I once knew a lady vent and her husband who called and wanted to visit with me at my home and show me some of her puppets and her scrap book. We had a wonderful time talking vent shop and she mentioned to me that she did 33 different voices for her several characters that she had. I was enthralled and asked her to demonstrate her voices for me. In the end she did two or three distinct voices and the rest sounded like the first two or three. She had more puppet characters than voices to go with them!
I was amazed at what I had witnessed. She did not have the hearing to tell the difference in her character voices! She thought if she speeded up the voice or slowed it down (but it still sounded like one of the two or three she did) that counted as a different voice.
My firm belief is that you have two or three good vent voices in you. The rest sound like bad copies of the original voices. I would suggest working with a video or a recording device of some sort and listen to what you audience hears. If your recording sounds like two different voices, congratulations, you passed the test!
Some may argue that Jim Henson’s voice sounded like Kermit the Frog. That’s true, but Jim was hidden..he was a puppeteer! Work on your voices!
Mark Wade- kidshowvent@gmail.com
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