The Voice Over Student: Are You Teachable? Part 2

Finally!!! A long time ago I wrote Part 1 of this blog about the Teachability Index and how it correlates to Voice Over training and work. In that post we discussed the side of the Teachability Index that relates to your willingness to learn. If you haven't read that one please do that now and then come back. I'll wait.

Now that you have decided that you have a high willingness to learn, that is you are willing to sacrifice to learn, we can move on to the next part - Willingness to Accept Change.

This is the part that is difficult for some people. Change can be challenging. Change can be tedious. Change can be painful. It can force us to look at ourselves in a new way and adapt.



How does this relate to Voice Over? Here is one example. Many Voice Actors, prior to actually doing VO work, probably heard someone say "You should be on the radio", or "You should do Monster Truck commercials".  Now maybe that sounded exciting so we practiced a bunch of scripts in that radio or announcer voice, thinking that everything needed to sound loud and deep. Maybe we eventually reached out to a Voice Coach to let him hear what we are able to do.....only to be given constructive criticism.  It is at that moment, the moment when we do not hear what we want to hear, that this side of the Teachability Index comes into play. We were forced to make a decision, accept the change or quit.

Happily, many decide to discard their pride and become teachable. They realize that others know more than them and that if they want to succeed, they must change their thinking.

Why is this so important when it come to VO work? It is actually the fulcrum upon which success depends. The person who refuses to acknowledge this will refuse to accept coaching suggestions, they will look for shortcuts, they may decide to record their own demo, and they will pay the price for that. On the off chance that they do get a job, they may even refuse to follow the direction of the client. Do that and your career is over.

So what does all of this mean? Let's quantify it. In Part 1 we had you choose on a scale of 1-10 your willingness to learn. Now do the same thing on your willingness to accept change. Where are you on that same 1-10 scale? The higher your willingness to acquiesce your own ideas and listen to people who really know this industry, the higher your score.

Now take the number from Part 1 and multiply it with this number. The closer to 100 you get (10 willingness to learn times a 10 willingness to accept change), the higher the potential to be successful. Do you have to be at a 100%? No. In fact, honestly very few people are. 

So, how can this information be summarized? What this means is that we should never stop learning. Never stop progressing. Never stop upgrading. Accept the help and mentoring of others. Be humble and you are well on your way to Voice Over success.

Please comment and share.

Voice Over Tips - Warming Up

Voice Over Tips - Warming Up

Are you preparing for a day of recording? Here is a video I made to discuss tips on warming up your voice.

Enjoy and please share, like and comment. And don't forget to visit www.pacificvoiceover.com to hear my demos.

The Voice Over Student: Are You Teachable? Part 1

I am a Voice Over Student. 

And if you are reading this right now you are at least interested in the subject. It does not matter whether you have been learning about Voice Over for 2 days, 2 months, 2 years or 2 decades, there is something you must do - Never Stop Being A Student! Even if you are a seasoned and successful Voice Actor you must never stop learning.

Perhaps you have heard the saying "If you are not growing, you are dying". That is true no matter what you are pursuing in life. You must continue learning. If a doctor quit learning about medical advancements as soon as he earned his degree, he would quickly fail as a physician and probably lose his license. If a computer programmer never upgraded his equipment his usefulness would evaporate quickly. 

This is true in Voice Over too. We must be willing to learn in order to advance. 

To this end, I want to introduce you to something called the Teachability Index. This is just a simple tool designed to measure your teachability - your ability to learn and apply new information. However, although the concept may be simple, the application of it in pursuit of your goals can be complex.

There are 2 aspects to the Teachability Index:

1. Willingness to Learn
2. Willingness to Accept Change

This blog post today will discuss part 1 - Willingness to Learn - as it relates to Voice Over. The next post will discuss part 2 and how to quantify your Teachabilty Index.

So, are you willing to learn? The simple answer to this question for any Voice Over Student is "YES"! Many people want to learn how to do this. But wanting to learn and being willing to learn are 2 different things. It is like WISHING something would happen vs MAKING something happen.

How do you know if you have a high willingness to learn about Voice Over? Here is the litmus test: What are you willing to give up in order to learn? Be honest - What are you REALLY willing to give up?

Here are a few things that you may need to sacrifice to learn:

• Money - Are you willing to pay a real teacher, a real mentor to instruct and coach you? Because if you are not willing to invest in yourself, how can you ever expect anyone to invest in you? Maybe you can even consider cutting back on the money you spend eating out or going to the movies and use it on building your studio or having professional demos created..
• Time - Are you willing to give your VO lessons the time needed to sink into your brain? Elaboration on this below, but this includes TV, playing video games, golfing,etc.
• Pride - If you think you have a voice made for VO, you better be willing to knock that down a few notches and really listen to your coach. 
• Your Lunch Hour - If you have a Full-Time Job, how do you spend your lunch hour and breaks? Playing on your tablet? Taking a power nap? Use those times to listen to VO Podcasts or YouTube videos, read and practice scripts from your coach, read VO blogs, etc. Sacrifice that time to learn.
• Evenings - Maybe your bedtime is 9:00pm...you better be ready to make that later. This may be the only time you can actually record scripts for your coach...or for a paying client in the future.

You get the picture, you need to buy time from other things and use it to learn the VO business. 

Now, honestly, rate yourself on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being totally willing to sacrifice and learn. The higher the number, the better. Keep that score for the sequel to this blog.

This just scratches the surface. Next time I will discuss the other part of the Teachability Index - Willingness to Accept Change. If you can score high you will be on your way to VO Success.

See you next time.....Jeff B

If you like this please share and comment below!

Part 2 is available by CLICKING HERE.

Audacity 2.0 Manual

The Audacity 2.0 Manual

Audacity is a free sound editing program available for download at http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/.

The manual for its use is located at http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/index.html.


However, at times I like having a hardcopy to carry and read. So. if you are interested here is the manual in Word.

You can download this from Google drive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9X4fSYH_JUkbXhFY2RCdGNWbDA/view?usp=sharing

Hope this helps!

So, Basically, all I did was copy and paste every page from the online manual.....so if not every thing is there you can go to the online manual.

Copyright: Unless otherwise noted, all pages in this Manual are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In essence, you are free to (1) copy, distribute and transmit the work (2) to adapt the work, under condition you must attribute the work to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from us.