Q: You’ve often been called one of America’s best vocal coaches. What got you started?
Dan: [Laughs] I got mugged by Fate…

Q: Explain.
Dan: I was in college, like everyone, and I happened to be doing simultaneous projects in the drama department as well as the music department. I was playing “Richard II” which is a very long role, and on alternating nights I was singing Pimen in “Boris Godunov.” There’s an old joke that people who thought they could shout their way through plays, and scream their way through operas, found Fate waiting for them in Verdi and Shakespeare. Well, I found Fate. This was a mind-blowing revelation on the need for vocal efficiency. I realized real fast I couldn’t bluff my way through the control I needed. I had to develop it. That’s when I started paying my respects to technique. [Smiles] I guess you could call it a survival thing. In the beginning anyway. I was lucky to be in an extremely demanding situation that clarified some things for me.

Q: So how did you come to coach voiceover?
Dan: Funny story. I was coaching a lot of actors and singers when suddenly a Seven-Figure Monster from the voiceover world called. Basically, he was having a vocal rough spot and wanted help fixing it. He had heard a lot of nice things about me from folks I had coached. I told him, "yeah come on in," and sure enough, we started working together. And sure enough, his vocal problems disappeared. Moreover, his “control was better than ever”—this from a Seven-Figure Monster! Amazingly, in all the years of doing voiceover—and we’re talking twenty here, and millions of dollars—no one had ever taught him the basic principles of vocal production. And that’s when I realized that people spend years trying to learn how to read copy, but almost no one spends time developing the engine that does all the work... their voice. The issues of breathing and cadence and voice development—all the stuff I had been teaching singers and actors—were almost never addressed, anywhere. Yes, people get a lot of good advice and perfomance coaching, but unless they have mastery and understanding of their vocal instrument, they can’t do what they hear in their head. Or what the booth director keeps asking.

Q: And so you start with their voice?
Dan: Absolutely. That’s why they call it voice over. [Laughs] You have to understand that many performers have never really been introduced to the wonderful power of their vocal instrument. Yes, some have studied the hell out of Strasberg, or Hagen, or Meisner, and they knock their performances right out of the park, but when it comes to that first point of contact—their voice—most have only touched the tip of the iceberg. Strangely, this is even true with professional voiceover people. Often they bank on their vocal quality, but not their vocal training. You hear it all the time, people struggling with their vocal production in little ways… the breathing may be off here and there, the voice is a little pinched on the end of a phrase—whatever. Then—bang!—they’re surprised to lose the audition.

I’ve seen it time and again, where the guy who gives the smoothest, most “spontaneous” reading beats out the more powerful, but less trained voice. And I’m including movie stars here. Essentially, ultimately, we hear the control. That’s what keeps pros going year after year—training. Not just a good voice, but training, the command of their instrument.

Q: So you’ve become everyone’s vocal drill sergeant?
Dan: God no, that’s so frightening. No, I’m more like Yoda [Laughs].

Q: Yoda?
Dan: That’s right. I’m that little voice in your ear at the audition reminding you to “trust your voice, Luke.” And then you go back and concentrate on your breathing, and your phrasings, and then you knock the delivery out of the park, and the Death Star out of orbit.

Q: Thank you, Yoda.
Dan: You’re welcome, young Skywalker.