. And lastly, if we think of it as being sudden or sustained, then this is the timing. By taking the two different weights, the two different timings and the two different spatial qualities, we have six things to think about and combining one with the other with the other in different variation gives us eight different outcomes. I know it sounds a bit tricky right now, but don't worry it's going to get easier. So the type of voices we could have is a dabbing voice, a flicking voice, a pressing voice, a thrusting voice, a ringing voice, a slashing voice, a gliding voice and a floating voice. voice you can see these are sort of textures and they already have their own character to them so dabbing is light direct and sudden dabbing is almost like the way tony blair used to speak he always punctuates certain vowels he's always looking forward always going forward but it's short sharp sudden words he chops them up and pushes them out one by one as if he's poking as he's speaking. So that's dabbing. That gives you one characteristic. You may do it slightly differently but you get the idea. The next one would be flicking and that's similar to dabbing but it's less direct. So rather than being on the button it's a bit more flippant and thrown around. Light, sudden but indirect. A bit less focused than the dabbing. A bit more all over the place. Still light but a bit more less directional. And we consider something like that to be flicking. Again you can make your own version up. Next we could have pressing which is strong. sustained and direct if you are speaking directly and sustained and strong notice i've not really changed my accent throughout these i'm still just speaking really in my own dialect let's try floating now so floating is light and sustained but indirect it can be all over and it doesn't really know where it's going It's also sustained, but indirect and a little floaty. Does that make sense? We should be starting to see some strong differences now. So that's four out of eight possible efforts you could put in when creating your character voice. I know you want to get to this yourself and you don't want to be watching me all day, so you can try the other four for yourself and just see how precise you can be getting one different to the next. Have a play with it. See what you can come up with. I've written these down in the description box below and there's also a PDF on my website. Now after those eight efforts and eight different types of voice, we can now add one of three things in. Are they nasally? Do they speak up here in their nose? Or are they throaty? Is it really down here in the throat? Is that where they're speaking from? Or are they speaking regularly with enough with air coming out of the throat and the nose together? There's three options. If you divide those three by eight you've now got 24 different options to play with. You see where this is going? This is just ideas. This is fuel for when you get stuck. Okay, but we've got 24 possible voices we can do now Let's keep going. I need to find something to read for you. I was a bit unprepared. Okay, I've got something So let's say that nasally might sound like this these strings are known for their bold extra bright turn and maybe throaty These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone and then maybe normal These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone. Look three different voices and if we start adding in some of the elements from before maybe i have throaty and floaty these strings are made for their bold extra bright tone already we've got a very different one to to nasally and dabby for example these strings are known for their bold and extra bright tone see look two very different voices you can put all those eight with all those three and we have 24 voices play with it find out for yourself it's going to be fun next we can also now consider two other elements are they breathy or dry Two other different variations. So if we have 24 different types of voices, we now have two extra options to add in. So that's 48 voices already. You've got 48 options you can play with. I told you you could do it, didn't I? But there's more because it doesn't stop there. I want you now to consider their age range. Are they young, middle-aged or old? You can break this down as you want. But are they a child, adult or old person? And this is without practicing. I'm just going to try. I know I'm not gonna sound like a child because I've got a fairly deep voice I can use me trying to sound like a child as a type of voice whether it sounds like a child or not These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone Then an adult would be like my voice these strings are known for their bold extra bright tone There may be an old voice these strings are known for their bold extra bright tone Again three different possibilities of the way you can do it so We were up to 48 right? Times 3 because we've got a new 3 possibilities. That's already 144 different voices you can create from what I've shown you already. But it doesn't stop there! There's more! I said there was gonna be 100. I lied. I'm sorry. There's actually a lot more you can do. But how? Well let's consider this. Are they male or female? I'm not saying that you can sound like a female or you can sound like a male. I'm saying you can do your version of each one and it just gives you more characteristics. These strings are known for their bold, extra bright tone. Maybe that's my version of a woman. I know it's terrible, doesn't sound like a woman, but different to the way I'm going to do it, because I'm going to do it like a man. These strings are known for their bold, extra bright tone. I know they're not brilliant, but at least they're clearly different from each other. With those two options, we now have 288 different character voices we can create. And it still doesn't stop there. There's more, really, yes. Let's consider this. Are they small? Are they medium? Are they large? Maybe if you were doing the voice of a mouse, it would be quite small. And if you were doing an elephant, it would be quite big. Or maybe vice versa, if you wanted to play around with those roles. And maybe medium would be human, or bear, or shark, or something in the middle. There's no strict rule for that, but there's three different things you can think about. Maybe if it was small, it might speak like this. And maybe if it were a medium-sized creature, it might speak like this. And maybe, if it were a large creature, it might speak like this. You see what I mean? So 288 opportunities for voices times another three, small, medium or large. That's 864 different voices. You have no excuses at this point not to do at least five different voices. 864 you have the possibility to do. Right, but there is more. There is absolutely more. Can you believe it? I'm getting excited now. This is crazy. Yes, there is absolutely more because we haven't talked about tempo. Are they speaking slow? Are they speaking medium? Are they speaking fast? Are they rattling off words as quick as can be? Or are they speaking really slowly? Or do they have a regular pace somewhere in the middle? See? Three different ways. Tempos. So, right, we've got 864 times three new ideas. That's 2500 and- 92 opportunities to create a character voice! And it doesn't stop there! There's seriously more things you can do! I know, I know, it's mental. I said 100, you're getting more than I bargained for. Are they quiet? Do they speak at medium volume? OR ON- There's something to think about. There's another three things times three. That's 7,776 options you can have. And what's next? Well, tone. Attitude. What is their attitude? What are they like? Are they friendly? How's it going? Did you have a nice day today? Oh, it's lovely to see you. Are they impartial? Are they, you know, whatever. Hi. Yeah, it was nice to see you. Or... Are they aggressive? That gives three completely different tonalities to the voice. So we times that by three, and this is the number we get. Yep, 23,328 character voice possibilities you can create starting right now. No more excuses. I said 100 and you should easily be able to crack 100 voices because the options are that high. And that is really without even adding in accents. What if we picked 10 accents American... California, American Southern, American New York, Irish, Scottish, RP, Cockney, Indian, Nigerian, South African. That's 10. So we could times that by 10. We've got 233,280 possibilities. Then there's more to think about. Maybe they've got a little lisp. Maybe they're hard of hearing or their sounds are made a different way. It's also reasonably possible that their R's sound like W's. There's already three more things to think about. times three look i'm not going to go any further than this because we now have 699 840 different character voices that you can produce you only need 100 you don't even need that you know if you're a voiceover actor you might even do maximum of 20 in your life because people generally get you in for your own voice but if you can master 100 accents which are distinctly different you'll be working for the rest of your life you But all this knowledge and all this information and all these possibilities that are there for you as a voiceover artist, creating characters, as someone who wants to be a professional, it's all useless unless you learn to use the instrument to make those voices happen. Because if you have restrictions or things about your voice that are really already distinctive that you can't get rid of by choice, then that's going to leave you behind the people who can. I know that's unfortunate for some people but the muscles that make up the voice are like any other muscle and they can be trained So knowing all this is one thing but actually possessing the instrument that works for you because you keep it regularly Exercised is another and if you want to speak each one Effectively and believably you need to be doing daily work Like the pros do if you want your voice to change and you want to be able to manipulate it any way you want You need to be working daily And if you don't have the tools and you need the tools to be able to develop your voice You into a flexible useful instrument for you as a voice actor as an actor as a singer or as a human in general who needs to speak to others to create that resonant articulate powerful flexible voice which can create over half a million voices distinctively different if that's something you want to do if you have a burning desire if you are serious about your voice and bettering it then seriously get your ass over to my online course and start working on it today i've got an eight week fully comprehensive online voice course the exercises in which you need if you want to progress to the next level Okay So get your ass down there now because you've got to get started today If you want to be ahead of everyone else if you don't know where to find my course There's also a link in the description box below. Look, thank you for joining me on this. I hope you've enjoyed it I've really had fun doing it. My name is Darren McStay. This is improve your voice That was how to create over half a million voices, even though I said just a hundred Thanks for joining me, I'll see you soon, until the next time, drink plenty of water, get lots of sleep, go for walks in nature and take care of your voice. See ya.

This is a big one folks so get comfortable because i'm going to blow your socks off so if you're here for this video i'm guessing that you're one of three people you're either an old pro currently stuck for ideas and looking for inspiration a newbie who's completely clueless or someone who just stumbled across the video and so happens to be curious about how it all works either way welcome we're going to be playing with our voices today so i hope you're prepared and warmed up if you're not i suggest going away and doing a warm-up first because we're going to be using our voices today and I want to make sure that you're ready and limber to go. If you don't have any warm-ups, check this video out here, go away, do that, come back and watch this video. And of course, if you can't be arsed, then fine, let's carry on. So as promised, I'm going to show you how you can make... hundred completely different distinctive voices not only that but these 100 voices should be completely unrecognizable from each other that's a bold statement right but you're gonna see why soon are you ready to get started i don't like to mess around so let's just get into it how can you make a hundred different voices first we'll need a pen and paper so pause this video go grab one or get notes up on your phone because we are going to write a checklist together.

So the first thing I do when developing a voice for a character is I look at something that's called Laban Efforts. Laban comes from the name Rudolf Laban. I'm not going to go into who he was right now but if you want to know more about him and his work then there's a link in the description box below.

But in a nutshell he was a movement teacher who developed a system of working to be able to describe the action that was being made which acted as a vocabulary between himself and dancers and later actors so basically a way of communicating what you wanted them to physically do i use his efforts as a way to change up the characteristics of the voice i'm creating so you need to use your imagination a bit now why is this useful for the voice well When we start out developing a character or a bunch of characters, it can be difficult sometimes to really separate them apart from each other. And we can get lost without a checklist to kind of make sure that they are very different from each other and they stand out and it doesn't all sound like you. So this list is the first port of call I'd go to to make sure that they're distinctly different. Now there's eight of these efforts. So automatically by following each one, you've got the possibility of doing eight different voices.

So let's talk about what they are. You could think of these as physical traits, you could think of these as emotional traits. However they inspire you and however accurately you are able to make them will give you distinct differences already. So if we consider different elements of the voice to be light or strong, then this is the weight of the voice.

And if we think of it as being direct or indirect, this is the spatial quality. And lastly, if we think of it as being sudden or sustained, then this is the timing. By taking the two different weights, the two different timings and the two different spatial qualities, we have six things to think about and combining one with the other with the other in different variation gives us eight different outcomes.

I know it sounds a bit tricky right now, but don't worry it's going to get easier. So the type of voices we could have is a dabbing voice, a flicking voice, a pressing voice, a thrusting voice, a ringing voice, a slashing voice, a gliding voice and a floating voice. voice you can see these are sort of textures and they already have their own character to them so dabbing is light direct and sudden dabbing is almost like the way tony blair used to speak he always punctuates certain vowels he's always looking forward always going forward but it's short sharp sudden words he chops them up and pushes them out one by one as if he's poking as he's speaking.

So that's dabbing. That gives you one characteristic. You may do it slightly differently but you get the idea.

The next one would be flicking and that's similar to dabbing but it's less direct. So rather than being on the button it's a bit more flippant and thrown around. Light, sudden but indirect.

A bit less focused than the dabbing. A bit more all over the place. Still light but a bit more less directional.

And we consider something like that to be flicking. Again you can make your own version up. Next we could have pressing which is strong.

sustained and direct if you are speaking directly and sustained and strong notice i've not really changed my accent throughout these i'm still just speaking really in my own dialect let's try floating now so floating is light and sustained but indirect it can be all over and it doesn't really know where it's going It's also sustained, but indirect and a little floaty. Does that make sense? We should be starting to see some strong differences now. So that's four out of eight possible efforts you could put in when creating your character voice. I know you want to get to this yourself and you don't want to be watching me all day, so you can try the other four for yourself and just see how precise you can be getting one different to the next.

Have a play with it. See what you can come up with. I've written these down in the description box below and there's also a PDF on my website.

Now after those eight efforts and eight different types of voice, we can now add one of three things in. Are they nasally? Do they speak up here in their nose?

Or are they throaty? Is it really down here in the throat? Is that where they're speaking from? Or are they speaking regularly with enough with air coming out of the throat and the nose together? There's three options.

If you divide those three by eight you've now got 24 different options to play with. You see where this is going? This is just ideas.

This is fuel for when you get stuck. Okay, but we've got 24 possible voices we can do now Let's keep going. I need to find something to read for you.

I was a bit unprepared. Okay, I've got something So let's say that nasally might sound like this these strings are known for their bold extra bright turn and maybe throaty These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone and then maybe normal These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone. Look three different voices and if we start adding in some of the elements from before maybe i have throaty and floaty these strings are made for their bold extra bright tone already we've got a very different one to to nasally and dabby for example these strings are known for their bold and extra bright tone see look two very different voices you can put all those eight with all those three and we have 24 voices play with it find out for yourself it's going to be fun next we can also now consider two other elements are they breathy or dry Two other different variations. So if we have 24 different types of voices, we now have two extra options to add in. So that's 48 voices already.

You've got 48 options you can play with. I told you you could do it, didn't I? But there's more because it doesn't stop there. I want you now to consider their age range.

Are they young, middle-aged or old? You can break this down as you want. But are they a child, adult or old person? And this is without practicing. I'm just going to try.

I know I'm not gonna sound like a child because I've got a fairly deep voice I can use me trying to sound like a child as a type of voice whether it sounds like a child or not These strings are known for their bold extra bright tone Then an adult would be like my voice these strings are known for their bold extra bright tone There may be an old voice these strings are known for their bold extra bright tone Again three different possibilities of the way you can do it so We were up to 48 right? Times 3 because we've got a new 3 possibilities. That's already 144 different voices you can create from what I've shown you already.

But it doesn't stop there! There's more! I said there was gonna be 100. I lied. I'm sorry.

There's actually a lot more you can do. But how? Well let's consider this.

Are they male or female? I'm not saying that you can sound like a female or you can sound like a male. I'm saying you can do your version of each one and it just gives you more characteristics.

These strings are known for their bold, extra bright tone. Maybe that's my version of a woman. I know it's terrible, doesn't sound like a woman, but different to the way I'm going to do it, because I'm going to do it like a man.

These strings are known for their bold, extra bright tone. I know they're not brilliant, but at least they're clearly different from each other. With those two options, we now have 288 different character voices we can create.

And it still doesn't stop there. There's more, really, yes. Let's consider this.

Are they small? Are they medium? Are they large?

Maybe if you were doing the voice of a mouse, it would be quite small. And if you were doing an elephant, it would be quite big. Or maybe vice versa, if you wanted to play around with those roles. And maybe medium would be human, or bear, or shark, or something in the middle. There's no strict rule for that, but there's three different things you can think about.

Maybe if it was small, it might speak like this. And maybe if it were a medium-sized creature, it might speak like this. And maybe, if it were a large creature, it might speak like this.

You see what I mean? So 288 opportunities for voices times another three, small, medium or large. That's 864 different voices. You have no excuses at this point not to do at least five different voices.

864 you have the possibility to do. Right, but there is more. There is absolutely more. Can you believe it?

I'm getting excited now. This is crazy. Yes, there is absolutely more because we haven't talked about tempo.

Are they speaking slow? Are they speaking medium? Are they speaking fast? Are they rattling off words as quick as can be? Or are they speaking really slowly?

Or do they have a regular pace somewhere in the middle? See? Three different ways.

Tempos. So, right, we've got 864 times three new ideas. That's 2500 and- 92 opportunities to create a character voice! And it doesn't stop there!

There's seriously more things you can do! I know, I know, it's mental. I said 100, you're getting more than I bargained for. Are they quiet? Do they speak at medium volume?

OR ON- There's something to think about. There's another three things times three. That's 7,776 options you can have. And what's next? Well, tone.

Attitude. What is their attitude? What are they like?

Are they friendly? How's it going? Did you have a nice day today?

Oh, it's lovely to see you. Are they impartial? Are they, you know, whatever. Hi.

Yeah, it was nice to see you. Or... Are they aggressive?

That gives three completely different tonalities to the voice. So we times that by three, and this is the number we get. Yep, 23,328 character voice possibilities you can create starting right now.

No more excuses. I said 100 and you should easily be able to crack 100 voices because the options are that high. And that is really without even adding in accents.

What if we picked 10 accents American... California, American Southern, American New York, Irish, Scottish, RP, Cockney, Indian, Nigerian, South African. That's 10. So we could times that by 10. We've got 233,280 possibilities. Then there's more to think about. Maybe they've got a little lisp.

Maybe they're hard of hearing or their sounds are made a different way. It's also reasonably possible that their R's sound like W's. There's already three more things to think about.

times three look i'm not going to go any further than this because we now have 699 840 different character voices that you can produce you only need 100 you don't even need that you know if you're a voiceover actor you might even do maximum of 20 in your life because people generally get you in for your own voice but if you can master 100 accents which are distinctly different you'll be working for the rest of your life you But all this knowledge and all this information and all these possibilities that are there for you as a voiceover artist, creating characters, as someone who wants to be a professional, it's all useless unless you learn to use the instrument to make those voices happen. Because if you have restrictions or things about your voice that are really already distinctive that you can't get rid of by choice, then that's going to leave you behind the people who can. I know that's unfortunate for some people but the muscles that make up the voice are like any other muscle and they can be trained So knowing all this is one thing but actually possessing the instrument that works for you because you keep it regularly Exercised is another and if you want to speak each one Effectively and believably you need to be doing daily work Like the pros do if you want your voice to change and you want to be able to manipulate it any way you want You need to be working daily And if you don't have the tools and you need the tools to be able to develop your voice You into a flexible useful instrument for you as a voice actor as an actor as a singer or as a human in general who needs to speak to others to create that resonant articulate powerful flexible voice which can create over half a million voices distinctively different if that's something you want to do if you have a burning desire if you are serious about your voice and bettering it then seriously get your ass over to my online course and start working on it today i've got an eight week fully comprehensive online voice course the exercises in which you need if you want to progress to the next level Okay So get your ass down there now because you've got to get started today If you want to be ahead of everyone else if you don't know where to find my course There's also a link in the description box below.

Look, thank you for joining me on this. I hope you've enjoyed it I've really had fun doing it. My name is Darren McStay.

This is improve your voice That was how to create over half a million voices, even though I said just a hundred Thanks for joining me, I'll see you soon, until the next time, drink plenty of water, get lots of sleep, go for walks in nature and take care of your voice. See ya.

Transcript for:Creating Diverse Distinctive Voices

Transcript for:
Creating Diverse Distinctive Voices