12. Tune into your voice - a Singapore special
From a studio in Singapore, local broadcaster JOE AUGUSTIN describes the power of the microphone, how sounding good can be a battle against instinct and why he wishes the world was more about THE VOICE.
Transcript
Sally: Hey, guess what? That Voice Podcast is going international, well went international. Stay tuned to hear the deep dulcet tones of one of Singapore's most well known radio personalities.
I'm Sally Prosser and you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.
If you've been following me on social for a while, you might remember I went to Singapore earlier this year for a biz-cation. I was over there for a change of scenery to put together my online program Speak to be Heard, which is now available and also so I could say I drank a Singapore sling in Singapore. Yeah, I know I'm a bit corny, but I do take my cocktails very seriously. So while I was there, I also took the opportunity to chat to a very cool guy for my podcast, which was only a little pod baby in my mind at that stage. I bailed up broadcaster Joe Augustin. Joe worked in radio heading up successful programs in Singapore for more than 20 years. Now he runs his own business doing voice-overs, speaking gigs and coaching, kind of like me. He also hosts his own podcast, the TMI podcast, and he's pretty much an audio engineer. So I really hope Joe, you don't cringe when you hear this episode played out because I am recording it from my wardrobe. So now let me take you back to a rainy old day in Singapore.
Joe, thanks so much for joining That Voice Podcast. Welcome.
Joe: I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much for having me.
Sally: So my first question is always the same. Could you do your job if you lost your voice?
Joe: Right now? It'd be a very inconvenient thing. Yeah. Cause as a, as a voiceover, as an MC, as a coach, and as a father I'd say very difficult to not have a voice - as a husband that is something to think about.
Sally: And it's such a relevant point because a lot of people think about their voice in their professional setting, but it is more valuable in a personal setting, wouldn't you say?
Joe: Oh listen, it's absolutely the biggest thing. And people don't think very much about the value of the words carried on the human voice. I can send you a whole bunch of words and you might interpret it the way you would, but when it's done correctly, when it's you know, communicated with a voice, then you get to understand, you know, what the meaning behind everything is. So for me that's, that's the huge thing as in like most people end up nowadays sending out texts to each other and they don't think about the voice. And I wish the world was more about the voice, because there would be so much less that would happen. I think that could go wrong if it came with a voice. You know how many times you've gone on the internet and you see a post that to you means something and you react to it and then after a while you realize, Oh, that was something else that wasn't that at all. Or the worst thing that happens on the internet is sarcasm that doesn't go right. Right?
Sally: Absolutely. Words without emphasis or inflection or tone, all of these things can be totally misinterpreted. And we see it happen all the time. Yeah. So in your field you would have a lot more awareness of the voice than the average person. So how much in your day-to-day life do you think about the delivery of your voice.
Joe: It depends how close a microphone is. It's the curse of being a broadcaster and also being a bit of an engineer. So I'm looking at the audio in terms of wave forms, I'm listening to it and now as an interviewee, I'm still thinking about all the audio aspects and what it sounds like. So how much I focus on, it really depends on the context, right? In-Person, when I'm just speaking to someone and talking, I'm a lot less careful about my voice. So you know, we had breakfast earlier this morning and I'm fully aware that that experience can sometimes create doubt as to whether or not I am the person I'm supposed to be right because I really don't bother as much when I'm not on a microphone. I put my guard down. In terms of personality as well. I'm just much more docile. I would say I'm much more of the introvert without a microphone because I'm not thinking about the process, so that kicks in, the personality kicks in, and then the voice that has the drive, the personality kicks in as well. It's a complex thing, which if I had to think about, I'm sure I would just fall over myself, but because I've done it for 30 years, it's just the regular pair of work shoes that I put on and then now I'm ready for work.
Sally: It's become automatic. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of people they'll freeze up if they've got a camera or a microphone put in front of them, but like you I'm a broadcaster and I'm like 'give me a microphone' and 'give me a camera.' Yeah, I take it up a notch. So Joe has his own podcast, the TMI podcast. You should definitely check it out. So how does it feel being on the other side of the microphone?
Joe: It's always interesting when focus is put on yourself, because now as you answer, you realize that you know that the spotlight is actually on you. Being an interviewer is a lot easier for me because being the interviewer means all you have to do is pay attention and then let curiosity guide you with the next thought. Being the interviewee means that you're supposed to have something worthwhile to say, hopefully. Right. So you're going through that math in your mind and that self assessment and that audit that goes like, I hope this is interesting. I hope this is useful. And I hope that this sets me up to look like someone who was worth interviewing in the first place.
Sally: This is interesting because earlier on when I was the interviewee for your podcast. I said at the end, was that alright? Was that what you needed? Yeah. And you said, don't worry about what I want. Yeah. But then when you're in this position, it is easy to go to that as the first thought, isn't it?
Joe: Yeah. You know, the old thing, right? I mean do as I say, not as I do, it is one of the hardest things to do, which is really to shut off some of the processes that are going on in the background. A lot of it is instantaneous. It is a reaction and therefore is instinctual. You really have to battle the instincts, right? For instance, remembering to breathe. I mean you and I, we do this for a living and yet we'll find ourselves in situations where we go like, what's happening? You feel dry throat, you feel you can't go on and then you realize, Oh, hang on, I forgot to do something very important. You breathe and then, Oh, that feels a lot better. Right?
Sally: Absolutely. Yes. I found myself in that position a little earlier. So Joe, you have a lovely voice. You have a lovely broadcasting voice. Have you had any training?
Joe: Yes. I mean the first answer they was going to say just before I, I said yes was no because you know, there's a, there's a temptation to want to say the voice is what it is. But I have had training, I realize and the training has not perhaps been hands on directly 'do this, do that.' I picked up information along the way from mentors that were teaching different things. I had training in terms of understanding the syllables, right. So phonetic training that's a useful thing. I had training in terms of breathing a long time ago someone said, you know, do this lie on the floor and which is great because everybody else learned the rest of the class. I fell asleep cause I get comfortable, really comfortable and I was doing a morning show, so that was a bad idea. The other part of me that wants to say I'm self-taught is the part that says I use my ears a lot. So I listen a lot. I listen in great detail. When I was a teenager one of the things I really wanted to do was have my own band. You know, my own one man band and the one man band meant that you have to have things like drum machines, synthesizers and stuff like that. I'm not going to go to talking about vocals, I'm going to talk about sound. I got very interested in sound at literally a microscopic level as in how sound is produced, tones, volume, timbre, that sort of thing. And I realized that I could hear in great detail these sorts of things and I realized that I could make sounds change within my voice as well to sort of, you know, match up these things that I was hearing. So I would do things like mimicry. And I think along the way, that's where all of this began to happen. I know I wasn't born with this voice because this would be a surprising sound to hear in the O and G, but, but I know that I listened to voices that I liked and I know that I began to take from those voices and people ask me about the accent that I have. For instance, they say, where did you grow up? And I say right here, you know, but I grew up in terms of radio in terms of sounds on American and British broadcasts. I always looked for the stuff that I liked and I began to steal from there. And my early voice would have sounded a little bit more like Casey Kasem but now it's evolved, you know, both in terms of the timbre and also in terms of expression. And then there's this thing that happens. First of all, I think you start by making a copy of something and you make an imperfect copy of it. And if you get good at reproducing this imperfect copy, it becomes the real thing. It becomes something new.
Sally: Absolutely. And I think that's a fantastic process to work through. A lot of people, especially young broadcast journalists that come and work with me, they want to sound like so-and-so. And I would say, don't just copy, listen to a lot of different voices, just as you're explaining and take from them what you like, take on the qualities. Joe: You tend to look at the gaps, right? So when you pick a voice that you like for instance, the first thing you tend to notice is how it's not, you know, guys, especially when you're talking about voice, it's almost automatic - you want to have that low voice, right? There's a tendency to want to go and to try and push the pitch down. And if you, if you don't know what you're doing, you might end up sounding a bit like this. You have that, you have that low pitch.
Sally: It's like you've swallowed your voice.
Joe: With nowhere to go. Right. and I think part of discovery is that as well as in, like I've watched other broadcasters who have done their own thing who have started what I in terms of a voice discovery, I feel tragically, where they do start off talking to my, this, and maybe they think that this stuff, this is the way you talk, right? The lower voice. And I hear them struggle and push the voice and then I hear them break through it. I hear them get somewhere else. And then what I think I learn, we don't actually know where it's going to go. I might say or might be tempted to say don't speak at too low of a voice. And then I've seen it happen as well, where someone who has begun by speaking with too low a voice get to a point where now that voice actually has begun to work for, maybe the rest of the physiology has caught up with that and now supports that and now their voice has become that and it's become a better version of that very bad voice that they started with.
Sally: Yeah and I think a lot of that also relates to, you want to have freedom with the voice - freedom over force. And when you get that low voice, you often get force not freedom. Or when you get a high pitch, often that's force over freedom. But when you let the voice, as you say, settle into that freedom. It feels like it's, you describe it as the body catching up, which I like that.
Joe: Let's use an analogy, right? You're getting ready for a party. You know, you'll put on some makeup, put on the right clothes, right? There's a temptation as well for voice to have that, you know, you want to come across well if you have some kind of control on the voice. So I'd say I have some control on my voice and when it comes to different settings, I am changing my voice to work for that. You know, so I do find myself when I'm in teacher mode, when I'm doing coaching or I'm doing you know, I'm doing a presentation there's a different voice that comes out and I am putting on that voice. There's a different voice as well that I use for voiceover. So when I'm doing, you know, trailers, I think there's some voices that are well within the normal voices and you can use them all the time and anytime you want. And I also think we have those reserved voices, which can be used in a pinch. That'll do the job for that time. So when I do my trailer voiceovers and let's say it's a horror film, I pull myself into a place where I'm playing a different part of my register and I'm really tired at the end of those sessions. But I always audit back. I listen to it and I go like, how did that sound? Is that sound convincing? And I only let it go if it does. And you know, it's one of those things I feel conflicted about that sometimes because as a voice professional, as someone who teaches people to speak, I try to get them to be relaxed so that they don't stretch their voice too much. I try to get them to be satisfied with the voice they have. And yet at the same time, I have this duality where when I want to voiceover danger, you know, and that, that's a stretch.
Sally: But it's because your voice isn't used to accessing that voice all the time so it's the vocal cords going, oh, hang on haven't done this for a while. It feels a bit unusual.
Joe: I would agree with that. Except for the part where I've been doing that for 30 years. So I realize that I have the sweet spot, which is the easily accessible all the time voice, right? And then there's the other voice, which it lives in the same body, but I don't want to use it all the time.
Sally: And take us through how you do access those voices.
Joe: It's about emotions. It always is about the emotional connection. So when I'm doing a voiceover and it's one of these tension things, I really have to get into the tension of it. It has to be life and death. Then that feeling comes across, right? So it was a big show. I really have to be getting into the show. I have to be thinking, okay, this is a big grand thing. As I begin to embody big and grand, then the voice begins to follow as well. So it's all about getting in touch with it. So as I've been coming down this journey, I realized that actually it is in the end, acting. In the end is about getting to the emotional state. You need to be so that what you say is valid.
Sally: Yeah. Acting is such a great training ground and I think that even people who don't consider themselves to be thespians, it is a bit like acting. Whether you're going into a difficult conversation or a high pressure meeting, it is about getting into character in lots of ways. Getting into that emotional state and as you so beautifully put it. Then the voice will follow. Joe, thank you so much. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Joe: Take the time to be curious about voices and listen. Listen with more knowledge in hand. And what I mean by that is learn about sound because sound has so many elements to it that we just perceive but we don't necessarily understand. So like for instance, voice volume, that's one part of it. And people tend to focus only about loud voices, but then there's the whole tone as well. Whether it's a mellow tone or it's an airy tone and there are things that you can do physically to change those things. And then as you begin to listen to those sounds produced by other people, you can begin to sometimes, you know, break it apart so you can assemble it. Like if you're trying to pick up an accent, if you're trying to find a new voice, let's say, to convey gravitas. And at the same time you know the automatic thing, it might be, you know, I want to have to have a low voice. So you have that Japanese businessman. It's again, how the society has produced that voice. You might go that way or you could find another way to have the gravitas you could learn from some other voice that you hear. So pay attention to those voices.
Sally: I love that. So, Joe, where can people go if they'd like to find out more about you?
Joe: You can look under forcibly retired male model or you can look for me on LinkedIn as well as on Facebook, just Joe Augustin. So it's August I N - Joe Augustin. And most people are surprised by what they see when they look at my face following this voice. But when you get over that, I think you'll find out. You'll find that I'm a nice person.
Sally: Oh, come on. It's a very lovely face!
Joe. Thank you so much for joining us.
Doesn't Joe have just a lovely voice to listen to. It's very calming. And you might have noticed in that chat my voice became kind of calming as well. So hopefully you feel relaxed and inspired and didn't just fall asleep. Now, Joe's final piece of advice was to pay attention to voices, to listen to voices. And I'll tell you what, one voice we don't like listening to is our own. So next week I'll go into why you might cringe at the sound of your own voice and why it's so important to get over it.
Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. If you're looking for a fun interactive team workshop or a speaker for your next event, I'm your gal, head to sallyprosser.com.au and get in touch.