Another note from the email bag:
Someone taking the Learn-Ventriloquism course free lessons wrote:
I already have puppets. I am interested to learn the pronunciation of the hard letters. Is there an option to learn just that?
If pronunciation of the labial letters, B,F,M,P and V were simple, everyone could do them.
But go to Youtube and listen! Find some ventriloquist videos, start one and close your eyes. Just listen…
Do the voices really sound different?
What about the pronunciation? Can you hear the actual B, F, M, P & V sounds? Or do you hear substitutions?
Watch a bunch, with your eyes closed and just listening. You’ll see what I mean pretty fast. Most vents are using substitutions – and they don’t sound right.
Why is this? You probably thought everyone uses substitutions.
A substitution is only the basic building block. It is like having one leggo of a total sculpture.
The second part of this involves sound modification. Which is controlled with deep breathing and a supple tongue.
That is why I teach breathing and tongue exercises as the first two lessons in Learn-Ventriloquism. And throughout the course, I tell students to keep practicing those exercises.
Because without those strengths, you won’t get the sounds of the labial letters correct.
My response to the email was, if you just want to learn the labial letters, I am not the teacher for you. No doubt you can find someone to teach you just the labials. But without a firm foundation, nailing those sounds will be very difficult. And chances are, the person teaching you will only describe the substitutions.
Why do I believe that?
Because the ventriloquists who have nailed the labials, people like Jay Johnson, Ronn Lucas, Terry Fator, Ken Groves and others – understand it is more than just a secret.
Ventriloquism is a skill. Not a trick. It has to be built from the ground up. If it were easy to do correctly, everyone would be doing it. But there are very few maestros!
You can’t sit down at a piano, learn the notes and play a concerto.
You can’t learn some letter substitutions and call yourself a ventriloquist.
As a final note, I am embedding a video by my friend Ken Groves here. Close your eyes and listen to his labials – do you hear a substitution? I can already answer that question – and I bet you can too, but listen to see how it is supposed to be done.
