Alessandra Levy Interview

0:19 Luke F. Walton What's up, everybody? Welcome to Love Music More. I'm Scoobert Doobert and I'm joined with Alessandra. So Alessandra is voice actor, vocalist, bass player, producer, everything from creating characters from a young age of three to singing in front of large groups of 13, all about being on stage in the studio on camera.

0:39 Luke F. Walton And I'm so excited to talk about all of your kind of musical journey. I don't want to spoil too much of it.

0:45 Luke F. Walton it and then also kind of the musical element of voice acting and how you can kind of merge these worlds kind of the world of audio and the world of music and the world of cadence and repetition all the things we do musically we also do in speech so I can't wait to talk about all of this but first of all welcome to the show Alessandra

1:07 Alessandra Levy Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

1:09 Luke F. Walton Awesome. So one of the things I like to start off with is just talking about kind of that beginning. So I'd love to talk about, you know, three-year-old Alessandra, what was the light bulb? Was that, was it way back then? Was it, do you think it was just like nature versus nurture kind of thing of wanting to get involved?

1:28 Alessandra Levy Yeah, I think it may be a little bit of both.

1:31 Luke F. Walton Cool, cool.

1:31 Alessandra Levy Definitely in my nature, but I also grew up. grew up just in a very musical family, very performance-based family.

1:40 Alessandra Levy Both my parents, you know, also performed as kids and teenagers and throughout college, you know. So I think just, I think definitely in my nature, like I was kind of born just like ready to go in that way, but I also think just being in that environment really helped. for

1:58 Alessandra Levy I love sure that. yeah yeah Yeah. So can you take me

2:00 Luke F. Walton through kind of those next steps of your journey? So going from finding your place on stage, but then how did you kind of start to think, okay, this is a career that I want to pursue. This is something like I really, really want to do on a deeper than like hobby level.

2:19 Alessandra Levy um I don't think there was a choice I Yeah, think cool. it was like from just that early of an age I just didn't think about anything else it

2:30 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

2:31 Alessandra Levy wasn't like I want to be an astronaut when I grow up or like I want to be a a baseball player or whatever like it was like no I'm going to be an actor I'm a musician I'm a performer like it was like very clear um and I always sort of

2:46 Alessandra Levy it's so interesting I kind of like credit my parents I thank them for this like they would say when I was you know that age maybe three four around that age people would be like oh my gosh she's like the next Shirley Temple you got to get her in movies and commercials and TV and whatever and my parents were like um

3:03 Alessandra Levy let's just wait until she figure you know if she wants to do it when she's an adult we're not gonna like force her into anything like yes we agree she's a ham but you know we're not trying to um you know I don't know have her end up in not a great place because I you know there's a lot more people speaking out right now especially about you know being in the industry a little too early and it just sort of doesn't always end up the way you think so I think

3:30 Alessandra Levy that's pretty cool my parents are like okay yeah we kind of agree but also we're gonna let her figure it out if she wants to do it great um

3:37 Alessandra Levy Yeah. so yeah I mean uh that's sort of I didn't really have any other ideas of what I wanted to do it was like oh it's just like I want to be on stage I want to be performing I want to be you know acting I want to be singing I want to be making music uh so yeah there wasn't really you There wasn't a choice. It just kind of was like predestined, like this is what I'm doing.

4:00 Luke F. Walton I love that. I love that. And I'm curious, too, because I did some acting in high school and stuff, and I always thought that there was a deeper parallel than a lot of people realize.

4:10 Luke F. Walton It's not just being like an entertainer. I think that there's just a quality of musicians and acting go really well hand in hand. I don't think it's just people like trying to get attention. I'm just curious what your thoughts on it. Do you feel like each kind of reinforces? reinforce the other in any sort of sense.

4:27 Alessandra Levy Yes, I definitely feel like. Just performing in general, Yeah, you know, there's

4:34 Luke F. Walton cool.

4:34 Alessandra Levy so many parallels. That's also why I find like the more and more I'm deeply involved and engaged in the voice actor community, I meet so many musicians. I'm like,

4:43 Alessandra Levy Yeah. oh, cool. Like I feel at home here too. So I just, yeah, I think in general, performing, if it's music or you're acting or you're dancing, I think there's so many similarities and it's.

4:58 Alessandra Levy really all just about the same thing you're using your experiences in life you're using your stories your uh the ups and downs of your life you know bad experiences good experience you're using it all to create and

5:13 Alessandra Levy to make art so I feel like on just the deepest level it is so similar of course then you can get into technical things like

5:21 Alessandra Levy Yeah. you know when I went to school for a jazz performance we also did it was the major was jazz performance and studio music so like I learned how to be on a microphone and in a studio and of course now as a voice actor that's also what I'm doing so of course there's like the technical things that obviously are very similar but I think just on the most basic level it's you're performing you're using your

5:42 Alessandra Levy your story to create the work.

5:46 Luke F. Walton I like that. And I also think that that gives a sense of like power to somebody that might be trying something new. It's like, hey, like at the root, it's the same thing.

5:54 Alessandra Levy Yeah. It's just a different kind of vehicle for that same. A just

5:58 Luke F. Walton hundred percent.

5:58 Alessandra Levy a psychic yeah Yeah. There's so many similarities.

6:00 Luke F. Walton i like that i like that a lot so in terms of uh picking up instruments and and kind of that that path did you start with with vocals and then you're like hey i want to pick up some other instruments or did you pick up instrument like how did that how did that flow oh

6:16 Alessandra Levy So my mom was an orchestra teacher for like 40, almost 40 years. my god So I grew up in like a string heavy family. Okay.

6:24 Alessandra Levy Yeah. So I think I remember being about four, my mom got me this like really cute little baby violin and was

6:31 Alessandra Levy helping Aw, me like, you know, learn how to play.

6:33 Luke F. Walton that's adorable.

6:34 Alessandra Levy And, you know, my dad plays guitar. And so, yeah, just a lot of strings in my house. So after I started playing violin at four-ish, then at five, I started playing, getting piano lessons. And I took piano lessons for maybe 10 years.

6:53 Alessandra Levy And then obviously I still studied in college, but as far as like a weekly piano

6:58 Alessandra Levy Yeah, practice lesson that was like from five to like 15. And then, of course, continued my education when I when I went to school in piano. But yeah, so yeah, violin, piano. And then I was sort of lucky enough to be in my mom's orchestra in junior high, which I feel like is OK if it was like a math class. Obviously, I don't think you want to be in like your mom. like your mom's class

7:22 Alessandra Levy Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. but I feel like music is a little bit different you know so I was in her orchestra and I was still playing violin at the time and I just remember like every time we would do auditions for like the concert to see like wherever we would see like seated I kept like moving back and back on the violin and I was like what's going on and my mom's like Alessandra um you can only get so far with like pure talent and innate like ability on an instrument she's like you have to

7:50 Alessandra Levy you have to practice if

7:51 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

7:52 Alessandra Levy you want to keep getting better she's like but everyone else is practicing and they're getting better than you

7:56 Alessandra Levy Yeah, and yeah, I just remember being like what that's so crazy and I remember just like looking back at the bass section like all the dudes and they were just like having fun I'm like I'm gonna go to the bass section so

8:06 Alessandra Levy Yes. Yes. then I picked up the bass and thankfully because of piano I had the knowledge of the bass clef you know I knew how to read bass clef and and you know so just kind of a little bit self-taught on bass but then also obviously like having my mom as a string teacher and then I'd say maybe around high school I started taking upright bass lessons but the minute I decided to want to play bass I immediately picked up the electric as well and sang the minute I started playing the electric

8:37 Alessandra Levy Cool. so Awesome. I know that's like another thing there's a lot of bass players who were like way you know leaps and bounds beyond me especially going to jazz school like

8:45 Alessandra Levy yeah I am I don't consider myself a jazz bassist but like you know all my buddies were like jazz bassists and they're like dude how do you sing and play at the same time I'm like I just did it the first time I picked up the bait yeah like I don't know what else to say like I think that's why because

8:59 Alessandra Levy yeah you I just did it immediately did it at the same time yeah you're like programming your brain at the same time

9:04 Alessandra Levy yeah oh and And so, yeah, so then I switched to bass and then, you know, like I said, we had just instruments all around the house. So I'd

9:11 Alessandra Levy Yeah. pick up a guitar and I'd write some songs on it and I'm not like an amazing guitarist, but like if I want to write a song, I could write a song and come up with some cool things that, you know, probably aren't great technique or normal way of making chords, but just, I like using guitar as like a writing tool. So yeah, just kind of a lot of different instruments and yeah, singing was always just.

9:32 Alessandra Levy kind of part of that you know Yeah, like yeah, we sort of on the weekends I just remember my house being very filled with music like we didn't really sit around and like watch tv we kind of sat around put records on and all picked up an instrument and like played so so I kind of that's kind of the experience I have just yeah I think from I think

9:58 Alessandra Levy from an early age it just felt like there was no there was like no such thing as like failure with music it Yeah.

10:04 Alessandra Levy was just kind of like there there wasn't even a I don't know there wasn't a oh you have to be good at this and you have to excel and be a you know a Suzuki level whatever and like you know go to all the prep things and whatever it was just like hey we're gonna put on a record let's put on you know some like Motown and like everyone pick up an instrument let's just like play and have fun so it was it came from a much more exploratory um sort of beginning versus um I mean then of course I took actual lessons with other private

10:33 Alessandra Levy yeah teachers that but you developed I yeah I think the reason why it just was so exciting to me and I just never wanted to stop is because it came from a place of fun and exploratory nature versus maybe like being a little strict even with a music teacher mom so yeah

10:48 Luke F. Walton yeah no that's special and also you like you had community tied to it i feel like the people that excel the most or end up loving music music the most it's it's a it's a vehicle for them to communicate with their people and

11:01 Alessandra Levy Yeah.

11:02 Luke F. Walton then other people and it's like that universal language thing is so true especially if you view it

11:07 Luke F. Walton from that flexible space it's like it's like learning a language too the people that learn the language is the best and i don't 100 have this but i'm working on it it was like just saying stuff it's like you're gonna get the grammar wrong but it's like it's your second or third language like who cares you

11:21 Luke F. Walton you just gotta throw start communicating yourself into the fire yeah exactly and people appreciate it and they'll correct you or whatever and then you'll get lessons you get better but the first step is is just trying to talk and as like a four-year-old with a little violin it's like yeah just Yeah, just go for it. Just

11:35 Alessandra Levy yeah try probably sounded terrible but my mom was like it's all right we got this

11:39 Luke F. Walton Everybody's got to start somewhere. Exactly.

11:41 Alessandra Levy yeah And they're like, look at where you end up.

11:44 Luke F. Walton totally I also think that what you've been talking about singing is a nice and freeing outlook on vocalization because I think

11:55 Alessandra Levy I think that all instrumentalists, even if they don't view themselves as a singer necessarily, should be singing as much as they can and trying to internalize that music because it's our OG

12:05 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

12:05 Alessandra Levy instrument. It's right there. It walks around with us. And being able to express yourself vocally helps you express yourself instrumentally.

12:14 Alessandra Levy Yeah. Yes, Rissa. Yeah, I remember in school, I remember taking some classes with our the jazz school that I was in. It was at the University of Miami Frost School of Music and sort of like at one end of the hall were like the instrumentalists and the other end of the hall were the vocalists. And but thankfully, I think just because I view myself as just a musician in general, I never was like.

12:39 Alessandra Levy you know I'm an instrumentalist and a vocalist or like I'm a I'm just like I'm a musician and that includes vocalists because I feel like sometimes that's like left out but

12:47 Alessandra Levy Yeah. anyway so I felt like immediately drawn to like all the other instrumentalists because I was an instrumentalist myself am an instrumentalist myself and I just remember being in some classes with them and the teachers were like okay

13:00 Alessandra Levy uh guys who don't sing like the instrumentalists who aren't singing like you need to learn these standards not just the chords and the melody but i want you to like learn the melody as far as like vocally and i want you to also know what the lyrics are

13:14 Alessandra Levy Yeah, because what's the song when about? you're because when you're playing like

13:17 Alessandra Levy Yeah. if you know if you don't know what the lyrics are you're playing something that like doesn't match what the lyrics are like what are you doing it's

13:24 Alessandra Levy Yeah. not it's not the vibe you know

13:26 Luke F. Walton Totally.

13:26 Alessandra Levy So I always thought that was, that was cool.

13:29 Alessandra Levy That is cool, especially because it's like a lot of the jazz standards or whatever, a lot of people don't.

13:35 Alessandra Levy just know them as jazz standards or know them as instrumentals but it's like a lot of this stuff comes from gray american songbook it's like it they have meaning they have

13:43 Alessandra Levy yeah vibe know what the lyrics are yeah

13:45 Luke F. Walton right right tell that story exactly yeah

13:47 Alessandra Levy yeah so I think it's too like a lot of the teachers I mean they were definitely like very old school too but they were like you guys like sometimes you're not even playing the melody like learn the melody learn the melody of the standards

14:01 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

14:02 Luke F. Walton totally

14:02 Alessandra Levy So yeah, yeah I think it's totally important for everyone to use their voice, you know, even if you're not a great singer, it's it feels good. It's like you're speaking your truth, you know.

14:11 Alessandra Levy yeah exactly and i like the the less judgmental thing it's just like you just let it flow and everybody's allowed to participate in music it isn't

14:20 Alessandra Levy It isn't this kind of hierarchical thing that I think a lot of people have gotten used to music being because like classical music or whatever,

14:26 Alessandra Levy Mm but hmm. like everyone's supposed to participate. This is as elemental as dance or music or speech. It's all in

14:32 Alessandra Levy Yeah, you. Yeah. I agree. Yeah, that's really special. Something I'd like to talk about is what you're talking about with the bass clef because I

14:44 Alessandra Levy Yeah. think a lot of people they see these squiggles. they don't know what they're looking at they're like okay yeah music reading music is like reading uh the a beautiful mind like

14:56 Alessandra Levy Mm physics -hmm. like uh speak they look at and they go like what am i even looking at um if in obviously this is mostly going to be listened to as an audio podcast but could you explain just like what's going on with notation for the layman if they've just kind of seen it like what are what are all these squiggles what what are

15:12 Alessandra Levy Yeah. what are they indicating okay yeah yeah well i guess if you were someone who like had no idea how to read music at all like they're a different clef you know you have your treble clef you have your bass clef if you play the if you play the viola you have a whole other clef so there's

15:26 Alessandra Levy it's brutal different there's some different clefs but generally like if you're just starting out on the piano which is a good you know i feel like that's usually good because you can see every you can see every note so you kind of can see what's going on usually you have the clef uh treble clef and you have the bass clef

15:38 Alessandra Levy and the notes in one place unlike in the guitar or the bass it's like you can play the same note in a bunch of different places

15:39 Alessandra Levy and and exactly exactly it's i think it's a good visual learning tool if you if you're like hey i want to start playing music but i don't know where to start you know i feel like piano it's all laid out there it's really nice and organized you can see what's going on you can see patterns you

15:59 Alessandra Levy Yep. know um but yeah i mean I don't know who came up with notation, but someone along the way figured out, hmm,

16:07 Alessandra Levy we can, you know, make a staff of these lines and in between there's the spaces and the notes will go on the lines and in the spaces and that will let people know what note is what and where to play it and how it corresponds.

16:19 Alessandra Levy And so, you know, I think it's great because I'm sure like you're saying, you know, like since the beginning of time we've made music, like cavemen were singing and probably, I don't know, banging on stuff and making percussion. percussion and

16:32 Alessandra Levy 100% uh so it's like at some point someone was like we should maybe figure out how to put this down on on

16:38 Alessandra Levy pass this pass this on and it's it's it's papyrus great it's great too because like we we would have had no way to play like you know here's this cool uh gregorian chant from like 1200 it's like yeah there's no uh spotify there's no microphone there's no wax recording there's nothing so we just have have and it's funny because musical notation evolves over time in

17:00 Alessandra Levy Yeah. the beginning it just kind of is like directional it's Yeah. like up and down and and then they they start like the clef which is basically like centering yourself so you're like i'm going to circle this area

17:12 Alessandra Levy And and that's I know your g where I'm starting. note now i know where i started so i'm going to go up from that or down from that and like okay i know where i'm at and then you um you connect them so you have like the top and the bottom so the bottom with those bass notes low down and then you go all the way up

17:25 Alessandra Levy way up and so you have that sense of directionality of like low and high and then the rhythms is the like that must have been the light bulb moment because music just just like a side scrolling video game goes left to right and then you have all of these rhythmic

17:40 Alessandra Levy yeah passages you got your measures and you got to make sure all the beats fit in the measure and so you got to figure okay well then how do I you know divide that into making sure all the notes fit in the measure and all that

17:51 Alessandra Levy yeah Yeah. it's really cool it's it's just it is a beautiful system it's actually really elegant it's not as scary um obviously anything complex can be built on simplicity so you can go off the rails and go wild

18:02 Alessandra Levy Yeah. like a john cage situation and um i've seen some musical scores too where they'll write like little um modern musical scores will write like scream into saxophone it's like cool

18:12 Alessandra Levy I love that. I feel like, well, I used to be in an early music choir. sweet I'm from New York originally. originally I'm from New York originally but

18:19 Alessandra Levy Mm um -hmm. yeah so when I lived in New York I was in an early music choir and there were some times where we would sing some like Gregorian chant like things and and definitely the notation was like this is new for me I have not looked at a score like this and a lot of it was implied and like you were saying it's sort of just like

18:35 Alessandra Levy goes up you know or goes down or and just like big blocks of like and also forget about measures i mean there were no it was just you follow the conductor that's it or you follow whoever the leader is of the song yeah nice

18:50 Luke F. Walton totally i actually saw in um greenwood cemetery i saw a early music concert so cool so cool i really like early music and i also um there's a little one in san diego that i go to they do like a uh early baroque with period instruments nice

19:07 Alessandra Levy Cool. vibes yeah That's cool. period instruments are really cool too because it's like obviously they haven't figured out all the kinks but they have their own sense of like timbre and

19:18 Alessandra Levy it's it almost feels like looking at a classic car you know it's like this is what a trumpet like kind of was built on

19:24 Alessandra Levy Yeah. yeah This is where it all began. it's like i'm sure that whoever maintains that is like it's always out of tune and it's always having to replace things but it is fun to to hear the the originals start to speak

19:37 Alessandra Levy Yeah, a little bit the

19:38 Luke F. Walton definitely. stuff we came from um so yeah that that um super cool musical journey i would love to to kind of hear Like hear about your your next step into, you know, landing gigs, you know, singing with Ben Folds, Pittsburgh Symphony, Radio City Music Hall, the Rockette, like how'd

19:59 Alessandra Levy that's yeah you end up i there? know That's super cool. it's it's kind of weird because when you say it it's just like what it feels like i've lived different lives like what so I want to, I, okay, so this is actually cool because, you

20:12 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

20:13 Alessandra Levy know, this is, this feels like a, I mean, I know a lot of people who have had whatever success means to them where it's like, oh, I dreamed about this when I was a kid and then like somehow, you know, it came full circle and then this happened. For me, that was what Benfolds was because, you know, probably in junior high and high school, I loved. like listening to Ben Folds

20:34 Alessandra Levy Yeah. I just loved it For I sure. loved him and I saw him in concert I think he um opened for um he opened for um oh my gosh can't think of his name John Mayer there

20:45 Alessandra Levy Oh, we go and nice. Sweet. so I just remember like watching him on stage and just being like would it be so cool to like perform with people that you like really love you know just like thinking you know when you're like a kid you think about that or

20:58 Alessandra Levy Yes. if you want to be a musician or let's say you're watching a movie and you want to be an actor you're like oh I would love to be in a movie with this person or I'd love for this person to direct me so yeah I just was a really big Ben Folds fan and then fast forward to like the end of college I think I was doing some kind of gig and um I met

21:18 Alessandra Levy the I guess through the vocal jazz program maybe he came in for like a master class or something I don't remember anyway somehow I ended up with this with this gentleman and he was the vocal

21:31 Alessandra Levy contractor for this series of concerts that Ben Folds was doing where he was like going around touring but like instead of with a band it was just him and a piano full orchestra and then he'd have like maybe eight singers or something and

21:44 Luke F. Walton Cool, cool.

21:45 Alessandra Levy I just remember when he told me that I was like oh I'm a huge Ben Folds fan like I know a lot of basically most of his music um could I send you an email or like could I get your email I think I was like 20 maybe 20 or 21 so I was I was just like, always very like, this is what I want. I'm just gonna go for it. Like,

22:03 Luke F. Walton Cool.

22:03 Alessandra Levy I was just like 20 years old, like, Oh, I'll take your email so I can write you an email and stay in touch so I can do this, you

22:08 Alessandra Levy Yeah. know? So I just kind of like, perfect timing. And so I just emailed him and I kept following up and I was like, let me know I'm in New York, but like, I'd be willing to go, you know, within these areas kind of thing. And then eventually. but it ended up him saying, you know, he needed a couple extra singers for Pittsburgh and I was like, I'll fly there. That's

22:30 Alessandra Levy Yeah. cool. Sound fun. Yeah. So that's how I did that Cool. gig. Awesome. And it was really cool because I guess Ben Folds famously went to UM for like, I think one semester or

22:42 Luke F. Walton Okay.

22:42 Alessandra Levy like one year, just like not a long time. And then there was this. there was a story of like oh he threw his drums in the lake because he like um he failed his uh what do they call it like not your final

22:56 Alessandra Levy jury but um your jury thank you it's been a long time since I've been in school too I'm

23:01 Alessandra Levy i'll never forgive my juries like like what is it yeah a jury anyway so of course we're like he takes us out for dinner before the show and I'm like so I went to UM could you tell us like the whole story of of

23:14 Alessandra Levy Yeah. what actually happened there's like whatever anyway Yeah. but um he was super nice guy and I also did something even bolder which is um I had written maybe like three or four songs around that time this was 2012 I had a few songs that I written in college and then a few right after and I put together really really probably terrible demos um as best as I could and I put them on a CD if anyone doesn't know what a CD is

23:40 Alessandra Levy you know just oh what else to tell you look it up um and it's dark cool um and uh anyway so I gave him a cd and I just wrote like you're a huge musical inspiration on me especially writing songs on piano and singing I gave him the you know I obviously thanked him for like having me on the gig and I gave him my cd and he actually emailed me back and had listened to the cd and had given me like not even notes was just like this is great I really love this I

24:12 Alessandra Levy mm love this -hmm and this one like just like keep doing what you're doing like it was just really cool

24:17 Alessandra Levy that's so really awesome yeah it felt really nice um you know and it wasn't like I was my intention wasn't like I'm gonna give him a CD so he can like sign me and want to write with me it was just like hey you influenced me and

24:28 Alessandra Levy the you music that know you want I just wanted to hear you to hear yeah it kind of thing and just to have him respond back just showed like he's a he's a good guy but anyway so that's the Ben Folds story and

24:37 Alessandra Levy Mm then uh the rockette story was i don't even remember if i was still in vocal therapy so i'd worked at um i worked at bryant park for like one of my part-time jobs at some point in new york and uh for anyone who doesn't know what bryant park is it's just a big park well not really that big but in new york city between 40th and 42nd between fifth avenue and sixth avenue i'm pretty sure and it's just a big square and

25:06 Alessandra Levy it's a park and they have events there and so when I used to work there they had these game areas so there was like a game where you could play um ping pong and there was an area where you could actually play like board games and then there was an area where maybe there was like putt putt I don't really remember but there were like three different areas where you could like play games and

25:26 Alessandra Levy what I didn't realize is even though we were in a park you're in the center of like Manhattan so

25:31 Alessandra Levy Oh, I was talking over like traffic and I was just like so yeah,

25:36 Luke F. Walton totally.

25:37 Alessandra Levy I didn't realize and then like I had gone just for my normal like vocal checkup to go to the ENT and he was like oh like one of your vocal like so when you sing your vocal cords are supposed to like do this and they like come back to they kind of like do this like wave thing where they come back together and one of the backs of mine was just kind of open so

25:56 Alessandra Levy Oh, there was like all this like air coming out thankfully wasn't nose or anything that would be like oh you have to get surgery

26:01 Alessandra Levy get surgery. or have to go on complete vocal rest but they were like oh you should maybe go see a vocal therapy you know get some voice therapy voice therapy so my voice therapist it um I guess also had a connection to Miami. I don't know if that's how I got connected with her, but either way, it was like she had also been there before my time. And she, you know, did a lot of session work, jingles

26:27 Luke F. Walton Cool.

26:27 Alessandra Levy and Great. because that's when she was around when jingles were like a lot more,

26:31 Alessandra Levy Yeah, you yeah, know, for sure. unfortunately now jingles aren't really thing, which is what I really was hoping I'd be doing a lot of because I just always love that. And also you get good money. Um,

26:40 Alessandra Levy Yeah, yeah, but totally. anyway, so, so, um, she had, I guess this connection through whoever was putting together, um, this, it was supposed to be a new Radio City show with the Rockettes. I think it was called. I forgot what it was called.

26:57 Alessandra Levy But anyway, it actually never ended up coming to fruition, which, you know, people know in the industry, like you could shoot a pilot and then it never sees the light of day or like you could make a record and you never put it out. Like there are just, you know, things that happen even when you have capital behind it, even when you have big

27:15 Alessandra Levy Yeah, totally. names. I mean, there are network television shows that just never happen.

27:18 Alessandra Levy 100%. And they just they sit in the archives, you know, so so, That's like one you

27:22 Alessandra Levy of the biggest factors. know. If like an indie musician... can can get there like i i think my release rate is somewhere around 70 percent 75 percent so it's like that is the easiest way that you can put more stuff out is to just like release

27:35 Alessandra Levy just a larger do it percentage yeah of the stuff you actually work on it's so hard because there's so many decision makers and things sorry anyway i just just wanted

27:41 Alessandra Levy no to yeah no it's so true but anyway so but um i remember going to it was the studio which is now i guess power station but it used to be um

27:51 Alessandra Levy Avalon maybe is that what it's called I think so but now it's the Berkeley Power Station they like Berkeley School of Music in Boston took over this studio in New York anyway it was like my first like big recording session and I was like really

28:08 Alessandra Levy Yeah, it's such a cool studio. really excited about it I want to say it was called Avalon but I could be just making that up but anyway it was like this really cool like wood panel the whole studio was like really cool wood panel um if you look up like Berkeley Power Station you'll see what it looks like now but it was the same and um I just remember walking in and being like oh my god this is so cool and we got a couple of um

28:32 Alessandra Levy different I think maybe three or four songs and I just remember like the vocal um contractor was like great you sing this on this you sing this on this and it was like okay we're gonna record everyone ready and it was like okay you know

28:44 Alessandra Levy Yeah, just like go um

28:44 Luke F. Walton cool.

28:45 Alessandra Levy and so that was really cool and um I was like excited because I'm like oh when the show comes out you know I'm gonna go see the show and be like I can hear my voice but it never happened But I can still sing. I can still say I sang as a rockette,

29:00 Luke F. Walton totally

29:00 Alessandra Levy you know? no totally no it's it's amazing how much of that and it's good to tell those stories too because i think sometimes people feel like it's only them like i have a lot of friends that are songwriters and

29:12 Alessandra Levy That is one of the hardest gigs in the business because you that's probably like 10% if that gets actually heard by people of what you make.

29:21 Luke F. Walton yeah yeah That's rough. And so it's out there and it's real and people like if you're going through that you are not alone. We are all dealing with that and controlling as much of your own music as possible allows you to get over that percentage but yeah it's just it's just baked in.

29:36 Luke F. Walton yeah you're like if you did something you did something it doesn't matter where where it ended up but you did it you know and so that's sort of just like I kind of feel like now it's more of this thing where when people you know when you're in some kind of social setting or some kind of like networking thing and people say what's one thing people wouldn't know about you I kind of always use that one because that's like such people are always like what I'm like yes a sang is a rock cut because some of the rockettes dance and sing and some of them only dance and can't sing so they need to hire singers so

30:04 Luke F. Walton I love it.

30:05 Alessandra Levy yeah

30:06 Luke F. Walton So now let's talk a little bit about your voice actor career.

30:11 Alessandra Levy Yeah.

30:12 Luke F. Walton And then I also want to draw some of the parallels with music so that people can understand just how musical voice acting is, how important it is, and how it makes advertising take flight. It makes audiobooks engaging and accessible for some people that might have vision problems or whatever. There's just this level of making things come to life. as a voice actor i would love

30:35 Alessandra Levy yeah

30:35 Luke F. Walton to hear kind of how how that journey went and

30:37 Alessandra Levy yeah

30:37 Luke F. Walton then some of your feelings on on that parallel

30:39 Alessandra Levy i actually really have to credit it to kim nazarian who is the soprano singer of um um the new york voices which is sort of like a i guess a like a newer version of the manhattan transfer if anyone knows they're like iconic jazz vocal group anyway so is new york voices so um in high school this is a long kind

31:02 Alessandra Levy No of a backwards worries. but It's cool. then It's cool. forward okay so Yeah, it's

31:04 Alessandra Levy in good. high school I was in the all-state jazz choir for neat for New York State because I'm from New York and so yeah like it's it's uh this thing called all-state where you would go to this thing called NISMA and NISMA is New York State um something music association and basically if you were playing an instrument or singing or whatever you would take lessons through private

31:19 Alessandra Levy And basically, if you were playing an instrument or singing or whatever, you would take lessons to a private teacher and then you would do this thing called NISMA and you would go to it would be like on a Saturday or Sunday.

31:31 Alessandra Levy you'd go perform a piece and you'd play scales and then maybe the first the adjudicator would say here's something in a sight read and then you would get like a score based on that and I think others other states obviously

31:44 Alessandra Levy Yeah, have this as California, well yeah for sure I was not, I was not. formally trained in high school and stuff but i had friends um

31:51 Alessandra Levy Yeah. and definitely people in my music school that were like heavy into california jazz band and orchestra and all that stuff yeah totally

31:58 Alessandra Levy So yeah, so this program NSMA, which like I said, there's equivalencies probably in most states. And so after that, you get your score and then once you got to a certain age, you'd be like placed into maybe all county or all district or and then eventually I got to the point where I was.

32:17 Alessandra Levy was accepted into all state which was like that's the big one like oh you're like the number you know you're in this small group of the whole entire state and so I had previously been in some like other extracurricular jazz vocal ensembles I was in this one called um

32:32 Alessandra Levy Nassau Suffolk Jazz Ensemble which was like Nassau and Suffolk are the two counties on Long Island where they would kind of like same thing kind of pick people from both and put it together we had a jazz choir and um so I'd already been doing that and then I got accepted into Allstate um for the um For the jazz choir and our guest conductor was Kim Nazarian, who, because I'd been in jazz choir and

32:56 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

32:57 Alessandra Levy because like my high school choir teacher would always bring in jazz charts for the New York Voices because she also went to Ithaca, which is where they all met.

33:06 Alessandra Levy it was kind of like if you're a jazz vocalist you know who the New York voices are and like you get to sing their charts and their charts are like just wildly amazing because Darman Meter who's the main arranger of the group he's a sax player first so he's just like you know instrumentalist chops and he's writing vocal charts and they're amazing so

33:24 Alessandra Levy I love it. I love it. yeah so I've been doing their charts and then we found out okay you're an all-state jazz vocal ensemble your guest conductor is Kim Nazarian and like you know all of us little nerdy jazz vocalists

33:35 Alessandra Levy Yes. are like oh my god she's a soprano and your voices this is amazing we're gonna like spend a whole week with her this is crazy so basically you get like all these charts ahead of time you're told you're an alto you're a soprano whatever they gave you tracks so you could like listen and learn then when you show up for the weekend it's just to like practice and have a performance but we had a performance and it just like

33:58 Alessandra Levy Over the weekend, we just had this like immediate like bond like in another dimension we would be like mother and daughter or like sisters you know we just had this like immediate bond I think she looked at me and saw a lot of me in her when she was my age whatever

34:13 Alessandra Levy Oh, yeah. so now fast forward to college I'm still in the vocal jazz scene obviously at school she comes to art school to do a master class with the bass singer um Peter of the group and of course then I get to see her again and I'm like oh my god good to see you again whatever we re- we connect we had been you know chatting but good to see her again then

34:32 Alessandra Levy Yeah. fast forward I graduated school and I'm like what do I do and she was like hey we need an assistant be our assistant so I became the assistant for the New York voices I was doing like chart orders and cd orders I was sending out their cds that were being purchased whatever and then I remember after the now it ties back into the Ben Folds after the Ben Folds concert she lived she I think at the time was living in Pittsburgh or at least somewhere near so I went to stay with her

34:57 Alessandra Levy stay with her Oh, and

34:58 Luke F. Walton cool.

34:58 Alessandra Levy visit her and Yeah. we were like sitting at this tea house I'll never forget this like little cute little like tea house kind of place that had like tea and biscuits and all this and she like had a piece of paper in this purple pen and I was like kind of like writing I wrote like me in the center and then she like had me I like I mean she didn't tell me to do this but she was telling me all the different things I could be doing being a vocalist being a musician being a creative person being an actor you

35:26 Alessandra Levy an actor and Mm-hmm. I just remember like writing all these things you go oh well if you do this talk to this person or if you want to do this talk to this person oh they're in New York too and she's giving me all this stuff and I remember this was in 2012 like circling in huge letters like voiceover because she had been like one of the original members of the New York Voices ended up leaving the group and becoming a wildly um you know successful voice actor I think she was like the voice of one of the late night shows for a while where she would like introduce

35:54 Alessandra Levy introduce like ladies and gentlemen here's your host like that kind of thing and she had been on like news the new she had been like announcer for like news shows and all this kind of stuff they're really like circling it in 2012 but that didn't really happen until like later almost closer to the end of the decade so basically what but it's funny like when I look I think I still saved that piece of paper because I don't know that was just it felt like this pivotal like moment I for some reason I saved it

36:22 Luke F. Walton Okay.

36:22 Alessandra Levy So I should probably find it and like see what else I wrote on there and be like, what else am I doing from that list?

36:26 Alessandra Levy You should. But yeah, so there's just like a long series of weird jobs that were like performance related or like at least industry related. Like I.

36:38 Alessandra Levy I was like doing on camera stuff and then I decided to be on the other side of the camera and like doing coordinating producing casting like I kind of got all in that in the film world then after that I landed a job as a producer at a voiceover studio an audio post-production house and so I remember working there and I was kind of the producer middleman so I'd be like I'd hire the talent or I'd at least cast them but then I also had my clients like you know I'd have JC Penn someone from JC Penney say hey we're going to do this

37:06 Alessandra Levy do this campaign we need a spanish voice and a and um and an english voice and they're going to do all of our tv spots and all of our radio spots and i'd go to my list and go hmm who do i like who's reliable who's really good at what they do and who do i know could like crush this i'd come up with a short list of like you know five people for each language or three and then i'd but i'd kind of feel like i think you should pick this person because i just had a natural ear being a musician an ear for like who sounds good who has a good vibe

37:34 Alessandra Levy Who would be who like when I see this kind of commercial whose voice sounds like the target audience?

37:38 Luke F. Walton Cool.

37:40 Alessandra Levy and so so I was doing that and Yeah. because again being a musician I knew how to use Pro Tools I had

37:47 Alessandra Levy Yep. learned during Sandy because we couldn't leave our I didn't leave my house for like three weeks because the subways were down so I learned how to use Pro Tools like

37:53 Luke F. Walton Oh my god.

37:53 Alessandra Levy trial by fire because Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. my husband Steve was like I need to record like guitars do you want to learn how to use Pro Tools I'm like sure so again just like being thrown into it but anyway so I wanted to be

38:06 Alessandra Levy to be in the sessions when my voice talent would come in and do their stuff because I was really interested I'm like I want to see how they do this I'd see them walk into the to the booth you know the mic technique I'm like this is very similar to singing in a studio and you know then the engineer would uh you know sort of be the middleman between their producer and the vocalist or the you know the voice actor just like seeing how it ran and I remember being like

38:32 Alessandra Levy well I have an acting background like I took acting classes like Mm all throughout

38:36 Alessandra Levy hmm. you know my childhood and I was on stage and doing theater and I mean when I was little if you asked me from ages like 3 to 17 or 16 what did I want to be an actor so I'm just like okay interesting

38:50 Alessandra Levy Uh huh. and I just remember like the more and more time I was producing I just was like wait I know what the budgets are because I'm making them I'm quoting them I'm kind of putting these together

39:01 Alessandra Levy together these these actors sometimes will come in here for maybe an hour maybe 40 30 minutes if they're really good at what they do and they're getting paid more than me in one hour than I'm getting paid in a month and I'm like I'm doing the wrong thing and

39:16 Alessandra Levy yeah totally you gotta make some changes yeah you know because when you're when you're when it's I mean I guess I might have been I also was planning a wedding at the time and like weddings are expensive and

39:28 Alessandra Levy Super. and living in New York is expensive and I'm just thinking like I'm living paycheck to paycheck I'm in my like mid 20s I'm doing the wrong thing like I could work smarter not harder so it was one of these things where um I mean it's Sort of like sadly how sometimes this can happen, but like I had a death of a friend,

39:49 Alessandra Levy Hmm. you know, contemporary, she was maybe Yeah. four or five years older than me. She died of breast and brain cancer. And I just remember that was the first sort of contemporary that I lost that I was very close to and just sort of it really hit me. And I was like, wait a minute. I'm dreading waking up. I'm dreading going to work.

40:10 Alessandra Levy Mm I'm -hmm. dreading while I'm at work that I have no motivation or creativity to do anything after work.

40:17 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

40:18 Alessandra Levy What am I doing? Yeah. This is no way to live a life.

40:23 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

40:24 Alessandra Levy You know, I'm not 70 when I'm saying this. I'm like 26

40:27 Luke F. Walton Right.

40:27 Alessandra Levy when I'm saying this. Yeah. I'm like, if I'm already like feeling done, Yeah,

40:31 Alessandra Levy like what I know. the hell is wrong with me? years of this? Yeah. Yeah. So it just was sort of this like aha moment and it's it's so it always breaks my heart that it had to come from such a terrible a terrible thing. But, you know, I.

40:48 Alessandra Levy I carry her like I have her prayer card like on my little altar I have in my studio it's like she's

40:52 Alessandra Levy Yeah, yeah. with me every day and like I I am also just I just tell her all the time I'm like hey you like you know you were the you were so inspirational because she was a librarian and she was a teen librarian and

41:07 Alessandra Levy she loved like putting together like different themes for like parts of the year for the things for the teens to do and come in and Oh, have fun like

41:16 Alessandra Levy she yeah. like she like brought she like made libraries cool where she Yeah, worked like yeah, people

41:21 Alessandra Levy yeah. were like coming to the library which you know not a lot of people think the library is cool but like she made it cool and especially with teens kind of hard to win over but like she just knew how to do that anyway so yeah I just left I basically just quit my job with

41:34 Alessandra Levy with no backup I was like I need to just leave and I'll figure it out and thankfully I have a husband who is also a musician who is very supportive so he wasn't like what are you doing you know he I remember like walking into one of the small conferences and I called him on the work phone I'm like so I'm gonna like do this I'm just gonna quit like what

41:57 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

41:58 Alessandra Levy do you think and he's like well I personally would have a plan but he's like but you're not I'm not you and you're not me and he's like if you need to do this like you should do it and I'm like okay I'm doing it so that was like

42:12 Alessandra Levy March of 2018 and basically from March 2018 until the beginning of 2019 I basically just threw myself into every voiceover class workshop intensive

42:22 Luke F. Walton Oh, yeah.

42:22 Alessandra Levy I even flew myself out to LA to work with like humongous voice actors who are now some of my closest friends and

42:30 Luke F. Walton That's you huge.

42:31 Alessandra Levy Okay. know yeah and I just I just like spent money I didn't really have because I was like so invested in like this is what I need to be doing

42:39 Luke F. Walton mm and -hmm what was it what was some of the stuff that you were picking up like what what were some of the was it just being a part of it learning by osmosis were they showing you like vocal

42:48 Alessandra Levy I placement mean or like what were you working technique on okay just mostly talking about how the voiceover industry changes so frequently like if you listen to a commercial from two years ago it's different from a commercial today if you listen to a commercial five years ago from today it's wildly different 10

43:02 Alessandra Levy Yeah. years ago 15 you know most commercials would be like it's the Macy's blah blah blah sale and now it's like you know now it's like I'm talking to you like hey 50% off at Macy's like that's amazing now it's like I'm talking to one person whereas like announcer voices used to be announcers and now it's like you know there's some where of course you know some people are like not happy about but there's some now where it's like it's so intimate but it's like

43:28 Alessandra Levy it's like all vocal fry and it's like hey I went there and like I got this sale and oh yeah also you know so it's

43:34 Alessandra Levy yes like it's wildly changed so I still take classes a couple times a month because

43:39 Alessandra Levy keeping up with trends and vibes yeah and yeah you have to stick with it and see like what's new and what's happening but anyway so I just threw myself into everything I took every class private lesson workshops intensives because also I think just like with music when you're watching other people and listening to other people and watching them them get feedback you learn way more than

43:58 Alessandra Levy when cool it's you because yeah yeah stay you're kind of like when it's you you're like just trying to pay attention you're just trying to like yeah

44:04 Alessandra Levy alive out here that's but if you're sitting back and you're listening to others and you're watching their critiques and they're hey what if you tried this way this time like you're getting way more um

44:14 Alessandra Levy so so anyway true yeah that's what I did until for the rest of 2018 and then 2019 I was like 2019 is my first year full-time voice actor and

44:23 Alessandra Levy Oh, I did yeah. it. Yes. I just did it. I love it. So ever since then, just been, that's really just been my main thing.

44:32 Alessandra Levy We moved across the country with all of our instruments in a U-Haul and we arrived to LA January 2020.

44:40 Alessandra Levy nice yeah Three months later, went into lockdown, yeah which, you know, everyone did. So I can't be like boohoo me, but it definitely was, you know, moving to a whole new city and like I was expecting to be like, great, I'll tell people I play bass and I'll play and I'll play for fun in people's bands and maybe I'll. maybe i'll sing backgrounds on people's record whatever

45:02 Alessandra Levy Yeah. like i'll go back in the studio because i was doing a bunch you know i was singing on um a good number of studio albums in new york mostly jazz people that just wanted cool vocal harmonies and stuff in the background and um Yeah. And so that didn't obviously happen. But then something else happened, which was the voiceover industry exploded during

45:22 Alessandra Levy Mm hmm. lockdown just out of necessity because Yeah. there were new phone numbers to call like

45:28 Alessandra Levy Yeah. hotlines, Yeah. COVID hotlines and health insurance companies had different lines that you called for this and everything was. contactless delivery and

45:38 Alessandra Levy Yes. you know leave And it the commercials at the door but were all like B-roll. So it was like they they,

45:43 Alessandra Levy needed so much extra voiceover because they were using old stuff or they were animating stuff that they needed voices like little character voices to do the animations so

45:51 Luke F. Walton Totally.

45:52 Alessandra Levy it just sort of was like wow I had sort of like built this thing up in 20 in 2019 and then the minute 2020 happened it was like I was ready to go and then it really freaking took off um

46:05 Alessandra Levy which is just wild because I'm just sometimes like I'm like wow it feels like we just it went right into it and I'm like sometimes I'm like I need to just take a break for like one day one time maybe it just feels like you know we just never stopped working um for those of us who like had a job like that that was just like it doesn't stop for anyone or anything which is wild just to think about on its own that's a whole other conversation but

46:31 Alessandra Levy But yeah, I mean, that's sort of just like how it all happened. And I mean, at this point, I it's it's amazing how much of my schooling like prepared me for this and I didn't even realize it.

46:44 Luke F. Walton That is really interesting. And I like, I'd love to talk to you about vocal placements. You just talked about vocal fry that kind of thing, especially, I mean, especially the female vocal fry thing is so, I mean, Billie Eilish, like it's.

47:03 Luke F. Walton Can you talk about like that just a little bit more about vocal placement like putting

47:06 Alessandra Levy Yeah.

47:06 Luke F. Walton things in different parts of your head and resonances and pronunciation and stuff just like I feel like that'd be interesting for people that maybe have never thought about that they

47:15 Alessandra Levy just Yeah.

47:15 Luke F. Walton speak.

47:15 Alessandra Levy Well, generally, like when, you know, there are different schools of teaching on this, but like, I just remember in school, a lot of my.

47:24 Alessandra Levy you know you would think about okay there's like your chest voice there's your head voice there's your mix some people call it in the mask because it's like right here and that's a very that's a very present place because it's sort of like more coming out of like your this part of your face the mask like your nose so it's like it's kind of cuts through versus like your head your head voice is much more if you're thinking about like operatic singing or like some classical singing or like a lot of maybe maybe

47:51 Alessandra Levy the vocalists who are very airy and they're singing and they're kind of singing in their falsetto or their head voice you want to call it and that's more like when your soft palate is like really like open like almost like you're about to take a yawn like you're about to yawn yeah

48:04 Luke F. Walton Yeah, totally.

48:04 Alessandra Levy so like that's more like that and what you would sometimes equate like your chest voice is what where are you like where you're speaking so

48:11 Luke F. Walton Okay. Yeah.

48:12 Alessandra Levy because you can kind of feel it like resonating in your chest it's more here it's you know hard to hard not to think like oh it's in my throat but you

48:21 Luke F. Walton Mm-hmm.

48:21 Alessandra Levy know technically you don't want to think about that because you don't want to like constrict your vocal cords or kind of overuse but yeah it's like you're more resonant in your chest so that would be like your chest voice um and and of course when you're talking about like a lot of broadway singers or even pop singers

48:38 Alessandra Levy they try to get that mix which is like supposed to be the mix of it but some people call it the mask and that's where you really want to end up because you want it to sort of be seamless where it's like you can't tell what

48:47 Luke F. Walton Yeah.

48:48 Alessandra Levy part of their voice they're in um

48:49 Luke F. Walton Right. There's

48:51 Alessandra Levy and

48:51 Luke F. Walton not that total,

48:51 Alessandra Levy sometimes when you

48:52 Luke F. Walton hear total

48:52 Alessandra Levy people

48:52 Luke F. Walton and change.

48:53 Alessandra Levy you're like oh my god how are they belting that and it's like they're in their mix but their their mix is so strong and they've worked so hard

49:02 Alessandra Levy in their vocal training that you can't tell and you just think that they're like wow that they're like belting something but really they're just in their mix you know um but yeah I think vocal placement uh work you know is perfect with with voiceover like one of um

49:18 Alessandra Levy One of the teachers I was talking about when I went to L.A. in 2018 to like do all these things, her name is Debbie Derryberry and she like famously is Jimmy Neutron and like all of

49:33 Alessandra Levy these Oh, iconic I feel like I've heard characters. that name. Yes. Yeah. So she's like iconic in her voice acting, but she started out as a session singer in Nashville. So when I remembered taking like animation workshops with her. her she

49:46 Alessandra Levy okay oh was like it's all about your vocal placement when you're doing animation she's

49:50 Alessandra Levy yeah yeah like great you look at the character okay it's a little boy okay great so I already know where that's going to be placement in my in my voice he's like oh but you know he's not five he's actually nine okay well then that's going to change the placement oh he's got braces that also changes it or like oh or his tongue is like too big for his mouth that's

50:08 Alessandra Levy yeah it's going to change your placement or like his got like huge cheeks or something it's like okay like i do there i

50:13 Alessandra Levy eyes get giant are really wide Oh, right so you're gonna you know yeah you're gonna want to talk like that or whatever

50:17 Alessandra Levy Cool, so cool, cool. you know there there are so many ways that you could use vocal placement and your vocal training as a singer to translate um into voice acting and you know I do sometimes I'll get a voice director that'll be like yeah could you kind of like um he'll like talk in you know they'll like talk in like musical terms and

50:38 Alessandra Levy Oh, I'm always like I yeah. love this you It rocks. know we

50:40 Luke F. Walton Totally.

50:41 Alessandra Levy really want the end to be a big crescendo or

50:43 Alessandra Levy Yeah. like oh you know we want you to go down on this um want you to kind of go lower on this one make it more final or you know we I don't know it's just great when you kind of meet with someone that you're like oh you have a music background or you know you just understand music and because really speech is also melodic I mean unless you're a robot

51:02 Alessandra Levy but then you're not but everyone speaks in a different melody and a different cadence and a different um I don't know just different notes um you know there's a whole group of people that are just voice actors that are like incredible at voice matching

51:20 Alessandra Levy Cool. That's which cool. i So they could pick think up is all so those musical nuances.

51:23 Alessandra Levy because Absolutely. all it is is music because It is. Yeah. you're just listening to this person over and over again and you have to match them and sound like them

51:31 Alessandra Levy Yeah. so of course you have it's music because you're matching their pitch yeah

51:35 Luke F. Walton That's cool. And like just what you were doing, the rhetoric kind of example where you repeat a thing and then you use the same.

51:44 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

51:45 Alessandra Levy like starting point and then you repeat it again you hear politicians do this a lot too like we're really trying to iterate the point uh we say water bottles are not the thing water bottles are this and water bottles are that and it's like doom doom doom where

51:58 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

51:58 Alessandra Levy you don't necessarily need to do that in like grammatical or english sense but it gives you emphasis

52:04 Luke F. Walton Right.

52:04 Alessandra Levy it gives you stress it gives you repetition those are all musical terms yeah

52:08 Luke F. Walton Right. Exactly.

52:09 Alessandra Levy Or if you were just whimsical, you could be like water bottles are this. this water bottles are this water

52:14 Alessandra Levy Yeah. bottles are this like then you could just like so

52:18 Luke F. Walton Exactly.

52:19 Alessandra Levy there's also there's just so many ways to do that and for me it's all music and like I said when I meet new voice actors or or even just ones I've known when we talk about our backgrounds I would say 99% of them have some kind of theater background so they've been they've done like musical theater so they've sung and they've acted of course on stage or they were a musician growing up

52:42 Alessandra Levy Mm or they -hmm. just love music or they're a singer or they're Yeah. an instrumentalist like there's so many of us and I think also um you know when you when you build up your career obviously when you're building up your career you don't have as much flexibility but I will say I know some people that like they're on tour but a lot of the time when they're not on tour it's downtime so they're recording audiobooks

53:04 Alessandra Levy Cool. or they're you know so when you get to a certain point in your career it can be um depending on what area of voiceover you're in it can be very remote you

53:14 Luke F. Walton Mm hmm.

53:14 Alessandra Levy can kind Yeah. of do it from wherever you could be traveling on a bus you

53:17 Luke F. Walton Uh huh.

53:18 Alessandra Levy can be traveling Yeah, around, the world there's just go for it, yeah. certain ones where like you do have to you know there are certain things like for animation and video games now that things are opening back up they kind of do want you to be in the studio and a lot of it is happening in LA because that's just where we are and

53:31 Luke F. Walton Yep.

53:31 Alessandra Levy and especially when you have an ensemble um recordings

53:35 Luke F. Walton Yeah, so you have the relationships

53:36 Alessandra Levy here with everyone else here

53:37 Luke F. Walton and the...

53:37 Alessandra Levy The interplay, yeah. But there is plenty of people that I know that are, you know, somewhere that's not a big city and they're making a great living because they've worked up their career and they've figured out how to do it remotely.

53:48 Alessandra Levy Awesome. So it just depends on where you are. But it is, I think that's also why it's attractive to, you know, other actors who do maybe just on camera or just theater or musicians who are like, I'm a musician, but I'm also I always liked performing. It's like they somehow find their way into voice acting because. It can be another extension of their creative self.

54:08 Alessandra Levy I like that. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, I am. I when I did when I did acting in high school, my favorite role was in this play called The Foreigner. It was this British guy that pretended that he didn't know how to speak English because he was really shy, but that he saw horrible things like Ku Klux Klan kind of stuff.

54:27 Alessandra Levy Oh, And so gosh. he had this young boy teach him how to speak English. so that he could tell the rest of the the people like hey there's gonna be like this insurrection um it was a super super fun play um a lot of like room

54:41 Alessandra Levy for yeah comedy improv and stuff and to like learn it but um i had to do language tapes to speak with a british accent like my drama teacher gave me these things that i'd like when

54:49 Alessandra Levy you're i was driving a to dialect school totally coach basically i had a dialect coach it was like all language tapes but it was honestly was one of the best things that could have happened for my music because it taught me me not just yeah like i understood like okay head voice chest voice mix whatever like i could get that the thing that i didn't fully understand was where i placed my

55:07 Alessandra Levy uh pronunciation and like for for british they told me to put it far more because it was very posh like far more on the tip of the almost yeah almost like you're going through a stroll everything is so tight and nice

55:20 Alessandra Levy And it's right through your teeth. right Yeah. through your teeth the tip of the tongue it's like this like very weird obviously i'm san diegan so i'm like way back there um but that that that thing really helped me and then uh like i i i speak japanese and boku

55:34 Alessandra Levy Oh, no nihongo no hatsuon ga zenzen chigai masu way ito it's like more way round.

55:39 Alessandra Levy more round and also mask it's like round plus mask it's like and so i don't know those like little things are like that super helped me with background vocals i don't like that unlock something where it's like oh i can sing like kyumbra is one of my favorite singers and she's one of my favorite people that can just like michael jackson um like just like

55:59 Alessandra Levy like open up your vocal range through pronunciation and placement so then you can stack all of these vocals and it sounds like there's a bunch of people in the room but it's all just you it's so cool it's so so cool he

56:09 Alessandra Levy yeah yeah oh yeah he was a master with that i love like i love like seeing those videos or it's just like isolated tracks of his background vocals

56:16 Alessandra Levy i and i'm like know totally are right you kidding me i'm right just like you're not there's no auto-tune this is just you

56:23 Alessandra Levy rocking It's Oh, amazing. yeah. It's amazing. Yeah, no, Yeah. I mean, I think it's, again, it's, it's all connected. There's so many things that are just, you know, they lend itself so well to each other you

56:37 Alessandra Levy yeah know it's it's all the same inner workings it's just the outcome is just a little different but it's it's all the same steps to get you to the outcome you

56:46 Alessandra Levy I love it know it's like breathing simple yeah right simple you know your diaphragm engaged like you know especially if you're doing like like at least voiceover you know when you're doing like these uh at the end of commercials sometimes mostly on radio there's like There's

57:00 Alessandra Levy Yeah. like these things called legal, which Oh, is like yeah. transfer displacement. Yeah, may vary, you know, only Do available

57:05 Luke F. Walton you do in that? certain states. Wait, do you do that in the actual time it's not sped up? or a

57:09 Alessandra Levy I'd little bit say of both 99% of the time, at least the 99% of the time I've done it, I've only been sped up like once or twice. And it's usually because the copywriter didn't time themselves reading

57:20 Alessandra Levy yeah yeah yeah uh it like they wrote it and we're like, yeah, -huh that's good. And then like the engineer and I are like, this is supposed to be in five seconds. Like, how did no, this is a 10. They wrote 10 seconds, but they want me to do it in five.

57:32 Alessandra Levy cool yeah No offense to copywriters. I love you. This is why I have a, you know, like. you're

57:35 Alessandra Levy yeah but you're you're a great part of my job not not everybody brings their best every

57:40 Alessandra Levy but day yeah you know sometimes it happens and also it's not their fault maybe legal was like hey you need to have all of these things in there and the copywriter is like uh it's not gonna how are they gonna do that but you know it's just all a like puzzle pieces but same you know with the legal stuff you have to be like really engaged your your diaphragm has to be engaged because you got to speak really quickly you got to get it out you can't really make any inflections because once you start

58:04 Alessandra Levy you start doing inflections that kind of slows you yeah down you yeah yeah yeah have to be really quick like press and participate very you know you have to really like do it like that um just very straight ahead and but yeah it all comes down to the same things you got to breathe you got to make sure diaphragm is engaged you got to make sure you know you're hydrated like all these things

58:22 Alessandra Levy right that are like that makes sense this totally just goes for any performer you know if you're going to perform you got to be hydrated you got to you know have you got to be breathing well and your diaphragm has got to be engaged like

58:32 Alessandra Levy All this kind of stuff. So it's all, you know, it's all related. It's all the same. It's just a different end product, you know?

58:39 Luke F. Walton I love it. So one final question before we let you go.

58:43 Alessandra Levy Yes.

58:43 Luke F. Walton The show is called Love Music More. This part is Love Music Why? And this is kind of like the pitch to like your 10 year old self or whatever. Like, why do you love music so much? Why do you sacrifice for it? Why do you choose to do this over everything else?

58:58 Luke F. Walton Mm What's -hmm. the why behind what you do?

59:01 Alessandra Levy I just don't have a choice. I think music is, I mean, I truly believe music is inside of everyone, but I think there's some people that it's just, you just eat, sleep, breathe music. It's just a part of you.

59:25 Alessandra Levy just intrinsically like it's just that's just it I think I think it just was you know I think just from the day I was on this planet it was like that just was very much my love just anything music related um why because music makes you feel everything um

59:48 Alessandra Levy I think in a time where a lot of us don't want to feel anything right now and it's hard to maybe get in touch with our feelings and let our emotions come out in the way that they need to, sometimes music can help you get there as well.

60:01 Alessandra Levy Yeah. You know, I think music is healing. Music is our, like, it's our gift. It's, it's.

60:10 Alessandra Levy it's like it's just it's natural you know and it is a and it is a language and it's a world language it's not just one language you know even when there's words but when there's not it's it's truly universal because everyone can feel the same thing no matter what language you speak so i don't know it's just powerful and that's why i love it

60:31 Alessandra Levy It is and I like I like that idea that can make you feel anything it can make you feel everything it can just make you feel

60:38 Alessandra Levy Yeah. And it can be every gradient from background music, wallpaper to the thing that makes you be like, yeah, this is why I'm alive.

60:50 Alessandra Levy Yeah, I mean, I definitely can relate to that. I mean, there's, you know, I think also I was a very angsty teenager, you know, and there was definitely like music where you just be like, oh, it makes me feel so depressed, but in a good way, you know, just like I'm just feeling something,

61:06 Alessandra Levy I you know. know. Yes. So I just think, yeah, music is just the ultimate, just the ultimate. Yeah.

61:16 Luke F. Walton So where can people find you? Where could people ask you a question or anything? What would be the best way?

61:24 Alessandra Levy People can find me on my website, which is just alessandralevy.com, A-L-E-S-S-A-N-D-R-A-L-E-V-Y.com. And on Instagram, I'm Alessandra Voice. and kind of I think Instagram is kind of the only place I'm

61:41 Alessandra Levy Yeah, totally. really kind of active I Yeah. mean I have a TikTok but sometimes my TikTok is just like things that I would never post anywhere else because I'm just being silly or like putting those stupid filters on and I

61:53 Alessandra Levy Sure. think that one might be Alessandra voice as well or Alessandra vox VOX I don't even know but anyway mostly just my website or Instagram I feel like my website you can find me from there as well. Yeah, you can hear my work. I have a music tab too, so you can see like me playing some bass and singing and maybe a list of albums that I've been on, although I probably should update it.

62:17 Luke F. Walton Yeah, So that's a good idea.

62:17 Alessandra Levy yeah. And yeah, those are the places to find me.

62:22 Luke F. Walton I love it. Well, thank you so much for chatting. You can find my music at scoobertdoobert.pizza and I look forward to keeping in touch and hearing more from you.

62:32 Alessandra Levy Yay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much.