What are prerequisites for a radio announcer's voice?

correction in question above: ...are children “who” speak loudly…

as the owner of a smooth, sexy voice (“it’s like red velvet cake on vasaline, covered in a goose down duvet.” said one), i’m gonna tell you: it’s projection. speak from your diaphragm. and enunciate! you project your emotions through your voice.

@eponymoushipster yes, absolutely. my youngest son speaks so loudly and clearly we have to say, chris, can you bring it down a few decibels? but actually it’s a good thing.

@charliecompany34 definitely. you give an air of confidence with your voice. Listen to how people read when they’re “cold reading” something, as opposed to someone who’s practiced. a WORLD of difference. we tend to speak down, and low, slower because we’re less sure of what’s being said, how to present it. and people can tell we aren’t sure.

if you speak at an audible, yet not obnoxious level, it automatically defines you as more assured.

Sometimes, in the classroom, i change the volume down or up a notch, and it will stop people in their tracks, because they’ve caught onto the fact that the volume isn’t the same, even if they (and they typically aren’t) listening to the words themselves.

a good example

think about how walter cronkite typically sound(s/ed), and then listen to him when he says Kennedy is dead.

@eponymoushipster thanks for the tips. i see your point. i also work the classroom and i find i get results when i slow down and lower my voice for effect and/or drama. it truly is all about projection and enunciation. my oldest son, a teenager, mumbles everything and i’m like “what did you say???!”

for some reason, he feels talking this way is cool and un-hyped. i remind him that speaking clearly is perfectly ok and does not mean you are a nerd. open your mouth and speak clearly!

Hey, while the pros are at it, how do you know when you’re speaking from the diaphragm? I have heard my own recorded voice recently, and while I’m great at enunciating, I am high-pitched and a bit nasal. How can I change that?

@charliecompany34 you know what’s really funny about that, and maybe this is part of the issue, but Dane Cook, who admittedly isn’t very popular anymore, made a killing by super enunciating everything.

of course, too, teens, have long thought that. It might be from the same roots as “being smart is uncool.” and of course, with some, it’s a sense of self-importance “i can talk how i want, because i’m better than others.”

@aprilsimnel funny you mentioned that, but actually some radio announcers also sound, well, nasal. two that i listen to, a traffic person and a sports dude, both sound either “nasaly” or as if they have a cold, but that’s the actual voice and for some reason it works. .

@aprilsimnel i’ve heard people say that laying flat on the floor is a good way to pratice, because it forces you to speak/breathe from that part of your body. Lay your hands on your belly, exhale, and push out with your gut. then, when you speak, try to pull the air out from their, not your throat.

i mean, there are probably tutorials for it somewhere online.

hmmmm. i getting on the floor right now. stand by.

@charliecompany34 this raises an interesting question: what would video fluther be like?

@aprilsimnel damn, that works!

video fluther? i think we’d be repulsed at some of the stuff we’d see, but hey, we can make it happen. please expound…

well, certain things (not all – obviously, stuff like – have you had a cervical biopsy) lend themselves to a visual explanation (“How do you make the best coffee?”, “How do I create a company file in QuickBooks?”, etc.), because either they’re too complex or just more visually oriented.

what if you could upload a video to answer a question?

i guess, in theory, you could upload to YouTube and link it, but i mean, it would be cool to simply play it inline with the other comments. Maybe there’s a way to do that, Fluther?

yes, i concur. fluther??

@eponymoushipster @aprilsimnel: be right back guys. i gotta go to foodnetwrork for a curry chicken recipe.

enjoyed our three-way!

Thanks, I’ll try the floor exercise.

ok, got the curry recipe. you guys on the floor for real?

Depends on the type of show methinks.
Sports talk is very different than music programs.

I think classical music radio announcers may be
the one reason I don’t listen to more classical music.

Love classical music. Hate their radio announcers.
The criteria seems to be: most boring person alive.

@charliecompany34 no, i had to eat dinner. i have a class to teach in 25min.

@eponymoushipster Thanks for the JFK site. It, as always, gives me cold chills.

@chyna sorry if it was emotional, i just thought it was a really good example of marked change in a voice. people have always noted Cronkite’s voice in that instance, how his whole demeanor changed.

Not sure about the voice…
I know they need small hands…

Wee Paws for Station Identification…

@boffin oh, now that’s funny!

I used to be a broadcast announcer. OK, OK, it was on Guam and in South Dakota.

@eponymoushipster, that was one of my voices about 20 years ago. Maybe even 10. I can still do “platinum-titanium blade with complex filigree basket hilt, sheathed in solid emerald, nestled in a bed of cream cashmere” if I gargle tea tree oil mouthwash, then sing hymns and carols or Andrea Bocelli on the way to the studio.

I started consciously training my voice at about age 12, after reading an article in Reader’s Digest about how having a whiny or nasal voice puts people off. I practiced.

To begin with, though, my grandfather read to me in a wonderful, expressive voice starting from the time I could sit on his lap with out sliding down too bad. He read to me for hours on the porch swing to keep me out from under my mother’s feet; I wish I had known then that he was my grandfather! Anyway, I started reading aloud at about 4. My 1st-grade teacher made me go sit in the hall and listen to the dumbest person in the class try to read aloud, because I spoiled the curve for the rest of them.

I wound up reading to him, too. Poor Curtis.

Teachers in the 2nd and 3rd and 4th grades at the elementary school on Ramey AFB, PR, allowed me to go read to younger classes while my class read aloud.

It was all great practice, sans accent — though a military raising is a great exposure to accents!

I’m really not good at radio announcing, not spontaneous enough. I need a script, so doing voice talent, or as they are finally acknowledging it, voice acting, is much better work for me. Lots more lucrative.

When people ask me how I got into voice work, I say, “Wanted to.” I am not sure I’d have wanted to if I didn’t know in my heart I had a great voice. I grinned, amazed, the first time I heard myself on tape through my Sennheiser lightweights (outstanding headphones that they may still make).

@Sorceren-what is/was your mic of choice for voice work? Just curious…

@sndfreQ—Shure, I think. Sennheiser. Neumann. What’s yours?

I have a tube Neumann-although it’s a newer one from the late 90s…like butta!