Speaker 1: This is from Glenn and Doyle's Untamed. I burned the
Speaker 1: memo that defined selflessness as the pinnacle of womanhood. But
Speaker 1: first I forgave myself for believing that lie. For so
Speaker 1: long I had abandoned myself out of love. They had
Speaker 1: convinced me those memos. They'd convinced me that the best
Speaker 1: way for a woman to love her partner, family, and
Speaker 1: community was to lose herself in service to them. In
Speaker 1: my desire to be of service, I did myself in
Speaker 1: the world a great disservice. I've seen what happens out
Speaker 1: in the world and inside our relationships when women stay numb, obedient, quiet,
Speaker 1: and small. Selfless women make for an efficient society, but
Speaker 1: not a beautiful, true or just one. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: That's all about the voice, which means it's all about power.
Speaker 1: Who has it, how we get it, how we say
Speaker 1: sound when we have it. I'm your host, Samarave, and
Speaker 1: this is permission to speak, where we can throw all
Speaker 1: our best ideas about how to get ourselves heard into
Speaker 1: the pot and start. Today's guest is Amy Landon. She
Speaker 1: is a dear friend of mine, and she's also an
Speaker 1: acclaimed audiobook narrator in super high demand. She's narrated, among
Speaker 1: other things, White Fragility by Robin d' angelo, which I
Speaker 1: mentioned last week, Ted Chang's exhilaration Verity by Colleen Hoover,
Speaker 1: and a huge amount of well loved fantasy series as
Speaker 1: well as erotica. I wanted to have Amy on because
Speaker 1: as an audiobook narrator and a voice actor, she thinks
Speaker 1: all day, every day about the voice as an instrument,
Speaker 1: how to get across store and character and tone and
Speaker 1: point of view when all you have is the voice.
Speaker 1: And I love our chat about what it means to
Speaker 1: sound sexy, which I mean she's got a surprising take on,
Speaker 1: and also the practical side of taking care of our voices,
Speaker 1: which is my way of saying she's got all the
Speaker 1: goods on the over the counter cure alls when you've
Speaker 1: woken up with a sore throat and you know the
Speaker 1: show must go on. We also talk about that comment
Speaker 1: from her past for many of our pasts about our
Speaker 1: voice that we wish hadn't stuck with us, and yet
Speaker 1: it did and really affected our relationship with our voice.
Speaker 1: And also um what it is to not necessarily fall
Speaker 1: in love with the sound of your own voice, but
Speaker 1: maybe fallen alike with it. Anyway, this is Amy Landon.
Speaker 1: How do you find your books? How did the How
Speaker 1: does the book find the perfect narrator for it? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of different ways at this point in
Speaker 1: my career. Usually publishers just match me up because they
Speaker 1: know my voice, and so most big publishers have producers
Speaker 1: that kind of do the whole kitten caboodle if they
Speaker 1: cast it, they decide who they want to do their
Speaker 1: perfect voices. They get it all lined up and they
Speaker 1: take you through the whole and how do they differ,
Speaker 1: Like how do they describe those voices? Like do you
Speaker 1: end up seeing like an actual breakdown that's like we
Speaker 1: want a voice that is low and calm, or like
Speaker 1: how do they know? That's all on their end? I
Speaker 1: have no idea. They just see whatever the descriptions are
Speaker 1: and they think, Amy Landon, They read the book and
Speaker 1: then they go, Okay, what do I hear? What do
Speaker 1: I hear in my head? Whose? Whose voice? You know?
Speaker 1: And you're usually matching to your lead character obviously, so
Speaker 1: you're matching gender and age and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Generally to the lead character of the book if it's fiction,
Speaker 1: and if it's nonfiction, you're often matching to the author. Oh,
Speaker 1: not to the desired audience, but maybe it's related related,
Speaker 1: But usually if a guy writes a nonfiction book, a guy,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking. And why do
Speaker 1: people pick you? Do you think because I'm amazing? I
Speaker 1: mean obviously, but you know what do you what do
Speaker 1: you think you're known for? Maybe it's an impossible question,
Speaker 1: that's solid question. Um, I do a lot of thriller, mystery,
Speaker 1: horror kind of stuff I would have. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's just because I have a dark, dark soul
Speaker 1: or because I have a dark, dark voice could go
Speaker 1: in EA. Do you feel like when when it's that genre, Um,
Speaker 1: you infuse in an element of drama to it? Or
Speaker 1: do you think that you're uh even about it? And
Speaker 1: it's not really you know that it's that you like
Speaker 1: the content, not that you like manipulate the I think
Speaker 1: it depends on every single book. So when I prep
Speaker 1: the book, when I read the book, the whole point
Speaker 1: is you're trying to find the author's rhythm, the author's voice,
Speaker 1: the authors how they would do it. And some authors
Speaker 1: are very like standing outside the story. It's very third person.
Speaker 1: It's like this happened, and then this happened, and then
Speaker 1: this happened, and all the dramas happening in the dialogue.
Speaker 1: And some authors everything is very like heightened and it
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter genres, genre by genre, every book
Speaker 1: is different. So this is partly why I wanted to
Speaker 1: have you in because you know, when we're talking about
Speaker 1: audiobook narrating, obviously what we're talking about is spending time
Speaker 1: in a booth and making your voice breathe life into
Speaker 1: something that you didn't write. But inherent in that is
Speaker 1: the element of like, how does language work? How do
Speaker 1: you personally like put your feelers into a text and say, ah,
Speaker 1: this is the rhythm or this is the spirit of
Speaker 1: how this person writes. And it probably doesn't happen on
Speaker 1: an intellectual level, But what does your prep look like?
Speaker 1: Do you read it and do you think, oh, this
Speaker 1: makes me think of this other thing or does it
Speaker 1: feel like music or does it feel like like what's
Speaker 1: what is that? I am an experiential trial and error
Speaker 1: kind of girl, so I usually do my prep. I
Speaker 1: read the book ahead of time, so I know what
Speaker 1: this structure is the shape, that kind of what's happening,
Speaker 1: who the main characters are. Take notes? Why you're doing that?
Speaker 1: Are you just like take it in. It's usually just
Speaker 1: at this point kind of sucked into my brain, unless
Speaker 1: it's you know, there's a bunch of pronunciation things, and
Speaker 1: then I've got notes on everything going on the side. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nonfiction you're like, I don't know that God from the
Speaker 1: second century BC, sumeria, no idea how to say that? Um.
Speaker 1: And then I usually just get in and I will
Speaker 1: do the first chapter until I've found the rhythm and
Speaker 1: do it meaning over and over and over and over
Speaker 1: until I found the rhythm. And some books you're just like,
Speaker 1: oh great, this author they write like I talk. I
Speaker 1: can do this falling off a log, by the way,
Speaker 1: that's not that is definitely how I talk to all
Speaker 1: the type guys. UM. And then some authors I really
Speaker 1: like it is a battle. I'm just like i'm and I'm.
Speaker 1: I will get stuck on sentences and I'll go back
Speaker 1: and I'll get stuck on sets that I'll go back
Speaker 1: and I'll just do the first chapter until I'm finally like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's how this person talks. That's how this person writes,
Speaker 1: and some people you can tell do not write to
Speaker 1: have anything read aloud, and you're like, all right, here
Speaker 1: we go, right yeah, and that's literally your problem to solve.
Speaker 1: The biggest challenge for audio books overall, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter what audio book you're doing is it's it's the
Speaker 1: marathon of voice acting. So most voice acting you go
Speaker 1: in and you're like, I'm gonna do this commercial. It's
Speaker 1: two lines, it's three words, whatever it is that has
Speaker 1: zone challenges, but it's super short pieces of text where
Speaker 1: you're doing video games and you're just doing a bunch
Speaker 1: of dialogue and then grunts and hits and blowing things up.
Speaker 1: And so if you have maybe not great like voice form,
Speaker 1: like you're not breathing or you're you know, hurting aspects
Speaker 1: of your vocal apparatus, it doesn't really bite you because
Speaker 1: it's so short. Right, you can go blow your voice
Speaker 1: out for one day of video games and you're fine.
Speaker 1: But if you're doing audio books, it's a marathon. You're
Speaker 1: doing usually six to eight hours a day in a
Speaker 1: booth talking a new microphone, and if you're doing it
Speaker 1: full time, you're doing that five days a week and
Speaker 1: how does the eight hour feel. It's usually pretty brutal. Vocally,
Speaker 1: you're tired and you can just hear it. But the
Speaker 1: harder part is actually the mental So that's where finding
Speaker 1: the language and the rhythm is. By hours six, especially
Speaker 1: with complex sentence structure, your brain is tired, and staying
Speaker 1: engaged becomes some of the bigger challenge sometimes when you're
Speaker 1: that tired and you have to kind of I'll stop
Speaker 1: and just go back and I'm like, all right, why
Speaker 1: is this important? Right? Okay, what does this mean? Again? Okay, wait,
Speaker 1: you just read an entire paragraph and you have no
Speaker 1: idea what you said. Go back to the top and
Speaker 1: do it again, because you're getting tired and right right
Speaker 1: right your brain. And on a really really technical level,
Speaker 1: like what we're talking about in certain ways is actually
Speaker 1: like what word you lift to make sense of a thought,
Speaker 1: which obviously is a lot of the stuff that I do,
Speaker 1: especially when I'm working with English as a second language actors.
Speaker 1: You know what word gets lifted if you're comparing two things,
Speaker 1: for example, um matters to English. Years if we're gonna
Speaker 1: actually understand sometimes a complex thoughts, sometimes a relatively simple one.
Speaker 1: I mean, even if We're just saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: are you going to leave now or you're gonna leave later?
Speaker 1: But if now and later are not being held in
Speaker 1: opposition with each other in this thing that people call antithesis,
Speaker 1: if you can background, then you know, I mean, if
Speaker 1: you say you're gonna leave now or you're gonna leave later,
Speaker 1: people don't understand why they don't understand it. And then
Speaker 1: add into that that it's not TV and film. I
Speaker 1: can't see their face. I have no context visually. They
Speaker 1: can't your face or yes, they can't see my face.
Speaker 1: Either way, you can't see a face. There's no face.
Speaker 1: There's a disembodied voice coming through your earbuds or coming
Speaker 1: over your car radio. And so that is the only
Speaker 1: way to make sense of what's going on is getting
Speaker 1: that language right. And unlike working on a script like
Speaker 1: a theater person, where you usually have worked on this
Speaker 1: script for months and you have gone through and everything.
Speaker 1: I've got a book and going through and marking up
Speaker 1: every single sentence is just not practical, So you really
Speaker 1: are It is about staying on top of it and saying, wait,
Speaker 1: did that make sense to me? Okay, we're having a
Speaker 1: direc actor who's on the outside. They're listening like like
Speaker 1: our lovely producers here are and they would be out
Speaker 1: there and they would just stop and be like, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't understand what you just said. Can
Speaker 1: we go major percentage of the work you do? You
Speaker 1: do not have a director around. You're doing this alone
Speaker 1: in your own and you're producing and directing your own Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you're wearing all the hats at once. So here's
Speaker 1: a fun fact about today's guest. Everything you've talked about
Speaker 1: thus far is probably relevant to what I'm about to say.
Speaker 1: But you secretly, relatively secretly, also do erotica. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: relatively secret Um. So I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about sexy voice. What does that mean to you? I
Speaker 1: think that's such a fun thing to ask about because
Speaker 1: I think most women, when you when they see the
Speaker 1: words sexy, have a very distinctive idea of what that is,
Speaker 1: and I think it's often wrong, wrong meaning it doesn't
Speaker 1: actually make other people turned on. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: we have preconceived notions of this, like sexy voice thing.
Speaker 1: I taught a workshop at an undergrad school for voice
Speaker 1: over recently, and I deliberately picked uh, commercial audition copy
Speaker 1: for the girls that, like almost every commercial audition, it's
Speaker 1: going to be like, here's the breakdown, we need twenties
Speaker 1: to thirties, blah blah, blast, straightforward read and somewhere in there.
Speaker 1: At least for women, it almost always says sexy. And
Speaker 1: that means that almost every woman is going to come
Speaker 1: in and get on the mic and be like, I
Speaker 1: really like this pig Mac. Oh my god, this pig Mac,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get like down here and I
Speaker 1: get a little husky, and every single person that is
Speaker 1: there like sexy voice, and it almost never works because
Speaker 1: it's almost always put on. You're almost trying too hard,
Speaker 1: unless you have a voice that is naturally kind of
Speaker 1: husky and low, which minus, thank you very much, But
Speaker 1: unless that's how you really sound, you sound like you're pushing,
Speaker 1: you sound like you're trying, and then it's not sexy.
Speaker 1: It just sounds like your cartoon character. Then it sounds
Speaker 1: kind of awful. And so what I was trying to
Speaker 1: teach these people is that what's actually sexy is your
Speaker 1: natural voice coming through you. Having fun. Fun is sexy.
Speaker 1: Confidence is sexy. It's less about a timbre and a
Speaker 1: certain idea of sexy, and it's more just actually sounding
Speaker 1: confident on the mic, having fun with the text, putting
Speaker 1: a little bit of a wink and like a laugh
Speaker 1: in it. Literally smiling while you're talking really helps. And
Speaker 1: for erotica audiobooks it's the same thing. Sexy is actually
Speaker 1: like you're in on the joke or you're in secret,
Speaker 1: and if you're funny, that's that's so much sexier. And
Speaker 1: even like in the sex scenes, it's not about like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get all sexy time now, it's about being
Speaker 1: engaged and being confident and telling the story and engaging
Speaker 1: with the idea of falling in love with someone. It
Speaker 1: seems like a metaphor for literally the female experience that
Speaker 1: we think there's a box that we should be fitting into,
Speaker 1: and there are signs that that's right. But if we
Speaker 1: all try to fit into that same box, we all
Speaker 1: become so generic that are we know, we leave ourselves
Speaker 1: at the door, and we can't actually, you know, become
Speaker 1: self actualized humans until we figure out what makes us happy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what makes you unique and lean into that vocally, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can talk about everything else,
Speaker 1: but vocally you can By the way, what makes someone
Speaker 1: sexy on the mic is them sounding like them. It's
Speaker 1: the weird, like quirky people that you're hearing commercials. You're like, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a weird voice. I really want to meet that person.
Speaker 1: So okay, But I'm going to challenge you a little
Speaker 1: bit on this because I also I think that ring
Speaker 1: is so true, right, and we all understand that. You know,
Speaker 1: we're living in a world where authentic is king or queen.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all hate that word because it's overused.
Speaker 1: It's overused, but it does mean what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: that we find within ourselves something that feels real, not
Speaker 1: something outside of ourselves that we're trying to play at
Speaker 1: a and then be. But we all have a range
Speaker 1: of us nous, So you know, one could mistake this
Speaker 1: for like, well, then I should just come in whatever
Speaker 1: voice comes out of my mouth is the only one
Speaker 1: I have, and I shouldn't try to sort of find range.
Speaker 1: But you work on so many different projects, from you know,
Speaker 1: erotica to White Fragility and extremely serious book about social justice,
Speaker 1: that you obviously do have various voices that are all
Speaker 1: equally authentically you, but that you bring out different aspects
Speaker 1: of yourself for different projects. Does that feel right? It does?
Speaker 1: But I rarely am thinking about it technically, And it
Speaker 1: really is more about what is the story. What is
Speaker 1: the point I'm trying to make. If I'm narrating white fragility,
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking like, oh, I have to make sure
Speaker 1: that I sound like this when I'm talking about sex, right,
Speaker 1: or I have to sound very strong. I'm just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this thing, and I have to make
Speaker 1: this thought clear. And so I'm probably going to slow
Speaker 1: it down and really think about it. But that's because
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with complex language. It it's not about me
Speaker 1: technically choosing. So the choices that we make about how
Speaker 1: to sound in a moment, what tools from within us
Speaker 1: we bring are should not be arbitrarily made. They should
Speaker 1: be made based exclusively on the actual content that we're
Speaker 1: working on. Yeah, and if you're really connected to the content,
Speaker 1: I would say nine times out of ten that that
Speaker 1: whatever comes out of your mouth is what it should
Speaker 1: be coming out of your mouth, right, if you're really kind.
Speaker 1: And there's and there's a there's an analogy here for
Speaker 1: anybody who's thinking, I don't know how I sound because
Speaker 1: I sound different in different situations. I mean, code switching
Speaker 1: is real, and I talked about it in in last
Speaker 1: week's episode. But all of us, all humans, have some
Speaker 1: aspect of changing the way we sound based on the
Speaker 1: environment that we're in. And so to think of that
Speaker 1: not as like, oh God, I'm so inconsistent with myself,
Speaker 1: but really just that we're bringing the authentic version of
Speaker 1: ourselves to the moment at hand. And that actually sounds
Speaker 1: like what you're doing professionally. Yes, if I'm doing it right,
Speaker 1: and when it feels icky, you do the chapter again,
Speaker 1: then you do the chet. You just go do it
Speaker 1: until you get it right. I asked my husband for
Speaker 1: if you had any questions for you, and what he
Speaker 1: asked was, um, something like, um, do you make big
Speaker 1: decisions about what characters what a character's voice is and
Speaker 1: then you end up being like super wrong and you
Speaker 1: realize like a way too late in yes, and it's awful.
Speaker 1: It usually happens when you're doing book series because the
Speaker 1: first book series you're like, oh, these are my leads,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be great, and like Joe Schmo number three,
Speaker 1: who has two lines, who you're like, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: him like a dude, and he's gonna what right, because
Speaker 1: he's had two lines. He's the lead the next book
Speaker 1: and no one told you that. And you're like, um,
Speaker 1: so what do you do? What do you do? What
Speaker 1: have you done? You? You slightly adjust him, you make
Speaker 1: him sound a little less BROI, and you pitch him
Speaker 1: up a bit, but you're like, I'm I'm lean towards that,
Speaker 1: and then I'm also going to make him listenable. You
Speaker 1: do do accents I do. And I've also had like
Speaker 1: I recently did this. I have this lovely author who
Speaker 1: writes a million characters in these fantasy series, and she'll
Speaker 1: just give me general notes of like, oh, she's like
Speaker 1: a sexy, strong woman. She'll be great, and I'm like great,
Speaker 1: and I made her breath And then book three she's
Speaker 1: like she's from Florida and I'm like, wait, but you
Speaker 1: made her British well because it's set in Scotland and
Speaker 1: there's wizards and there's like sure, there's people from all
Speaker 1: over the world. You just make choices. It's not like
Speaker 1: in a book. I mean, obviously, it's not like all
Speaker 1: of us in a book reading where we're like God's
Speaker 1: some sort of general sense of foreign Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: She made her britt and I was like, oh, she's
Speaker 1: from Florida. So I just hit the author up. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, so here's your choices. I can make her
Speaker 1: American in this book and we can just pretend she
Speaker 1: wasn't there in the first book, or you can change
Speaker 1: where she's from. What do you want to do? She's like,
Speaker 1: just make her American? And I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: this is your call. And in real life, even if
Speaker 1: we're not doing an accent, right, if I'm in a
Speaker 1: really emotional moment of my life, weird sounds come out
Speaker 1: of you, you know what I mean, Like you say
Speaker 1: words and ways that you would never say them normally
Speaker 1: because your your heart and your brain and there's you're
Speaker 1: just a mess, and sh it just comes out and
Speaker 1: you don't you don't always sound like yourself, And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you have this devil voice that comes
Speaker 1: out of me because you're so angry, or you get
Speaker 1: really hype, Like all of a sudden, I'm like high
Speaker 1: pitched in ways that I never am. And like part
Speaker 1: of what's gorgeous about how human communication works. We think
Speaker 1: about words as being these discreete. You know, units of meaning,
Speaker 1: and we pull the right one out at the right
Speaker 1: time and we throw it to people, and then if
Speaker 1: the right one doesn't come out, we feel really bad
Speaker 1: about ourselves because we were inarticulate at that moment. But
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of like the human experience is.
Speaker 1: We're having all the stuff going on on the inside.
Speaker 1: We're trying to make connections with human beings outside of us,
Speaker 1: and all we have are like whatever word comes out
Speaker 1: at the moment based on all of the stimulus that's
Speaker 1: like moving around in our body. And all we can
Speaker 1: do is just have like grace around that. And we
Speaker 1: use words. We humans use words in weird ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: sounds uh can shift, and the way that we'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not sounds different in eight different scenarios,
Speaker 1: eight hundred different scenarios, which obviously comes up when I'm
Speaker 1: working with um, you know, actors who are trying to
Speaker 1: be perfect and get it right, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, right can mean so
Speaker 1: manyferent things, and we're inconsistent. Isn't it beautiful? I say either,
Speaker 1: I say either, I say I don't know. Words just
Speaker 1: come out. I'm inconsistent with how I pronounced words in
Speaker 1: my daily life, so why would I not be inconsistent
Speaker 1: in an accent? All right, we're gonna take a break.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We're back with Amy. So, um,
Speaker 1: how is work being affected right now? Well, it's a
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I've been talking to the narrator community a
Speaker 1: lot because we weirdly have been weathering this whole coronavirus
Speaker 1: thing fairly well for most of us because we already
Speaker 1: had home studios. Um, there are a few who didn't
Speaker 1: have had to really make shift home studios. It's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures of narrators who have built a studio
Speaker 1: in their parents car, in their garage, and they have
Speaker 1: a full set up in the back seat of a car,
Speaker 1: and they're spending six to eight hours a day the
Speaker 1: back seat of a car. I mean, I get, I won't.
Speaker 1: I did some pickups in the in my car and
Speaker 1: then Kat was in hers. Uh for our last week's episode.
Speaker 1: We feel we're all joking. We're like, oh, we've been
Speaker 1: training for We've been training for Lockdown for years. We narrators, right,
Speaker 1: we work from home anyway, we have a full setup.
Speaker 1: We're kind of an isolated industry and all the people
Speaker 1: doing post tend to work from home, so a lot
Speaker 1: of it hasn't changed. And I was talking to a
Speaker 1: fellow narrator and he's like, you know what, it's like,
Speaker 1: It's like weird fish in a fish tank, just watching
Speaker 1: while the house is getting robbed. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's perfect because our life hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: We're just like doing our little thing and everything's fine.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile you look out the glass and you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: the world is exploding, and so you it's a weird
Speaker 1: disconnect of my life is sort of fine and very
Speaker 1: little has changed work wise, but you're looking out at
Speaker 1: the world that is completely different happening around you. You're
Speaker 1: watching the house getting robbed as you're just like floating
Speaker 1: around doing your thing. Yeah. Well, and also people seem
Speaker 1: to want books now. Yes, audiobooks sales are going up.
Speaker 1: The cleaning of commuting for many people. I think, I
Speaker 1: think podcasts maybe you're going down, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how much. Obviously, just because there's a lack of like,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm bored on my drive and I need
Speaker 1: something to listen to. And yet you know, obviously people
Speaker 1: have some time, especially people without children. It must be nice. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and are you know, looking for an escape or
Speaker 1: for something that feels like it's a it's a heightened
Speaker 1: version of storytelling that isn't just like the news every day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think we're all getting tired of watching too
Speaker 1: much TV, watching too much you know, binging Netflix, and
Speaker 1: we're watching the news, and so long form narration is
Speaker 1: it's actually sales are up, it's doing well. Amy. This
Speaker 1: was really like, um, the promise of the premise, Like,
Speaker 1: what a long con we've been. We've been prepping for
Speaker 1: this for years. Guys. That's also funny because I feel
Speaker 1: like you're you come from like a prepper family. It's
Speaker 1: like a whole different kind of prepping. Oh yeah, no,
Speaker 1: my parents have like a years to ply of food
Speaker 1: in the basement. I was like, Oh, you guys were
Speaker 1: ready for this. You've been You've been waiting your whole life.
Speaker 1: Did you plan? Oh my god, Amy, Bill Gates and
Speaker 1: I we've had we've had a plan in the whole time.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Well, I'm really glad that. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't think of this podcast as being like hard
Speaker 1: hitting journalism where I was really going to cover the
Speaker 1: truth about coronavirus, and yet here we are, and yet
Speaker 1: here we are. It's my master plan, guys, it's my
Speaker 1: master plan. It's working wonders. That's truly tack too soon. Okay. Actually,
Speaker 1: speaking of your upbringing, how did how you grew up
Speaker 1: inform how you think about your voice? Oh? Fun, fun question.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of different weird things. I grew
Speaker 1: up Mormon. It's very exciting group in a very uh
Speaker 1: religious community with traditional patriarch case out of order, very
Speaker 1: very traditional gender roles, um in the entire community, small town.
Speaker 1: And I remember very distinctly when I was four or five,
Speaker 1: I was at church and I was singing. We were
Speaker 1: singing a little you know, church hymns or whatever for kids,
Speaker 1: and I was belting it at us, having a blast whatever,
Speaker 1: having a good time, and this little boy in front
Speaker 1: of me turned around. He looked at me and he
Speaker 1: just said, you sing like a boy. And I shut down,
Speaker 1: just completely shut down and stopped singing for years. I
Speaker 1: was so uncomfortable with it. And by the time I
Speaker 1: decided I wanted to sing again, I think i'd like
Speaker 1: completely messed up. My own brain about it, and I've
Speaker 1: never really been a singer since, even though I paid
Speaker 1: for lessons, I really wanted to sing. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to be that, And I think that moment, in a
Speaker 1: deeply shaming way for a little, tiny kid like got
Speaker 1: in my brain about what I was supposed to sound like.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was about them the actual tone
Speaker 1: of the voice, or do you think is about taking
Speaker 1: up space? I think both. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: world where obviously you're supposed to be, especially girls, quiet,
Speaker 1: and I'm not a quiet person. I read educated. There
Speaker 1: you go, there you go. It's a little bit like
Speaker 1: what I mean. My my family was quite that intense,
Speaker 1: but certainly that's the community, and uh, I am not
Speaker 1: by naturing quiet person. I've definitely been the girl in
Speaker 1: the theater who people turn to look at me because
Speaker 1: I'm laughing too loudly. It's upsetting for them, and I'm like, ohink,
Speaker 1: it's funny. It's funny. I called myself a laugh leader,
Speaker 1: like I'm helping. I don't know, I thought I was
Speaker 1: funny guys. I think I was singing loudly, and I
Speaker 1: think I have a naturally alto voice, so I think
Speaker 1: it was a combination of like, I didn't sound feminine
Speaker 1: to this little boy, didn't sound like a little girl
Speaker 1: because I was not a high and I was loud
Speaker 1: and I was having a good time. And I think
Speaker 1: both of those things were not acceptable. So how did you?
Speaker 1: I mean, then you ended up using your voice for
Speaker 1: your life, for your livelihood. Have you thought about like
Speaker 1: how that got reconciled or or how you embraced whatever
Speaker 1: that thing was that that boy was, you know, felt
Speaker 1: was transgressive. Yeah, I mean I definitely have. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's fully been reconciled. I still like a
Speaker 1: mad that I'm not a singer. I'm still I'm still
Speaker 1: like heartbroken about that little part of me that got
Speaker 1: shut down years ago and got put in under under
Speaker 1: a shelf somewhere. But I clearly don't have a high voice.
Speaker 1: And now I just talked like this all the time,
Speaker 1: and I'm much better about being loud and taking up
Speaker 1: space and phone calls and in public arenas, and I
Speaker 1: just have stopped caring so much and I own it now.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if I don't know, I remember
Speaker 1: that moment you and it really messed me up. I
Speaker 1: have no idea who that little boy is. Thanks dude,
Speaker 1: thanks for hurting my child brain. Should we name him?
Speaker 1: If only I knew what was his name? Let's let's
Speaker 1: make it up, some good Mormon name. Hiram. Oh god, wow,
Speaker 1: this is not the cultural group. It's not the top,
Speaker 1: not on the tip of my tongue. It's a good
Speaker 1: woman name. All right, well, Hiram, Thanks m I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: a lot of us have high ROMs in our life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of girls have been told to
Speaker 1: And obviously that was part of a larger, you know
Speaker 1: story that you were being indoctrinated into, probably around that age,
Speaker 1: in terms of how girls are supposed to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this also makes me think of when you went back
Speaker 1: relatively recently and taught college kids did a workshop. What
Speaker 1: was coming up for them in terms of the voice stuff.
Speaker 1: We talked about sexy voice and sort of misunderstandings about
Speaker 1: how to you know, fit ourselves into a box that
Speaker 1: other people have for us. But what really resonated for them?
Speaker 1: What were they thinking about boys and girls in terms
Speaker 1: of their you know, what was really freeing for a
Speaker 1: lot of them. As these were all theater students, so
Speaker 1: they're all doing plays and they're all in you know,
Speaker 1: classes with their voice teacher who is wonderful and she's great,
Speaker 1: but the whole you know, they're all learning how to
Speaker 1: like support themselves and get to the back of the
Speaker 1: room and play all these certain parts in plays. And
Speaker 1: I was like, voiceover is really really more about sounding
Speaker 1: like yourself. Yes, having range within that, but it's okay
Speaker 1: to sound like you. So it was fun to do that.
Speaker 1: It was interesting to see what people felt like they
Speaker 1: had permission to do when I was like, oh, you
Speaker 1: sound you sound like an eighteen year old gay guy.
Speaker 1: Let's find the right role for you. I don't need
Speaker 1: you to sound like you're a twenty five year old
Speaker 1: buff soldier. I don't care. Do you think that's also
Speaker 1: actually true in terms of having the range to get paid? Yeah? Actually,
Speaker 1: I think the way the business is moving for on
Speaker 1: camera too, it's actually more about you figuring out what
Speaker 1: you do really well and doing that really well. And
Speaker 1: I think, yes, there is range with in that, but
Speaker 1: I think we are maybe getting away from doing the
Speaker 1: disservice of telling actors that they all can do everything
Speaker 1: and they have to and they'll have to. I think
Speaker 1: casting and voices are changing in in the voice over world.
Speaker 1: In video games and in animation. We're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of that, and we are starting to see it more
Speaker 1: in TV and film, and hopefully we'll lean more into
Speaker 1: that when we all get back to on camera work,
Speaker 1: which hasn't happened for a while, but it will. It
Speaker 1: will again, and I think that we're starting to see
Speaker 1: different faces and hear different voices, and that is just
Speaker 1: it's going to change the world. Is actually going to
Speaker 1: change the world. Okay, I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: very specific advice. You are my person I go to
Speaker 1: for a number of things, but one of them is
Speaker 1: over the counter medicine. Cocktails that solve body ailments. That
Speaker 1: sounds so you just pick up some cocaine everyone, I
Speaker 1: was very clear to over the counter I mean, and
Speaker 1: look at some cocaine everyone from the old drug store.
Speaker 1: So like, as somebody who relies on their voice, obviously
Speaker 1: on a daily basis and for money, what do you
Speaker 1: do if you wake up in your voice feels off. Oh,
Speaker 1: there's so many different things. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: throat coat, which I know it tastes disgusting, but it
Speaker 1: does amazing. Thanks everyone lost that sponsorship if you just
Speaker 1: have to like get the vocal chords moving if you're
Speaker 1: dealing with postnasal drip and or uh any kind of congestion,
Speaker 1: which will just like postnasal drip is like the enemy,
Speaker 1: the massive enemy on vocal cords. I think it's actually
Speaker 1: the one thing that people are like, I don't know
Speaker 1: why my voice sounds on him like it's postnasal trip.
Speaker 1: Does that in this context really just mean like it's
Speaker 1: left your nose, The mucasy stuff is left your nose
Speaker 1: and is now dripping down. And that's correct. Usually happens
Speaker 1: the most when you're sleeping. But so you elevate and
Speaker 1: will wake up in the morning and you're like, why
Speaker 1: is everything and it's gonna take me two hours to talk.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, because you got clear cords up. Um,
Speaker 1: you try to sleep elevated. You're like, I can't sweep.
Speaker 1: That is never going to I mean, I do try
Speaker 1: to give myself time to warm up and talk in
Speaker 1: the morning before I get in front of a mic
Speaker 1: for that very reason. But if it's happening because you
Speaker 1: have a cold or allergies throughout the day, will also
Speaker 1: keep keep happening and destroy you. So I think if
Speaker 1: you're going herbal, you go get this stuff called queer satin. Everyone.
Speaker 1: It's like nature's version of musinis, kind of queer sittin
Speaker 1: q U E R C I T E N. I
Speaker 1: believe um. I pick it up at a Whole Foods,
Speaker 1: but you can probably find it any herbally place and
Speaker 1: you pop a couple of those and it will help
Speaker 1: clear you out. And if you're doing the I don't
Speaker 1: care if it's herbal, advil, Colton Sinus will like get
Speaker 1: me through anything. And how many don't you? Don't you
Speaker 1: take like four or something crazy like that. I'll usually
Speaker 1: take two if I really have to clear out, and
Speaker 1: then I'll take one every four hours after that or
Speaker 1: something great. Great, Yeah, but it really is like my
Speaker 1: miracle drug. I go coldon sinus. Guys so good. And
Speaker 1: do you sleep with a humidifier? And I mean, like,
Speaker 1: do you know do a Nettie pot through your nose?
Speaker 1: Tell me all. I hate them with a burning passion.
Speaker 1: I've tried, and I'm terrible at them. But I do
Speaker 1: have a personal steamer. So the little like you put
Speaker 1: your face on it and just steams your cords and
Speaker 1: gets you moving if you're really dried out. My old
Speaker 1: trick from the opera singers is hot pineapple juice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you hate it up like you would tea, and you
Speaker 1: sip pineapple juice. That is an opera singer stand by.
Speaker 1: They love it great. What does it feel like to
Speaker 1: listen back to your own voice? It's something you do
Speaker 1: so regularly. A lot of people hate listening to their voice.
Speaker 1: How do you solve that? You just make yourself do it?
Speaker 1: You just you just do. Do you hate listening to
Speaker 1: your own voice? Or have you moved to a really
Speaker 1: different relationship with your voice. I think I've mostly moved
Speaker 1: beyond that, But every once in a while I'll still
Speaker 1: hear something and I'm like, oh, really that's what I saw? What? Man?
Speaker 1: Do you think of those moments? Or when you sound
Speaker 1: the most like yourself or the least like yourself? Solid question,
Speaker 1: Probably probably the most like myself. It's usually like some
Speaker 1: video that someone made on an iPhone camera and I'm like, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: that's brutal. I sound terrible. I mean, higher on would
Speaker 1: have an opinion, but I do think you if you
Speaker 1: can force yourself to listen to yourself objectively, if you
Speaker 1: can just let it go that you're like listening to
Speaker 1: me and I'm just listening to an audiobook narrator or
Speaker 1: I'm listening to a politician, and you take yourself out
Speaker 1: of the equation and what you're listening for is is
Speaker 1: it effective? Is it effective? That's all I'm listening for,
Speaker 1: Like listening for sense? Does it make sense? Is the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm hearing? Like can I follow the thought?
Speaker 1: That's what I'm listening for? And then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: is it fun and engaging? Great, I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: listen for that. I'm going to do a listen for
Speaker 1: I think it's awful the first couple times you do it,
Speaker 1: and then if you really can like separate yourself, you
Speaker 1: just go, oh, okay, I'm just gonna listen to this
Speaker 1: politician or this narrator or what happens. This reminds me
Speaker 1: of is I actually can across a study where if
Speaker 1: somebody listens within um, you know, within the context of
Speaker 1: a study where they're like listening in a booth and
Speaker 1: somebody's you know, given them herror phones, if they hear
Speaker 1: a bunch of snippets of people's voices and their own
Speaker 1: voice is thrown into that mix and they're asked to,
Speaker 1: you know, judge in some sort of quantitative way, which
Speaker 1: voice they like best. People like their own voice best
Speaker 1: when they don't know it's their voice. I'm going to
Speaker 1: link to that study. I was like blown because obviously
Speaker 1: our instincts is that's not possible. It also feels like
Speaker 1: it's not possible to not recognize their own voice, like
Speaker 1: they must have set up some I'll go back to
Speaker 1: the study and see fascinating because most people do, they
Speaker 1: say they hate to me that also if we believe it,
Speaker 1: if we just decide to believe it for a second,
Speaker 1: it should give us a sense of permission that our
Speaker 1: voices actually great, and we with our judgment like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a subset this is making me think of, and
Speaker 1: I'm just getting aculative, but there's an aspect of hearing
Speaker 1: our own voice that isn't actually just about the tone
Speaker 1: of our voice. And boy does it sound different than
Speaker 1: it does me inside, because that's of course what's what's
Speaker 1: really happening there. But also when we hear ourselves back,
Speaker 1: we may be hearing some of the ways in which
Speaker 1: we undermine ourselves, whether it's up speak or vocal fry
Speaker 1: or whatever that in the moment, you really did seem
Speaker 1: like that is the mode that we're in, it's who
Speaker 1: we're talking to, it's how we're going to get what
Speaker 1: we want. And then we hear it back and we
Speaker 1: realize m may be miscalculator or maybe just have some
Speaker 1: bad habits. So it can be a moment of reckoning
Speaker 1: if we listen back to our voice. And that's how
Speaker 1: you learn, right, That's how you also learned from your
Speaker 1: That's why you listen to yourself is to get better.
Speaker 1: I don't know I have I have an interesting moment
Speaker 1: when I listened to my siblings. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you don't have siblings, so you don't get to have
Speaker 1: this moment. But if you have siblings, I think it's
Speaker 1: fun to listen to them objectively because then I have
Speaker 1: moments of like do I do that? Because all of
Speaker 1: my siblings, but the girls in particular, my sisters in particular,
Speaker 1: do these things, and I'm like, your insecurity is in
Speaker 1: your vocality and it comes out in these like weird
Speaker 1: twists vowels or the way that they phrase, and it
Speaker 1: makes me really aware of what I do and how
Speaker 1: that I just think it's interesting to your family. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like to say that our voice reflects our life experience.
Speaker 1: So obviously when we look at our siblings, it's a
Speaker 1: fantastic way to take out some of the variables and
Speaker 1: be like, these people had a similar life experience to
Speaker 1: me up to a point. But then of course there's
Speaker 1: huge variations that happen once we leave home, and you know,
Speaker 1: have different ambitions than them and have different you know,
Speaker 1: people that we date and have different places we live,
Speaker 1: and have different educations and you know, different things and
Speaker 1: have different proclivities and yeah, and sometimes get accents beaten
Speaker 1: out of us humans humans. Okay, how do you think
Speaker 1: about breath when you're working in when you're not working? Oh,
Speaker 1: big question for me. So I had nodules, vocal nodules
Speaker 1: when I was living in New York for a while.
Speaker 1: It was a combination of doing theater whilst bar attending
Speaker 1: whilst not sleeping enough because I was speaking over music
Speaker 1: and a a lot of people at a bar, and then
Speaker 1: going and doing plays and the Hashteck twenties twenties in
Speaker 1: New York. So I had nodules and I went to
Speaker 1: this voice teacher, a wonderful voice teacher at and why
Speaker 1: you to try to figure out how to get rid
Speaker 1: of them because this e nt that I saw. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, I mean there's sure probably to
Speaker 1: surgery and you're probably and I was like, oh, manly,
Speaker 1: I don't want to start there. So I went to
Speaker 1: this voice teacher and he sat and just talked to
Speaker 1: me for the first fifteen minutes about my life, like
Speaker 1: we're just going to talk. At the end of fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: he looked at me and said, well, I know why
Speaker 1: you have nodules and we could fix it. And I said, okay, great,
Speaker 1: Why and he said your breath And I was like,
Speaker 1: I have nodules because of my breath. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: here's the thing. I just listen everything you told me.
Speaker 1: You're the fourth of five children, which means you probably
Speaker 1: learned at the dinner table that the only way to
Speaker 1: be heard someone's talking along you want to say something,
Speaker 1: you jump in immediately, and like that's how you get
Speaker 1: a statement out. So you He's like, you, you have
Speaker 1: a tendency to interrupt, which is something I've worked on
Speaker 1: personally having learned that from him. So you have a
Speaker 1: tendency to interrupt because that's what you learned. And what
Speaker 1: you're also doing is you're never taking a full breath
Speaker 1: before you speak, because you hear a moment, you do
Speaker 1: a catch breath, you jump out and you go and
Speaker 1: you're grinding your vocal cords because you don't have enough breath.
Speaker 1: He's like, you have to relearn to breathe. So I
Speaker 1: spent a bunch of time with him learning to take
Speaker 1: full breath before a thought and to do that in
Speaker 1: my regular life. And it was like the worst six
Speaker 1: months of my life. It was awful. I was trying
Speaker 1: all the time. I was a mess because it was
Speaker 1: so much about how I just literally functioned and had
Speaker 1: since I was this big, and I had to retrain
Speaker 1: my entire thought process and body process. And I did
Speaker 1: get rid of my nodules. It did fix it and
Speaker 1: fixed it, but it was so much of my own
Speaker 1: psychology was wrapped up in it. How I interacted with people.
Speaker 1: I had to really learn not to interrupt, really learned
Speaker 1: to take a full, deep breath before I started talking,
Speaker 1: so that like, on a personal level, breath is incredibly
Speaker 1: important to me, incredibly important. And then when I'm working
Speaker 1: on a mic, it's a weird thing. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who don't love hearing breaths in audiobooks, so
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll cut them out. I hate that. I think
Speaker 1: it makes it sound like you're listening to a robot.
Speaker 1: I like hearing breaths, but you also don't want to
Speaker 1: overhear it, right, So I don't want to be blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. I think
Speaker 1: of breath in that context, or when you hear um,
Speaker 1: you know, a public speaker, politician something. I think of
Speaker 1: breath as somebody who coaches people in those moments, as
Speaker 1: another unit of communication. Yeah, and so if you're taking
Speaker 1: a breath that feels very over dramatic and unnecessary, then
Speaker 1: that is telling a story which is I'm about to
Speaker 1: be very dramatic and unnecessary, right. But if you're taking
Speaker 1: the breath that goes along with the thought, or if
Speaker 1: you're actually taking a breath because you're literally breathing in
Speaker 1: and out, and then it's an entire cycle of breath
Speaker 1: because the moment is large and there are no words,
Speaker 1: that is an important thing for listeners to hear. It
Speaker 1: says as much as the words would have if not
Speaker 1: more and taking the time to breathe. I've also had
Speaker 1: to learn that, like right, because sometimes it's it's loud
Speaker 1: because we're trying to go so fast, and there are
Speaker 1: moments when I'm narrating them like this, we're going to
Speaker 1: get through this as an action sequence, and it has
Speaker 1: to be slow enough the listener can follow it, but
Speaker 1: you are keeping the energy up and some of the
Speaker 1: breaths are going to happen a little more audibly, and
Speaker 1: it's okay because it feels like it's part of the rhythm.
Speaker 1: But then there are times where you're like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take a full breath. And what it also does is
Speaker 1: lets listeners go, oh, I can breathe with you. And
Speaker 1: now we'll go into this new thought. Because listeners breathe
Speaker 1: along with you, you're also telling them when to take
Speaker 1: a breath. And when I made a joke early on
Speaker 1: about a SMR. But like, my understanding of the whole
Speaker 1: you know trend is that it's a way of acknowledging
Speaker 1: that when we are listening to people's voices, it has
Speaker 1: a direct effect on our nervous system, which is what
Speaker 1: you have the power to do when you are in
Speaker 1: people's ears telling a story. Okay, we're gonna find out
Speaker 1: whose voice you brought in for us to listen to
Speaker 1: after this. Okay, we're back with Amy, and who have
Speaker 1: you brought in for us? I have brought in a
Speaker 1: childhood hero slash obsession, Jane Goodall. So it's it was
Speaker 1: really fun to go back and listen to her as
Speaker 1: an adult and sort of put into context what I
Speaker 1: loved about her as a kid now as an adult
Speaker 1: and where her voice fits into that spectrum. Do you
Speaker 1: have an answer to that? Well? As a kid, I
Speaker 1: mean I was I was obsessed with I really wanted
Speaker 1: to be Indiana Jones, Right, He's a guy and he
Speaker 1: was an archaeote, Like, that's what I wanted to be,
Speaker 1: able with these archaeologist running around the world doing all
Speaker 1: these crazy things. And Jane Goodall was the closest real
Speaker 1: person I could find to that who was a woman,
Speaker 1: and she was off an Africa, and she was this
Speaker 1: well respected scientist who ended up I mean, she is
Speaker 1: I think the kind of the premier expert on chimpanzees
Speaker 1: in the world, and she built this whole life for
Speaker 1: herself in a very adventurous way. And I think what
Speaker 1: I Also love about her is that she's done it
Speaker 1: in such a way that feels so, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, feminine. Like all of her work is
Speaker 1: about empathy and understanding and connection, and so it's science
Speaker 1: that is, it's definitely science as research based, but it
Speaker 1: always felt like it was she saw the bigger picture,
Speaker 1: she saw macro. She works from a place of empathy
Speaker 1: and she's this scientific expert, but she's also like the warmest,
Speaker 1: softest spoken. She's a really interesting mix of what I
Speaker 1: think we think of contradictory things personally. Oh that brought
Speaker 1: here is my eyes so yeah, yeah, and it actually
Speaker 1: ties in pretty well to the little bit I picked
Speaker 1: for us to listen to. This is from her Ted
Speaker 1: talk in two thousand two, which feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: half my life ago, and yet what she's talking about
Speaker 1: is pretty relevant unfortunately. So let's dive in. Yes, there
Speaker 1: is hope, and where is the hope? Is it out
Speaker 1: there with the politicians. It's in our hands. It's in
Speaker 1: your hands and my hands and those of our children.
Speaker 1: It's really up to us. We're the ones who can
Speaker 1: make a difference if we lead lives where we consciously
Speaker 1: leave the lightest possible ecological footprints. If we buy the
Speaker 1: things that are ethical for us to buy and don't
Speaker 1: buy the things that are not, we can change the
Speaker 1: world overnight. Thank you, eighteen years ago and so relevant
Speaker 1: today and something that we have epically failed to do. Amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I did happen upon an article quoting her
Speaker 1: from like two days ago that literally said, coronavirus is
Speaker 1: you know, our fault and here's why, having to do
Speaker 1: with you know, just erosion of the distinction between the
Speaker 1: environment and our own lives and the erosion of the
Speaker 1: environment period. Um. I'll link to it because everybody needs
Speaker 1: to read it. But yeah, yeah, So, first of all,
Speaker 1: she's very British. She is, she's very British. She she
Speaker 1: feels very proper and yet and yet there's a there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a relaxation that suggests she's not trying
Speaker 1: to put on. You know, there's something I love about
Speaker 1: her and you can certainly see it just by looking
Speaker 1: at her in this in this Ted talk. Also is
Speaker 1: she's just not interested in being glamorous like you just
Speaker 1: so get that she's lived among chimpanzees and what works
Speaker 1: for them works for her. You know, you can tell
Speaker 1: there's um, there's a degree of careful I think about
Speaker 1: how she talks, like she's really trying to be as
Speaker 1: clear as possible, which suggests the lifetime of trying to communicate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she spent her lifetime studying how to communicate, right, and
Speaker 1: and and you know, across species is obviously like the
Speaker 1: most massive version of what we what we are always
Speaker 1: talking about, which is, you know, trying to be understood
Speaker 1: by somebody who's not like us. And there's also an
Speaker 1: element of sort of complete lack of strain in her voice,
Speaker 1: like she's just not pushing, She's saying exactly what she's
Speaker 1: come to say. She knows it's true. It's speaking with authority,
Speaker 1: but without trying to sound like you're authoritative. She just
Speaker 1: she just knows what she's saying is true. I think
Speaker 1: it's also interesting listening to that clip, in particular the
Speaker 1: Brits versus how Americans speak. I think Americans were always
Speaker 1: talking about up speak at the end for women, or
Speaker 1: we're talking about I'm going to finish the thought and
Speaker 1: so I go down, and Americans do this a lot
Speaker 1: blah blah bah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah, and the Brits are so good at keeping
Speaker 1: thoughts floating and they kind of land right in the middle.
Speaker 1: And I think she does that beautifully in that clip
Speaker 1: where she's gonna she speaks and she's talking along and
Speaker 1: she gets to the end of a thought and it's
Speaker 1: the end of a on but it doesn't really like
Speaker 1: end of a thought or end of a thought. It's
Speaker 1: like she just drives all the way through in a
Speaker 1: really easy way. I do an exercise with clients sometimes
Speaker 1: along these lines, because people do have habitual you know,
Speaker 1: up or down at the end of thoughts, stuff that
Speaker 1: they do for all kinds of reasons having to do
Speaker 1: with you know, just habit or habit based on on
Speaker 1: um social cues that like it's better to sort of
Speaker 1: lose power at the end of your thought in case
Speaker 1: somebody disagrees with you. You know, there's all kinds of
Speaker 1: like multi level things going on there. But the super simple,
Speaker 1: sort of comical exercise that I've done with a lot
Speaker 1: of people is like throwing a fake ball in the
Speaker 1: air and trying to have your voice match what the
Speaker 1: curve of the ball is doing. So if you're throwing
Speaker 1: the ball from like low to high while just saying like,
Speaker 1: my name is Samara, just seeing if you can actually
Speaker 1: do like my name is Samara, just to see like
Speaker 1: it does that feel normal? Maybe it does for some
Speaker 1: people totally does right, And then to do the dropping
Speaker 1: the ball thing and feeling what it feels like to
Speaker 1: have what you know, what you're from saying, which is
Speaker 1: sort of this American concept of front loading, where we
Speaker 1: put all of our energy into the front of the
Speaker 1: thought and by the end we're sort of like whatever.
Speaker 1: So then in that case it would be like my
Speaker 1: name is Samara, which often is connected with vocal fry, right.
Speaker 1: And then the hardest one is the third one, obviously,
Speaker 1: the final option, which is to throw that ball until
Speaker 1: it actually hits the wall opposite you. Not harder than that,
Speaker 1: but to actually hit the wall. And what does that
Speaker 1: sound like my name is Samara. It feels scary, It
Speaker 1: feels weirdly scary, but it is something to practice, and
Speaker 1: you know, it becomes obviously less scary, and it feels
Speaker 1: vulnerable at the same time, which that's Jane Goodall always
Speaker 1: sounds to me like someone who owns her vulnerability. She
Speaker 1: feels so open, she feels like she walks through the
Speaker 1: world just like heart open, mind open, empathy open. But
Speaker 1: she's again also a premier scientist and researcher, which is
Speaker 1: such an interesting thing that I don't think we often
Speaker 1: put together. And you hear it in her voice. I
Speaker 1: think you hear she's not afraid of being emotional. She's
Speaker 1: not afraid of expressing things emotionally in scientific turns. Hope.
Speaker 1: You know, hope is it's way cooler to be cynical. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And she's like, I'm finding my own kind of cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Instead of hating your after all of these years of researching,
Speaker 1: instead of being angry at humanity, she's still focusing on hope.
Speaker 1: And when I saw that article from just a few
Speaker 1: days ago, which is obviously almost twenty years after this
Speaker 1: thing that we just listened to, and she's saying the
Speaker 1: same thing, I was like, Oh my god, the amount
Speaker 1: of energy it takes to maintain that kind of hope.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's what a lot of us are trying
Speaker 1: to sort of navigate right now. But just to think
Speaker 1: about the decades and decades of it and saying, guys,
Speaker 1: where the problem We can do this overnight? Wait, Okay,
Speaker 1: but how about tomorrow night. But okay, but we can
Speaker 1: still do tomorrow night. But really, but really, guys, but really,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to Amy Landon for joining me.
Speaker 1: You can find out more about her in the show
Speaker 1: notes or on our website Permission to Speak pod dot com.
Speaker 1: Please also go to the site if you have any
Speaker 1: awesome quotes or any questions you want to submit for
Speaker 1: my next mail dig episode. What is getting in the
Speaker 1: way of your voice? I always want to know? Also
Speaker 1: feel free to send d M s or voicemailmos to
Speaker 1: our instagram at Permission to Speak Pod, where we're posting
Speaker 1: a bunch and join the community. Thanks as well to
Speaker 1: Sophie Lichterman and the team at I Heart Radio, my
Speaker 1: family and cohort and all of you. We're recording this
Speaker 1: podcast at various locations around Los Angeles on land that
Speaker 1: used to belong to the Tongva indigenous tribe, and you
Speaker 1: can visit us D A C dot us to learn
Speaker 1: more about honoring native land. Permission to Speak is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Double Vision Executive produced
Speaker 1: by Katherine Burt Canton and Mark Canton. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio, listen on the I Heart radio, app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. H