What do podcasters need to think about in terms of their voices?
In this episode, ‘Voice for Podcasters: Conversation with Ryan O’Shea’, I talk to my good friend, fellow voice coach and podcaster, Ryan, about the vocal issues that the medium of podcasts presents, and how podcasters can address them.
Ryan O’Shea is a voice, accent and public speaking coach based in LA. She also has a podcast called “Speaking of…conversations on voice, speech & identity with Ryan O’Shea” which delves into fascinating conversations around voice and identity.
The difficulty with podcasting is you can get really hung up on how you sound, especially if you’re doing it by yourself and don’t have an element of social engagement. Getting hung up on how you sound isn’t so useful, because you can’t listen to yourself and communicate from a connected place at the same time. Listeners can tell when a voice sounds clear and beautiful but disengaged, because they disengage.
Ryan gives some useful tips from her own podcasting process and voice warm ups around how to reframe this issue, including:
— warming up your body and voice so that you feel at ease. If you feel at ease, a byproduct will be that your voice will sound at ease
— shifting your focus away from how you sound and instead on to connecting to what matters to you, and how you want your audience to feel. If you can feel the way you want your audience to feel, your audience are more likely to have the same experience.
We talk about these tips and how they relate to podcasters specifically but honestly, they are useful for any performance medium.
Find out more about Ryan at www.voiceandspeechwithryan.com.