I'll admit, I've always been a sucker for headphones as far back as I can remember. I love discovering the nuances and subtleties of music and spoken word that can only be found when you're that close to the source. My trusty Sony 7506's were my constant companion as I ventured into broadcasting and eventually, voiceover. These days, three out of four voice coaches will tell you to get used to not wearing headphones in the booth. In theory, it's good advice. I'll paraphrase how it's been explained to me by my coach.
We hear ourselves talk all the time, a combination of the sound waves that comes out of our mouth around our cheeks and into our ears, and the vibrations we feel rumbling through our chest cavity and beyond. In normal conversation, our voice sounds far different than it does when we hear it from a speaker. It's why when many people first hear themselves on a voicemail recording, they freak out. Because in their own head they sound completely different. Since "normal" and "conversational" are both words to describe what many of us are trying to achieve in our reads at this place and time, replicating it means getting things out of our way that inhibit us from authentic communication. When we talk to a friend, we typically don't give a rip about how we "sound." We don't worry whether we're coming up or down on this word or that, punching a certain phrase or ending our sentences with a nice bit of growl. Ha. If we did, we'd sound ridiculous and fake. Truth is, we give each word just the right feeling and emphasis automatically without even thinking about it, simply by keeping our mind on the message of what it is we're saying. It's so simple, and yet amazing.
But when performing with headphones, it's as if we're broadcasting to ourselves over a little radio. And let me tell you, I can be very critical of me when my voice is put under that kind of auditory microscope. Where every little nuance is noticed, every flaw magnified. The result is that we tend to edit ourselves in real time not even realizing we're doing it. We constantly make little itty bitty changes in delivery based on how we think each word is sounding -- a completely subconscious thing but it comes at a cost. Since we're listening to our voice and our performance so closely and so loudly thanks to headphones, we're actually disconnecting a little from the message, putting that energy instead into figuring out if we're sounding like we think we should sound like. Authenticity gets lost and the performance isn't as strong as it could have been. One thing I remind myself often is that it's not about my voice. It's about the message I'm communicating. My voice doesn't matter. My point of view does. My opinion does. My voice will just carry that point of view and opinion.
All that being said, often during a session, a producer will be listening in on the phone (which of course will be tied into your mixing board and headphones via a phone patch.) So you'll need be able to communicate with them somehow. Many suggest taking a pair of earbuds, putting one of them in your ear and turning it up when the producer talks. Or leaving it very low. That way, you aren't hearing a booming voice in a closed-ear set of cans that make you want to force things a little more, but you'll still be able to hear a producer giving you direction.
Now, here is where I stray from that train of thought a bit and my coach actually supports me in it. If you can teach yourself to ignore your voice in your headphones and break through that stumbling block with a sharp mental hyper focus entirely on the message in the copy, that's a pretty powerful ability that can make you and your reads even stronger. And sometimes, you have no choice but to wear headphones, particularly in the promo world as audio often gets piped down the ISDN line while you read along with it. Are your reads going to suffer because you aren't used to hearing yourself through headphones? I think it could be a little dangerous to go back and forth between taking them on and off, session to session. So to stay consistent, I choose to keep them on all the time. For me, it works.
This year, I am choosing to make a major change in my use of headphones based on some examination and even conviction about some things that I've come to realize in my life over the past month or two. I'll elaborate a little more over the coming days.
-Joe
