Doing gravelly voices for a long time; how?

[zoetrope]

Hi, I just discovered this great forum and this is my first post. So hi!

I'm fairly good at doing voices of many muppet characters, but if I do one of the more gravelly voiced characters (Animal, Grover, etc.) for too long, my throat gets sore. Are there any tricks anyone knows for dealing with this, or is that just the way it is.

Any tips or ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Whatever]

I don't really know how. I think your voice has to be made that way. Welcome to MC!

 

[zoetrope]

You know, I'd tend to think that since there are people who just naturally have gravelly voices, except that Jim Henson wasn't one of them. His speaking voice (and his Kermit voice) was pretty mellifluous, yet some of his characters like Rowlf or Dr. Teeth had a gravelly voice.

 

[ScrapsFlippy]

Top Ten ways to Speak Gravelly -

10. Gargle with rusty nails
9. Channel the spirit of Leonard Cohen
8. Channel the spirit of Tom Waits
7. uh - uh -

little help, please?

 

[Puppetplanet]

7. Smoke 10 packs a day
6. Be the love child of Stevie Nicks and Leonard Cohen
5. Get an operation like Demi Moore
.........

 

[Rugby]

Sometimes I have that problem. I can do a wide range of muppet characters(mostly Jim's. Frank's and Dave's)on top of my own voices. I'm pretty good at imitating/impersonating voices and even impersonate radio personalities and do my own schtick.(all for my family's and my own personal pleasure, not public performances)Not sure why I'm not in the voice talent field. But sometimes I find it hard to do Grover's voice. Then other times hard to do Kermit's. But usually I can go from Bert to Ernie to Piggy to Kermie to Gonzo to Rowlf to Grover to Elmo and then to Cookie, and am even getting good at Oscar and Big Bird. I sometimes wonder what would happen if I performed before a talent scout.



Something I was thinking the other day. I never did think Rich Little did a very good Kermit impersonation.

 

[scarylarrywolf]

4. Soak your hair and hang your head out the window on a cold day...
3. Trade vocal chords with Louis Armstrong.........

Actually, my star character Scary Larry has a gravelly voice, which sometime switches into just a tweaked version of my own. He only tends to by gravelly in the lower regions of his voice, similar to Grover's voice -- it's not always gravelly. That helps me to cope with it. Frank Oz has admitted that gravelly voices do murder to his throat, and says he can only do them for short periods of time, sometimes doing a soft-voiced character between gravelly-voiced ones. So it happens to the best of us!

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Hi, I just discovered this great forum and this is my first post. So hi!

I'm fairly good at doing voices of many muppet characters, but if I do one of the more gravelly voiced characters (Animal, Grover, etc.) for too long, my throat gets sore. Are there any tricks anyone knows for dealing with this, or is that just the way it is.

Hi Zoetrope, and welcome to MC!

Sadly, this is pretty much just the way it is. I'm about to shoot something with a gravelly voiced character that I haven't done in several years and I am just dreading it because it really does do murder to your throat.

I am not an expert on vocal exercises and techniques, but there are exercises you can do to help lessen the strain on your vocal cords. I do a modified version of a singer's warm-up someone taught me once. A voice coach or someone who knows a lot about singing might be able to help you with this.

 

[jediX]

I mostly do lower voices (Animal, Gollum, Sam, Yoda, generic Orc/monsterous voices) and noticed that warm green tea with honey works pretty good at sustaining (or at least helping fix) a throaty voice. I do it all the time for singing, too.

 

[zoetrope]

Frank Oz has admitted that gravelly voices do murder to his throat, and says he can only do them for short periods of time, sometimes doing a soft-voiced character between gravelly-voiced ones.

Wow, that's very interesting. Do you recall where you heard or read that? If even Frank Oz has this problem I guess I don't feel so bad.

Buck-Beaver, I know some singing warmups and do them from time to time. They do help, but it's kind of like doing stretching exercises before you go running into a wall.

jediX, I've always thought of tea as good for a soar throat in general, but I recently read a book by a vocal coach (Set Your Voice Free by Roger Love) and he has two problems with tea. First, if the tea has caffeine, that will dehydrate you which will worsen vocal problems. Second, he says, "even after you remove the caffeine, the lemon, the honey, and the sugar, you still have a problem: the heat. The termperature of any fluid affects the size of the tissue it comes in contact with. Heat causes blood vessels to dilate (open up), allowing the liquid portion of the blood to leak into tissue spaces, which causes swelling." He actually comes around and says warm tea (without caffeine) is ok, as long as it isn't too hot.