20 feet to freedom

A 20-foot long steel shipping container. The ideal working environment, I’m sure you’ll agree. What could be better? Throw those clanking bolts open, swing the doors wide and step inside for the day.

You might think it’s a bit dull in there – dark, certainly. A plywood floor maybe, a bit echoey inside, some spiders lurking in the corners, cold on a cold day, unbearably hot on a hot one, and a loud drumming sound on the roof when it rains. Ordinarily, you’d be right. My container certainly starts out like that. But my container is no ordinary container, you see. Not after the modifications. My container has heating, lighting, a really smart rug, a desk and swivel chair, colourful walls, a window, and a coffee table with a kettle and jazzy mugs. I’m engrossed in my work in there, oblivious to the outside world, cocooned in my creative space, and having a whale of a time.

I’m a voice artist, and this is my studio.

I’ve recorded a few audiobooks, and the voiceovers for many ‘explainer videos’ among other things, and I enjoy it hugely. The complete freedom of expression voice work has given me is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. I’ve worked for many years as a language teacher, which has taught me a lot about the creativity of the spoken word as an art form, the modulation of tone, inflections and accents, the limitless variety of delivery which can excite, inform, encourage, persuade, illustrate, narrate, welcome or simply explain. Recording spoken language gives me great satisfaction. Unlike in the classroom, if I don’t like what I’ve just done, I can simply delete it and do another take – or seven, or seventy – until I’m happy with the sound I’ve made. There is something deeply rewarding in doing multiple takes of the same words, over and over again, until something emerges that is different from the others, something that makes you yourself listen, and then makes you want to listen more. And I want to do more.

It seems that now I have reached my ‘plateau’ moment. There is, I’m sure, a tipping point for many artists of all varieties. To carry on recording and make it my profession, I need a change of space. So far I have worked out of my own ‘home studio’. This is comfortable and secure, but as a recording space it has its limitations, some of them insurmountable. Before the lockdowns of 2020, I worked in my terraced house on a main road in a small town. The heavy rumble of lorries past the front door meant that I had to choose my recording times carefully, often late into the night. In 2020 I relocated to look after my elderly parents in a quieter, rural spot not plagued by passing lorries. I set up my home studio in the quietest room I could find, and got a commission for another audiobook. However, just like Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren, I hadn’t reckoned with the birds. The commission came in April, neatly coinciding with the nesting season for the jackdaws who raise their young in the roof of this old Victorian house. Their shrill chirping interrupted every single chapter of the book, and almost every page. Try as I might, I couldn’t keep them out. Double glazing, heavy curtains, blocks of acoustic foam, cushions and pillows, none of it could eliminate the dreaded ‘jackdaw frequencies’. In the end I had to resort to editing out each chirrup using my software, pasting in tiny snippets of silence to smother my feathered friends. This took hours and hours of careful listening…

I’m happy to say that book is finally published. But for the ones to come, and I hope there will be many, I dream of my own little dedicated studio space. A place of complete silence. A converted shipping container seems the ideal solution. I’ve already researched and learnt how this is done – how it can be soundproofed, ventilated, lit and powered – and I’m very excited by the prospect. I’ve even looked into where I could site it locally. My dream is expanding every day. Now it is not only my own little recording studio, but an affordable practice space for local musicians (including me), and even a place for them to record themselves. There are little steps up to the studio, a friend has painted a beautiful mural on the side, and at the front there is a wildflower garden with poppies, and bees doing their busy thing…

I simply can’t wait.