How Has Your Voice Evolved Since You Joined Librivox?

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » October 29th, 2016, 12:16 am

I believe I've noticed a trend ... I know it applies to the time since MY first recording ... whereby readers, as they become more experienced, pitch their voices a bit deeper when they record.

I also think that, as the monthly poetry recordings mounted up, I became a lot less "afraid" of my Australian accent.

I'd be interested to know how other recording artists, both amateur and professional, believe they have evolved during their Librivox years.

Son of the Exiles

gypsygirl · Post by **gypsygirl** » October 29th, 2016, 6:10 am

I've slowed down - and since I'm still considered a fairly speedy reader, you can imagine what some of my earlier recordings were like!

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » October 29th, 2016, 8:38 am

... and I've speeded up. I just listened to my first piece catalogued (The Cow, by Robert Louis Stevenson), and it's glacially slow. I'm up to almost my normal conversational speed in my recordings now.

To my ears, the actual voice quality sounds about the same.
Peter

Kangaroo692 · Post by **Kangaroo692** » October 29th, 2016, 8:50 am

While being at LV my voice has changed, so that the voice you hear on my earlier recordings is a lot different from what I've done recently, I think lower.

barbara2 · Post by **barbara2** » October 29th, 2016, 7:37 pm

SonOfTheExiles wrote:I believe I've noticed a trend ... I know it applies to the time since MY first recording ... whereby readers, as they become more experienced, pitch their voices a bit deeper when they record.

I also think that, as the monthly poetry recordings mounted up, I became a lot less "afraid" of my Australian accent.

I'd be interested to know how other recording artists, both amateur and professional, believe they have evolved during their Librivox years.

Son of the Exiles

Yes, lower and softer and closer to the mic and faster (using pauses rather than slow talking). My voice is one of the oldest on Librivox, so I have to work harder than most to sound OK and I keep trying new things.

I read all the advice I could get hold of before I started recording and took it too seriously, particularly the speaking slowly and keeping a distance from the mic to avoid pops and mouth noises. I didn't check my recordings on headphones afterwards but recently, after some critical feedback, I did. And in my early recordings I was mooing away like a husky cow using a loud speaker to address a gathering of the herds. It amplified the Australian accent too.

I'm still evolving.

Best,

Barbara

J_N · Post by **J_N** » October 31st, 2016, 3:30 am

In general, as we age our voices get lower... I think this is especially true for female voices... they also tend to get softer when we get really old

I think I am still a fairly fast reader (at least in German), but am more aware now, and try to go a bit slower... I am not considered a fast talker in everyday life, though (not slow either, just normal)... It's really odd...

I wonder if it is a German/Austrian thing...

anything else, I think, is down to getting used to my own voice...

Newgatenovelist · Post by **Newgatenovelist** » November 2nd, 2016, 12:15 pm

I don't know about the physiology of my voice changing, but my real life delivery has changed. Earlier this year I saw a friend who I'd not seen for two years, and she asked if I'd had elocution lessons since we'd last met.

Sue Anderson · Post by **Sue Anderson** » November 3rd, 2016, 5:10 pm

I've consciously tried to get the harsh, "a" sound out of my voice, which was particularly grating to me in the way the word "grass" would screech in the recordings. And sometimes now I modify the "r" sound that comes from my Washington State accent (Washington pronounced "Waarshington.")

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » November 3rd, 2016, 10:34 pm

I really must listen to some of your recordings to see if I can get a lock on the Pacific Northwest accent. A recent Banjo Paterson recording I did featured an American character, the voice part for which I provided was, I gather, "Indeterminate Southern".

I must say, the old Fort Laramie radio shows are great for people trying to do regional US accents.

SOTE

stoogeswoman · Post by **stoogeswoman** » November 7th, 2016, 2:04 pm

I don't know if my voice has, but my audio editing skills have improved so I can *make* my voice sound better!