I was reading a few messages on another board and I liked the subject so I thought I would post on Ventriloquist Central as well and see what the response would be.It was made mention that Terry Fator has hundreds of different voices but that is mainly because he does impersonations.
Also I have been told that it is easier to do a singing voice over a speaking voice but I do neither so I am only stating what I have been told.
How many voices, which are distinctly different, can you do so that each of your characters is different?
This I think is a great question. If you have different voices can you share with all of the the readers here on Ventriloquist Central just how you achieve this feat?
Dan
www.ventriloquistcentral.com
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Dan Willinger is a ventriloquism enthusiast and ventriloquist figure collector. He has been collecting for over 25 years. He created the Ventriloquist Central Collection. It now has over 100 ventriloquist figures and over 50 of them are Frank Marshall figures. Because of his love for the art of ventriloquism, Mr. Willinger created the website Ventriloquist Central. For more information about the website, go to: http://www.ventriloquistcentral.com
Copyright 2012 by Dan Willinger
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I do what Dawes Butler (voice of Huckleberry Hound and so many more) and his colleagues at Hanna/Barbera used to do. I cast the voice with a famous person and do an imitation of that famous person’s voice (Mr. Jinx–Marlon Brando, Yogi Bear–Art Carney, Doggie Daddy–Jimmy Durante, etc). But, without trying to do the EXACT voice (You’re not an impressionist after all), you wind up with something new and different. Moving it down the throat or up in the sinus passages helps with different intonations as well.
Good question. I was just thinking about this yesterday after realizing that two characters I’m working on have pretty much the same voice. With a little change in pressure, they are still in the same basic register (the typical ventriloquial drone) but are now distinct from each other. (I hope.)
I did a rough count and find I generally have four basic registers I can get into easily: my natural voice, the typical drone, a falsetto, and a deeper throaty “Sam the Eagle/Fozzy Bear” kind of thing. With varying diaphragm pressure, each of those can be subdivided into different voices, but it takes practice to get them stable enough to be distinct.