Laws of Nature????

Not sure of you have had the same experience...

Some auditions are okay, some are better.  Some send a chill down my spine they are so good.  The ones that I'm dead sure will be picked up as the best of the lot.

Yet these are the ones that never seem to get listened to.

I have been running consistently just shy of a 23% no-listen rate on my VO auditions and it's always the stellar efforts that are left out in the cold.

 It's like dropping a piece of jelly-bread; it always lands face down...

What we have here is...

Note to self - remember this.

I was taking myself too seriously last week when it came to VO.  Consequently I let the demon on my shoulder take over, nasty little bastard that he is.
Thanx to the best mentor ever and the help of the VO community, as The Captain from Cool Hand Luke was want to say,  I got my mind right.

And the Learning Continues

One would have thought with all the years I spent working in a record store - for you millennials, that's a retail store you walked into that sold things like vinyl albums and 45s, and cassettes and 8-track tapes (just google it for more information) - and all the years I worked in radio coupled with my love of music, that somewhere along the line I would have heard at least one Leonard Cohen song. Even all the jokes on The Young Ones didn't spur me on. (No one listens to me anyway.  I might as well be a Leonard Cohen record).

Today, however, driven by an audition that wanted singing in the style of a specific LC song, I subjected myself for the first time to listening to Mr. Cohen's work.  You never know where the VO biz will lead you.

The fact that I sung this audition is a whole other deal. I don't pose a great threat to Andrea Bocelli or Harry Connick, Jr.

Things I've Learned Thus Far

The world is not waiting to hear my voice...and that's ok.

For all those clients that want a Sam Elliott voice - hire Sam Elliott.

Changing my voice alone does not create believable characters.  Becoming the character does.

My biggest issue is not technical or vocal. It's keeping that nasty little demon off my shoulder that whispers in my ear that my work sucks, my voice sucks, etc etc.  I'm keeping a dust broom handy to brush him off my shoulders.

I have my vocal limitations and it's okay to work within those.  I don't have to audition for everything.

My expectations pull a Tasmanian Devil when I start comparing myself to 20 year veterans.
Hello !?!?  McFly !?!!?!?

Most importantly....

I really love doing this.  Beats the corporate world hands down.