Voice schools for VO talents
jaybeacham 13 Apr 2012 | : blog
A guy named Tyrone Houston asked this question:
Why don’t voice over schools teach you how to learn other languages?
Many answered. I even put in a comment.
German is my second language and I can teach it.Yes but accent makes a voice different even in a foreign language.I know a girl from the UK who lives in USA and her different accent making her unique and gives her jobs I can’t get. But you know a good voice talent can do authentic accents in Engish and other languages.Lots of language programs out there. Pimsleur is a very good one. Language Quest .com/Pimsleur. I’m not their salesman but have used their program.
Then the discussion went to “stay in your own language, never go out, specialize.”
I couldn’t take it any longer so added this comment:
“All interesting comments.
Following the links to a couple of commenter’s pages I found two very good voice talents in their demos.
When I first attempted to start in the online Voice scene, I listened to a man from Argentina. He did work in Spanish of course but also in English and several other languages. I can’t comment on his delivery in anything but the English. I could not discern that he was not a native North American English speaker. He was that good.
I met a man once from South America who said to me, “You speak German don’t you?”
I asked how he knew that. He responded, “By the way you speak English.”
I’m a native North American. How could he know that?
I later met a man and we became friends who, as a native North American English speaker(a former NFL player), could tell a person where they grew up in the US and every town they had ever lived in by the way they spoke English.
I used to be able to pinpoint within 7 miles of a person’s town of residence in German speaking countries by their dialect. Once I told a man with a group they sounded like they were from Munich. He said no none of them were but they all currently lived in Munich.
So with skill some people can pinpoint one’s dialect but as a rule “no one cares.”
Let’s take accents for an instance Yule Breyner the actor. I could never tell where his accent was from but it kept serving him well on stage, in film and in voice work his whole life.
The American Bill Ramsey became a singing and acting sensation in Germany. He spoke and sang in either language so well no one knew where he was from.
Some of my German speaking friend say I have “ein perfektes deutsch.”
The bottom line on this side discussion of why voice schools don’t teach languages or in the online voice world at all is: If the producer likes a voice and it is available in the time frame required and the customer likes it, the voice talent gets the job, If not then not.
Its that simple.