Radio Broacaster Angela Catterns, Voice lesson 2

Michael Kelly
Do you have any warm-up activities for your voice?

Angela Catterns
I always warm-up in the car on the way to work. First I just free up the muscles in my face and my mouth. Then I go through all the vowels (a, eh, ee, ah, oo). Then I do a really ridiculous thing, that I don’t know where I picked it up from.

It came from something Wendy Harmer and I did on the radio once. I sing along to the ‘Can Can’ (song) except I go through every letter of the alphabet. For example (aaa, aa,aa bbb, bb, bb, ccc, ddd, dd, dd ).

And the other thing I’d say is that some days, you just don’t feel on. You know, when you’re doing breakfast radio and you’ve woken up at 3:30am, and you had to drag yourself off to the radio station – it’s pitch black and nobody’s awake, and you have to open the microphone at 5:30 – and sound ALIVE, and energized and pleasant.

That’s really just turning the ‘On’ switch on. You just have to forget how you feel and you walk in the studio – sometimes I sit right on the very edge of the chair, so I’m not that comfortable, I’m almost slipping off the chair – and you just have to switch off that feeling of tiredness, and suddenly, ‘HI, HERE I AM’.

It’s just a conscious change you have to affect in yourself.”

The above was another Q&A with Angela Catterns at an event I hosted last month. I’d reinforce Cattern’s message that you should warm-up your voice on the way to work. If you drive to work, you can turn on the radio and mimic the voices you hear.

If you take public transport, as you can’t speak aloud, take opportunities to say ‘Hi’ and chat to people on your way to work (eg. when you buy a newspaper, or get your morning coffee).

Your how to apply/call to action for this post: In the next seven day reflect on Angela Cattern’s advice and make an effort to warm up your voice every day on your way to work.