How to Do a Southern Accent

pitch

Your natural pitch, with a melodic intonation and gentle slides inside stressed words.

pace

Often relaxed, with stressed vowels stretched, though plenty of Southern speakers talk fast.

resonance

Open and slightly twangy, with a relaxed jaw.

texture

Warm and easy.

signature

The 'ah' in 'I' and 'ride', gliding vowels in words like 'yes' and 'bed', and 'pen' sounding like 'pin'.

1. Listen to real Southern speakers. Find interviews, oral history recordings and podcasts with people from the specific area your character comes from. A Texan, an Alabamian and a Kentuckian sound different. Repeat their phrases, record yourself and compare.
2. Flatten the long I. In many Southern accents, the 'I' sound in 'I', 'my', 'ride' and 'time' loses its glide and becomes a long 'ah': 'Ah rahd mah bahk.' In some areas this happens in every word; in others the full 'I' stays before sounds like T and K, as in 'right' and 'like'. Pick one pattern and keep it.
3. Glide the short vowels. Stressed short vowels often break into two parts, which is the heart of the drawl: 'yes' leans toward 'yay-us', 'bed' toward 'bay-ud' and 'hill' toward 'hee-ul'. Keep it subtle; a little goes a long way.
4. Merge pin and pen. Before M and N, the short E becomes a short I: 'pen' sounds like 'pin', 'ten' like 'tin', 'when' like 'win' and 'remember' like 'rimimber'.
5. Keep the R, usually. Most modern Southern accents pronounce R after vowels: 'car', 'river', 'four'. Some older coastal accents drop it, so match your reference speakers.
6. Relax the rhythm and shift some stress. Let stressed syllables stretch and unstressed ones relax. Some words move their stress to the first syllable, like 'IN-surance', 'UM-brella' and 'PO-lice'. Drop the G in -ing words casually: 'fishin', 'goin'.

Read these with the voice, then record yourself and listen back. The teleprompter below scrolls through all of them.

• I'd like to ride my bike down to the river one more time before dark.
• Did you remember to bring a pen? I've got ten forms to sign.
• Yes, ma'am, the pecan pie is still warm. Help yourself.
• We're fixin' to head out. Y'all want anything from the store?
• My granddaddy built this porch with his own two hands back in nineteen sixty.
• It's been hotter than a skillet all week, and the tomatoes are loving it.
• Well, thank you kindly for driving all this way in the rain.
• The church supper starts at six, so don't be late, and bring a casserole.
• Down by the creek, the fireflies come out right around nine o'clock.
• I told him twice. He just smiled and kept on fishin'.
• Ten men went down in that mine, and ten men came back up. That's a good day.

• Playing the accent as a joke or using it to signal that a character isn't smart. Southern speakers include scientists, judges and poets.
• Overdoing the drawl until every vowel stretches into three syllables.
• Mixing features from very different regions, such as a Texas twang with an old Charleston dropped R, in one character.
• Relying on a few stock phrases instead of learning the vowel sounds.
• Learning only from films, which often use exaggerated, generic versions.

Accent practice is low risk for the voice, but drawled, twangy vowels can tighten the jaw and tongue if you push them. Keep the jaw loose, take breaks and drink water. Treat the accent with respect: millions of people speak this way every day, so aim for an accurate, real-sounding character, not a caricature.

Try the voice in a dubbing scene, roll a random prompt, or warm up first with the vocal warm-up.