My presentation and acting skills began honing while in elementary school, doing several school plays.
My background also includes years of singing tenor with a vocal group in Cleveland, Ohio while in high school, at the same time performing with the school choral club. Public vocal performance continued after high school with other vocal and instrumental groups.
While in the military, I was asked to lead the troops to and from training because of the commanding voice I was able to muster as necessary for a large company sized unit.
I worked for a few years in the travel industry, including work at Disney World’s Central Reservation Office and Mark Travel Corporation. That work entailed describing vacation packages to prospective clients in such a way as to make a sale that day.
For the past 30 years, within my religious organization, I have put my ministry school speech and presentation training to work with public reading and speaking before congregations.
For the past 5 years, my singing has continued as I performed songs I wrote for an artist team called Elprocomm Revue (www.elprocommrevue.com).
Most recently, I completed a complete e-book voiceover job for the president of Power Entertainment, Leroy McMath, entitled "The Music Game: Playing to Win."
My vocal training mainly comes as a combination of vocal training by a choral club teacher and voice coach as well as the 30 years speech and presentation training I received by my religious organization ministry school.
In the travel industry, I received training to effectively present vacation packages over the phone with a “smile” in the voice, using soft and medium sell approaches.
I should add that the coaching I received while acting in school plays laid the basis for my ability to interpret scripts to get the proper feel and direction.
Finally, I cannot overlook the valuable aid received by Dan Balestrero’s voiceover CD course.
My studio equipment consists of the following:
1) Edirol USB Audio Capture UA-25 (audio and MIDI interface, for capturing analog signal from microphone and converting to digitial for computer sound card interface)
2) AT3035 cardioid condenser microphone (large diaphragm for detail and low noise, wide dynamic range, and shock mount)
3) Adobe Audition (digital audio editing software for recording, mixing, editing, and mastering sound files)
I keenly understand that motivational presentation is key to voiceover work. If the message to be conveyed is not delivered clearly to the heart of the target audience, it is quite likely that the expected response will be missing.
In coaching members of vocal groups and solo singers, I have been in the seat of the producer trying to bring out the right touch, helping the artist understand what the “script” is all about.
Therefore, I am well aware of what is needed to convey the right “personality” for the script at hand.