I started listing the accents I thought I could either do already or easily pick up. First was my basic pronunciation: RP with elements of Scottish. Some people identify the Scots immediately, others are uncertain. I've occasionally been taken for American (I did spend four years in LA and NY in the 1990s but, as far as I am aware, picked up none of the accent); once or twice strangers have thought I was originally Dutch or German.
I noted down my normal voice as RP1. I can eliminate the Scottish elements and come across as upper-crust 1950s - although I'm not sure whether that sound comes across as normal, dramatic or merely comic. No matter, I listed it as RP2. Alternatively, I can head in the other direction and become more Scottish, allowing me to list middle-class Edinburgh as SC1 and generic working-class Scots as SC2. How about London? I've lived here on and off for over 30 years; surely that's CO. Then there's NO for generic northern English (somewhere between Birmingham and Liverpool). Add on French, German, Italian and Spanish accents. Maybe even US?
Accent is one dimension of voice. What about style? I wrote down three basics: normal, loud / aggressive, quiet / seductive. Add on women - not in the expectation of act women's roles - but in narratives where a male narrator has to give the impression of a woman's voice. And don't forget the several comic accents I can offer, like Kenneth Williams but without his range.
I didn't stop there. These were only the dramatic possibilities. There's also the commercial side to voiceover, which may be more lucrative. So far I've come across three basic styles - hard-sell, medium-sell and soft-sell; I'm not yet sure I can do them, and meanwhile, what is the voice that should be used when selling one's soul?
At this point I opened up the spreadsheet and created The Matrix - my database of possible accents and styles that would index the recordings that showcased my voice. Recording A1 would be my normal accent as a narrative (documentary); A2 would be narrative (drama); A3 would be normal voice high-pitched with normal rhythm, A4 would be high-pitched with a staccato rhythm, A5 normal pitch with staccato rhythm. B1 would be middle-class Edinburgh as a narrative (documentary), B2 as narrative (drama). And so on and so on.
So far, so good... but my confidence began to fade when I started to rehearse the different voices, using texts and scripts from Shakespeare to Dickens and Round The Horne to modern monologues...
I have, I think, two problems. The first is not serious. It's the fact that speaking clearly and authoritatively for any length of time requires stamina. Money for old rope, I had thought when listening to stories read aloud on 4 Extra; the reader only has to glance quickly through the text beforehand, checking for strange names and convoluted sentences and then they can tell the tale with no more effort than it needs to hold a conversation over or at the pub. I humbly admit I was wrong and recognise that it requires considerable mental concentration and physical effort to keep the listeners interested for long periods, particularly when there are no images to hold their attention.
That's an obstacle, but not an insurmountable one. I presume I can develop both the physical and mental skills by spend time every day reading different texts aloud and checking the results on playback. Of more concern is the second problem ...
All the accents and characters that I was proud of are fine for a few short phrases, but I cannot yet maintain them for any length of time. In the space of a few minutes my middle-class Edinburgh heads for Inverness, drops down to the Gorbals and skips briefly into England before I can haul it back to Corstorphine. My French tones decide they'd be happier in Germany. The seductive low-voiced lady that was lurking in my larynx soon changes sex, and the various comic characters that were exchanging one-liners in my head soon melt into the background, leaving my everyday voice to take over.
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