A Penultimate Dissection Of Julian Treasure’s HAIL Tools – Part 1

hey there hero it’s David H Lawrence the
17th and we continue with our series of
in-depth video I’ve never been in depth
this much on something so short Julianne
treasures TED talk from 2013 where for
about 9 or 10 minutes he talks about how
to speak so that people want to listen
and again when I saw it I was like oh
this is kind of cool and then as I kept
watching it after the first couple of
minutes I was like wow this is really
powerful for a professional voice talent
so I wanted to take a look at it we
talked about the seven deadly sins that
he talks about we talked about the hail
acronym of ways to look at conversation
and apply labels to them that says yeah
you’re doing great you know what do you
do though what tools to use what aspects
of your voice can you work on so that
you can achieve that hey love honesty
authenticity integrity and love and
really do have people wanting to listen
to what you have to say and as
professionals how do we use those things
so the casting directors really want to
hear more from us right so he’s got
another list of seven things and I’m
gonna deal with the first three of them
because they’re a little bit odd in
terms of the names not that he uses but
that in general people use for these
things and they are register tambour and
prosity and so we’re gonna talk about
these so register that’s just you know
where you are as you speak do you have a
high-pitched voice or do you have a low
rich mellow voice and that ties in with
the second one which is tambour which is
sort of the smoothness the quality of
what you do do you screech or do you
flow right the register you’re kind of
in our business it’s this odd sort of I
really need to sound like a
announcer I need to have a deep full
rich voice I need to have a powerful
voice but it needs to be low in register
and that’s absolutely not true I mean
for women for men I learned this from
David quarry at Howard fine when I took
his singing for actors class
it’s amazing how high-pitched male
voices are sexier to women then even
low-pitched speaking voices now we’re
not talking about singing we’re talking
about speaking and so there is a an
advantage to being able to bring your
register even if it’s very high down
just a little bit only so that people
don’t have to work so hard to understand
there’s this this concept of the higher
pitched you are the more difficult it is
for the human ear to distinguish between
different sounds different words
different phonemes etc so if you to a
degree if you get so low that you’re
very white then you know then you have a
different issue but the idea of your
register being just a little bit lower
and all of these things work together as
you’ll find out so allowing yourself to
have a lower pitch when we get naturally
excited when we get nervous when we get
like just before an audition your voice
can actually raise in pitch because you
have that emotional thing going so just
take a moment breathe and you’ll find
that you can relax into a lower register
voice so the tambour of our voice is
also something that really is inviting
for people not only to listen to in
conversation but when we’re doing our
work think about the voice talent that
you love to listen to there just smooth
as silk now some of them have character
voices right I mean you look at the
stuff that June Foray did you look at
the stuff that Mel Blanc did he had the
ability to be smooth and deep and rich
but he got attention by pattern
interrupt right he would he would
interrupt the daily conversation pattern
with these crazy voices that he would
create for the Warner Brothers cartoons
but having a Tambor that is smooth and
easygoing working on any vocal tics that
you might have I mean look when you
watch Julian
treasurers a TEDTalk you will notice
that he has a very very slight Lisp no
no offense to Julian but it’s just that
is a part of his voice but look what it
does it doesn’t jump out in front
because of all of the other things that
he does with his voice he lowers his
register he’s very smooth when he
delivers you’ll see some of the other
things that we’re gonna talk about that
he’s very clear about that he does
that’s why it’s such a meta talk because
he uses all the things that he talks
about so work on that smoothness
especially in our business because
that’s where the key is for narration
for specialty narration for even IVR you
have to be smooth and clear not jarring
and confusing right
and then finally prosody prosody is the
the melody of your voice and we’ve
talked about singsong e things we’ll
talk a little bit more about that in the
next video but the ability to have your
voice be varied in its presentation so
that you’re not leading people into a
lulled state of sleep because you’re
very monotone or you have vocal fry’ and
you’re talking like this all the time or
you’re up talking I bets he just went to
a convention she goes I can’t stand this
woman is presenting and every sentence
ends like it’s a question even though
it’s not you know we’re from California
so we’re used to this I mean it began
for all intents and purposes in the
valley and Encino you know that’s how
they talked
that’s where vocal fry’ came from as
well it’s like you know that’s like a
very enjoy the valley I live in the
valley but I should go check out the
valley and look at all the different
things in terms of language and speaking
that we’re born there right but this
idea of having a varied melody with what
you do is something that voice talent
push back against all the time
especially if they come from radio
because radio teaches you that certain
melodies certain process
we’ll make you money so you do it you
walk in we walk up the intro of a record
a certain way you present a new story in
Julian’s country and in the UK the BBC
has a particular type of prosody which
the with the way they deliver news all
of those sentences end like this and
then they move on to the next sentence
which also ends like this and so they
have that sort of prosody you have to
work against that when it comes to doing
auditions for any category of artwork
and voiceover and as Julian points out
in conversation with normal everyday
people because if you can vary that that
that melody that you use and not be
monotone and not be up talking and not
be vocal frying all over the place you
can make a huge difference in how much
attention people pay to you and how much
they want to listen to what you have to
say so that’s the first three we’ve got
four more and then we’ll wrap things up
and move on to something else but it’s
Julian treasures TED talk how to speak
so people want to listen we give you a
link below the show notes on the vo
heroes page where this video is what are
your thoughts on this do you have any of
these things a challenge to you do you
have problems with how you perceive your
voice how you perceive its register or
its timbre or its its melody its prosody
do you find that you got into sort of a
way of speaking that you can’t break I’m
wondering I’m just wondering let me know
in the comments below I’d love to know
what you have to say also if you’d like
to be on my list I invite you to join
there’s a little box at the bottom of
the page it says get on the list if
you’re not on already I’d love to have
you so we can tell you when these things
come out and when I do other useful
things for your performance and
voiceover career I’m David H Lawrence
the 17th I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.