Read Read Read: It's at the core of becoming a Great Voice Artist!

• In whatever form it may be, fiction or nonfiction, advertisements or books. Reading as an aspiring voice artist is essential. So if you are keen on deep-diving into the world of voice overs, make sure to read out loud.

• Apart from improving your vocabulary in that particular language, reading actually helps you with various underlying skills needed to be an effective voice-over artist in India, or abroad.

Helps you memorize and concentrate

• As an aspiring voice artist, it’s important that you focus on your verbal skills, and when you’re reading aloud, you are exercising your mind to be more focused and cohesive.

Think about it, when you physically say the words, it becomes easier for you to memorize as it requires your concentration to comprehend and pronounce the words. For example, do you remember the nursery rhymes you heard when you were a kid? You probably remember them, because they were spoken out loud to you and you repeated them, not because you read them. So, you’re not only building up your mind and your voice to the full extent but also increasing your ability to memorize, and it will be of great help when you’re reading a longer piece of narration.

Increases your reading comprehension

• Obviously, we all have individual approaches when it comes to learning something new and there are definitely various ways of learning, but when you are reading aloud, it kind of incorporates both your visual and audio learning into it. You are forced to slow down, to focus and better understand the words. One of the indications to a great voiceover is when you fully emote the script and that can only happen when you have a full comprehension of what you’re reading.
• You can achieve this by implementing reading strategies so that you are able to understand, extract meaning that will make it easier for you to deliver the lines as the author intended them. Now as a voice artist, you really have to grab the attention of the audience by understanding what you're saying, why you're saying it, and where the words are ultimately taking you. After all, spoken words are much more powerful than what you only hear in your head. You are able to understand the deeper layers of meaning and it not only improves your vocabulary but also influences your language skills.

Enhances your vocabulary

• If you want to be a pro voice artist, you need to have fluency or hold of a language, and reading out loud definitely helps you with it as it forces you to pronounce unfamiliar words while reading a script, helping you learn a new word that you are likely able to use in your vocabulary. Reading aloud also helps you grasp the different grammatical nuances of speech as you are able to understand what is grammatically correct and what is not. Let's say, if you are like me, the trick here is to just read the words as it is without understanding what it means, and then later, you can just go back to reading them with the intent of understanding the meaning (Google always has my back here!). This has been very effective as it's just pushing you to enhance your range of vocabulary so that you can speak more fluently and efficiently.

Strengthens your vocal tone and inflections

• Vocal tone is an important aspect of an effective voice artist since you have to deliver the words like you mean them and sounding dull isn’t an option. Reading out loud definitely helps with this, exercising your vocal cords, bringing clarity to your voice and boosting your performance. It will help you realize your natural vocal tone and enhance it to its full potential, with time. Infact, with a bit of practive, you can also make your voice more distinct by changing your pitch and loudness as per the requirement of the script.
• Vocal Inflections simply mean the changes in pitch and tone of your voice to enhance the emotion of the script, simply put. We often tend to hear strategic pauses and various of tone in scripts to emphasize on a particular part of an interest in the script, this is something that can only be achieved by reading out loud with an emotion in mind. Remember, your voice can make the meaning of words sound completely different, by only your change in vocal tone and inflections. For example, while saying the sentence, “I did not know the truth”, you can sound suprised, upset, happy etc, by simply changing your voice's inflection.

Ensures good listening skills

• Now Active listening denotes going beyond just hearing words, but truly being able to understand and internalize them. It goes without saying that reading aloud requires you to be more aware as both a reader and a listener. It is also more effective in interpreting what the words are trying to convey for you to express it in spoken words. Reading definitely has its benefits as you’re able to analyze and identify proper grammar, sentence structure, and so on. It not only widens your literary knowledge but also makes you deliver lines so much more efficiently. In fact, as an aspiring artist, you must listen to others' work, study their style, their pauses, their tone, and maybe take in a bit of that flair to develop your own unique style as a voice artist.

So just reiterating that, make sure you read and read as much as you can and becoming a pro VO artist is only a matter of time.

Written by: Priyanka Laishram | Editor: Dylin Gomes | For www.voicesbazaar.com

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