Accent Jim

I can’t help but use the term “Nice Person Voice” sometimes…  This is the voice you likely put on when you answer the phone, not knowing who it is - so you damned well better be nice, just in case it’s someone important!  

One way to describe this Nice voice is that you probably go up slightly in pitch, and you leave behind almost any trace of your chest resonance.  In addition to your phone voice, you probably use this when you are greeting someone meaninglessly:  ”Hi, how are you?”  ”I’m good - how ‘bout you?”  Nice Person Voice.

A few years ago, I was in the holding room waiting to go in to audition for a commercial for which they had called in faaaaaar too many people, so I ended up with plenty of time to stare off into space.  (I’d have worked on lines, but there weren’t any - it was an improv audition.  At least it was MY bad writing that way…)

While I was waiting, the casting director’s assistant came out for a moment, and she happened to recognize me - she’d taken a workshop with me in Colorado a couple of years before, so she happily remembered my name.  I happily was able to hear the check-in person call her by name.  That’s why she was employing and I was auditioning…

When I came into the room with the casting director, she introduced me as a voice teacher, and the casting director groaned, “Oh, we could have used you today!”  ”Oh, yeah?”  ”Yes.  Nobody’s using their real voice; they’re all so breathy and high pitched!”  ”Nice Person Voice?” I asked.  ”Exactly! Ugh!”

We went on to discuss it further, but the issue was that - especially because it was an on-camera audition in a small room - people were using their tiny voice that lacked the low-end, the chest resonance.  There’s soooo much more to be said about chest resonance, the enemy of Nice Person Voice, but that’s for another time, and a little video and audio explanation.

But I didn’t get the commercial.  Bastards.