How to Improve Your Speaking Voice
How to Improve Your Speaking Voice
Whether in person or over the telephone, the quality of your voice is vital to effective communication. Voice includes not only volume and accent, but pitch, pronunciation, and speed. All of these qualities can interfere with your best presentation.
Voice Qualities:
Accent
Accent depends on where someone was raised and learned language. It is not one quality of voice, but combines many, such as pitch, pronunciation, and speed. There are many reasons why someone might want to reduce a ‘native’ accent, including difficulty being understood, or the listener paying more attention to the music of the voice than the content. Training courses are available to help someone modify an accent. These are often taught by speech language pathologists. http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/accent_mod.htm
Volume
The loudest voice is not always the most persuasive. If you raise your voice, you may be interpreted as being angry and your message can be lost. The best volume to speak with is one that will just fill the room and capture the attention of your audience. Your voice will carry best if you speak to the back of whatever room you are in. Changing the loudness of your voice is effective at maintaining listener attention. Both a slightly louder and a slightly softer voice can emphasize a point. Your listeners will be especially alert to the volume change.
Pitch
Women tend toward higher pitched voices; men to lower pitched ones. Lower pitches tend to be more soothing. In addition, since hearing loss often begins with a loss of ability to hear higher pitched sounds, communication can be improved by lowering your pitch. As with volume, varying the pitch is important to maintain listener interest.
Pronunciation
Having crisp pronunciation will aid comprehension. Actors often use tongue twisters to train themselves in good diction, making sure all the consonant sounds are sharp and distinct. A collection can be found here: http://www.theactorsstore.com/voice.htm
Speed
If you speak too slowly, your audience will lose interest. Too quickly and you risk losing your audience’s comprehension. Many people speak fast due to nervousness or discomfort with silence. Used properly, a pause can direct special attention to the word or phrase that follows.
Techniques and Tips for a Better Speaking Voice
Breath
Lungs provide the resonance for speaking. If you breathe too shallowly, or from your upper chest, you lose the breath support that will help your voice carry effortlessly. Actors and musicians practice diaphragmatic breathing. Breathing this way will help all aspects of your speaking voice.
Posture
Your sitting or standing posture has a great influence on speaking voice. Improper neck position can strain the vocal cords and spine position can influence breathing. Have someone take video or a photo of you while you speak. Study your alignment in profile view. Ideally, you should be able to drop a straight line from your earlobes to your shoulders, hips, just behind the knees, and the ankles.
Practice
Tape yourself as you speak and listen for the voice qualities mentioned here. Vary the different qualities until you are confident that your message and your speaking voice are as polished as they can be.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 5:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.