The benefits of silence for someone who talks for a living... a week of quiet meditation

A little anecdotal article from my week at a silent meditation retreat.

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David Holmes, voice actor, stops talking for a week's meditation retreat.

Q. What do you call a Voiceover Artist at a Silent Meditation Retreat?

A. David

I have just returned from my, seemingly, annual silent retreat at a meditation centre not far from where I live.  The Nagarjuna Kadampa Mediation Centre in deepest Northamptonshire. A truly beautiful setting in and around the grounds of Thornby Hall, originally built as a hunting lodge in the late 1600s.

This was my third silent retreat at this Buddhist centre and my umpteenth visit overall.  This past week was a stunning time to visit given the excellent weather and constant breeze bordering on 'blustery'.  There is lovely, simple accommodation, excellent vegetarian food, beautiful cafe and enveloping woodland. 

None of these, however, is the key to the six days I spent 'shtum'. 

Training not to think 

The point of it all is the meditation.  Now, I try to meditate (using an app) most days.  I certainly use a meditative "sleep story" every night.  Sometimes it’s great, but most often it isn’t.  This week reminded me how much more effective it is being guided in-person in meditation as a group.  Sometimes it didn’t "catch", but most often it did.

The view from my own personal meditation tree stump.

Compared to previous meditation retreats I have attended, this one wasn’t particularly "hardcore", but even 3 or 4 one hour sessions a day training your mind, basically, "not to think" is taxing and exhausting. 

I know, you don’t believe me… but you’d be wrong.  Just like any strength we wish to improve, training is required.  Keeping the mind in a single-point-focus for 20-30 minutes is an enormous ask.  I certainly didn’t achieve it in this week’s retreat. 

Having said that, I did improve, I did remember some tricks and choices that help, and by the end of the week I was much better than I have been for a while. I am stronger.

True mindfulness

From the Buddhist standpoint holding the mind on one positive thought is in itself a training to then progress to more complex contemplative meditation.  For me though, and the other few people I was training with, the purpose of the week was to regain a little more control of our thoughts and to be able to choose the directions in which they take us; not only when meditating, but throughout the day and week thereafter.

I loved my breezy wee spot by this tree for some quiet mantras.

And the silence?  Well, if we weren’t silent then between each session we’d go to the cafe and order a turmeric latte (when in Rome…) and a slice of (unbelievable) carrot cake and have a jolly good chinwag about "oh, I thought I might fall asleep during…" and whatnot.  The meditation would be hard bracketed by the schedule.  By being silent there is only our mind to contend with.  On the second day I had horrendous anxiety and horrible moments of self-flagellation.  Aside from that inevitable hiccough, however, the silence allows the continual practice of applying the methods learned.  There is no easy out.  This point goes again to underline quite how tiring the whole process is… like spending a full week at the brain gym!

In between sessions I spent alternating between (i) meditating (on a stump in the woods - I know: lush), (ii) reading on meditation, and (iii) reading fiction ("off" time, although I reckon it depends on the book!)

Between sessions, the silence means more work.

Voiceover though - surely "reading out loud" doesn’t require unusual control over our thoughts?

To answer that (and hopefully avoiding the rabbit-hole of self-aggrandising) let’s take a short dive into the brain of a working voiceover:

Generally speaking (no pun intended) we are reading from a script. 

• Whilst doing so we are keeping in mind our client’s overall message and how they want the "read" to feel. 

• We are remembering all the small adjustments our client has just asked us to make. 

• We are weighing these adjustments off against the adjustments their agency representative has just asked us to make (which, of course, are often contrary to each other). 

• We are analysing our own notations on the script as we go which often help clarify bad (or missing) punctuation, grammar, sections that are poorly translated. 

• We are keeping one eye on the video we are voicing alongside to keep our timings in sync without it sounding like we are. 

• We are bearing in mind our distance and angle to the microphone and keeping an ear open to plosives and sibilance while being hyper-aware of (but not distracted by) our own speech idiosyncrasies that the engineer and our clients may not spot. 

  

  Keep an eye on the waveform!

• We are keeping our eye on our levels in our local recording and also our levels in the broadcast audio to make sure we don’t "clip". 

• We are watching the waveform. 

• We are making sure we note which "takes" worked well and whether the client’s requested filenaming system will work with them. 

• We are exerting ourselves physically to make sure the recording’s emotions are truly felt and "real" (while bearing in mind the microphone proximity as mentioned before). 

• We are making sure that our shouting is realistic but without really shouting and that our whispers are realistic without actually whispering. 

• We are remaining friendly and open and willing throughout and we are keeping really bl**dy chill about it all! 

… and that’s all for a fairly standard script; the rule, not the exception.

So… why a silent retreat?

Firstly - the silence.  The silence is very, very (can I get away with a third "very"?) welcome.

Not silent.

Secondly - reinvigorating the mental control I mentioned above.  Whichever way you look at it, the list of "focuses" in a recording session is enormous and, without a very real ability - no - skill to control our thought processes and where they lead us, we would not be able to do all of this and still remain "in the moment" and inhabit the words.

Clients want Real and Believable and Authentic.  And we can give them exactly that.  While also doing a lot else.

Now, sssh...  I’m trying not to think!

If you need a very mindful approach to your next project please do get in touch.

I also specialise in recording meditations, mindfulness exercises and sleep stories. You can visit my Meditation and Wellness page here.

Nagarjuna Kadampa Meditation Centre