Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew Browning, and I live in Virginia. I have been a ventriloquism hobbyist for a long time, and now I hope to be something more. I became a ventriloquist after seeing Taylor Mason with the Gaither Gospel Group in the Richmond Coliseum in my early teens. I checked out a book at my local library, which was “Ventriloquism: Magic with Your Voice” by George Schindler, and taught myself that summer. I didn’t get a puppet until I was in college, when I received a gift from the nurse who gave me my allergy shots. She had a puppet ministry at her church, and had been to a convention. She actually brought the puppet to the clinic! He is a big, green parrot who makes everybody happy just by looking at him. I have also accumulated an elderly pirate and a Hispanic man puppet, since I speak Spanish. I have been to the Vent Haven Convention a couple of times and plan to go again this summer. I look forward to meeting other members in this forum. Thank you!
Hi Andrew,
That is cool that you got back into venting from your teen years. Welcome to the forum. We here try to help as much as we can. I look forward to meeting you at the ConVENTion this year as my wife and I will be there. Make sure to come here and keep us up to date of your ventriloquist journey. 
Nice to meet you, Eddie. Thanks for the kind message. I likewise will look forward to meeting you and your wife at the Convention.
Bobby, I haven’t done any ventriloquism in Spanish yet, but I hope to develop an audience participation bit in which I interpret for a puppet who doesn’t speak English. I studied Translation and Interpreting in grad school, so that should help me. Switching between languages can be difficult even without another character and voice added to the mix. What are some of your challenges in doing ventriloquism in Japanese?
So far I have kept it to my figure Jojo, not understanding Japanese and using it incorrectly or in a very slangish way. I have been playing around with a character name Taiyo who is a boy who doesn’t speak English and is learning but is kinda naughty but funny. So far the problem has been maintaining Taiyo’s voice, my voice and then switching to and from Japanese to English. I haven’t done anything yet with Taiyo, but with Jojo it’s a bit easier since he is learning Japanese from me so I don’t have to focus too hard, but doesn’t is supposed to not understand any English so it can throw my brain into wack. Need to lock down a script and try it out.
I can wait to see what you do with your talent. It really sounds interesting!
Welcome Andrew, I must admit that anyone who learns ventriloquism from a book has my admiration right off. I tried as a child, and again in college, and after a long gap ran across Learn-Ventriloquism.com and it required every exercise in that course and hours of practice but so much FUN!
That you vent in more than one language is pretty cool too!
Like Eddie and his wife, I intend to be at the ConVENTion next July.
Welcome.
Pleased to meet you, Ann. I don’t actually vent in more than one language yet, but I hope it’s in the future. I’ve heard that we start to get good at something once we’ve had twenty hours of practice, so it takes a lot of work, then we start to think, “Wow, I’m actually getting good at this!”
I hope to see you in July.
Tom Crowl
Tom Crowl
Eddie Siller
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