Barb Lyon
Voice Artist

I have two loves. My mic. And dog training. One requires focus, concentration and energy. And the other? Well. Same. Turns out, voice acting and dog training have more in common than you'd think. Voice over can actually make this weird slide into the Obedience and Rally rings.

Some days inspiration shows up like a polite houseguest. It knocks. You open the door. It sits down at the table and gets right to work. The words flow. The ideas line up. And for a brief moment you wonder why anyone ever complains about the creative process. Those days are wonderful. They are also…not most days. Most days inspiration is nowhere to be found. Not late. Not stuck in traffic. Just gone.

From time to time I meet someone who says, “Voice over? What’s that?” I’ll explain that a lot of the work I do—eLearning narration, YouTube videos, telecom applications—you’ll probably never hear unless you’re especially interested in paying an electric bill in Detroit, really dig solar panels, or just can’t learn enough about child car seats. It’s not glamorous. It’s steady. It’s useful. And every now and then I get lucky with a national or regional ad they might have seen.