Until you’re a little further down the road with all this, you’re probably going to have to have to rely on yourself first to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. If your home studio is already set up, you can use it for this next part. If not, grab yourself a decent little cassette recorder (regular or mini). Use your existing transcribed scripts or copy down some new ones. Read them into the cassette recorder with your very best delivery.
Then, sit down and listen, critiquing your delivery. Are there words or consonant sounds that you seem to struggle with? If so, just work on them. Start slowly and enunciate clearly…then, pick up the pace until you can delivery it at your normal pace with a very natural sound. Then, listen to your delivery side-by-side with the original spots you transcribed. Do you sound as good? If not, what are you missing? Work on that until you think you’re as good as the original.
Then, it’s time to bring someone else in on the process. Find a trusted friend. Someone who you know has good taste in general…and someone who’s not afraid to be blunt with you when you’re wrong. Ask them to listen and critique your work…to point out anything they hear that’s not very strong. Then, work on that area.
Remember, practice DOES make perfect. If you have troublesome areas…work on them until you’ve conquered them. It’s much better to do this ahead of time than in the studio on someone else’s dime.
You need to believe in yourself. And that means that you also need to be your own worst critic. Learn your weaknesses and your strengths. Make your weaknesses less weak. Then, play to your strengths. |
