Reaching beyond tone and tenor and communicating with confidence, you can convey information, share personal anecdotes, entertain audiences, and persuade listeners through further study and practice.
Once you have progressed through exploring your voice, training the physical vocal system, and discovering the successes you can have through spoken presentations, you can begin focusing your goals on building trust with your audience and influence the reception of your message. It is not just what you say, or how you say it, but your belief in the truth of what you are saying and your conviction that it is important.
When you listen to a speaker who has a clear purpose and vision that they place great value in, the message resonates. You want to be part of their mission or movement. If you consider and modulate the pitch, pace, tone, volume, and melody of your voice you can communicate emotion and move listeners to accept your message.
The more awareness you bring to assessing your audience, planning your message, and using your voice's range of expression the more successful you will be in communicating with others.
Once you have progressed through exploring your voice, training the physical vocal system, and discovering the successes you can have through spoken presentations, you can begin focusing your goals on building trust with your audience and influence the reception of your message. It is not just what you say, or how you say it, but your belief in the truth of what you are saying and your conviction that it is important.
When you listen to a speaker who has a clear purpose and vision that they place great value in, the message resonates. You want to be part of their mission or movement. If you consider and modulate the pitch, pace, tone, volume, and melody of your voice you can communicate emotion and move listeners to accept your message.
The more awareness you bring to assessing your audience, planning your message, and using your voice's range of expression the more successful you will be in communicating with others.
The artistry and mastery of public speaking is the intersection of three elements--what you say (your content), the way you say it (your communication), and why you say it (your confidence and conviction). When those three elements are well coordinated, you will find that your presentation has become a force that moves people to listen and take you and your words seriously.
Making Phrases Work For You
Some scientific researchers suggest we may think and store memories most effectively in phrases, strings of connected words. This is one explanation why song lyrics tend to be easier to remember than the multiplication tables, and why many cultures use a sing-song delivery when teaching children their alphabet.
While you may not want to sing or rap your presentation, it can be helpful to concentrate on sharing information or supporting details about an idea within a phrase, then pausing before the next thought. If you're delivering complicated information or asking your audience to visualize something new, give them a moment to digest what you have said. Break down your message into "verses" subtly by offering them space to think or laugh. This kind of pacing has the added benefit of ensuring you do not run out of breath in mid-thought.
The rhythms, phrasings and sounds that produce lasting effects in listeners are present in many famous speeches and dramatic works. William Shakespeare's plays with their resounding monologues and soliloquies still delivered on stage and film after 420 years because of the universal ideas are phrased in blank verse (unrhymed ten-syllable, five stresses iambic pentameter) that now seem inseparable from their meaning.
Consider taking your notes, slides, or essay and "sing" your way through them. When you do, if you stick with it after an awkward first few minutes, you may surprise yourself by discovering interesting ways to emphasize important words or hear them in a new way. The essential truths you want to communicate may be a lyrical song of joy, a dutiful march of responsibility, an elegy of environmental loss, or a scherzo of rapidly-developing technological advances. Phrasing by singing gives you a new perspective on your essay, notecards, or slides because you're engaging the creative, imaginative right brain with the orderly, logical left brain. When you've engaged your logical mind with your imagination and creativity, there is no limit to what you can do. Your delivery will feel fresh and the audience will feel more engaged, even if they do not consciously hear the melody you're following.
Some scientific researchers suggest we may think and store memories most effectively in phrases, strings of connected words. This is one explanation why song lyrics tend to be easier to remember than the multiplication tables, and why many cultures use a sing-song delivery when teaching children their alphabet.
While you may not want to sing or rap your presentation, it can be helpful to concentrate on sharing information or supporting details about an idea within a phrase, then pausing before the next thought. If you're delivering complicated information or asking your audience to visualize something new, give them a moment to digest what you have said. Break down your message into "verses" subtly by offering them space to think or laugh. This kind of pacing has the added benefit of ensuring you do not run out of breath in mid-thought.
The rhythms, phrasings and sounds that produce lasting effects in listeners are present in many famous speeches and dramatic works. William Shakespeare's plays with their resounding monologues and soliloquies still delivered on stage and film after 420 years because of the universal ideas are phrased in blank verse (unrhymed ten-syllable, five stresses iambic pentameter) that now seem inseparable from their meaning.
Consider taking your notes, slides, or essay and "sing" your way through them. When you do, if you stick with it after an awkward first few minutes, you may surprise yourself by discovering interesting ways to emphasize important words or hear them in a new way. The essential truths you want to communicate may be a lyrical song of joy, a dutiful march of responsibility, an elegy of environmental loss, or a scherzo of rapidly-developing technological advances. Phrasing by singing gives you a new perspective on your essay, notecards, or slides because you're engaging the creative, imaginative right brain with the orderly, logical left brain. When you've engaged your logical mind with your imagination and creativity, there is no limit to what you can do. Your delivery will feel fresh and the audience will feel more engaged, even if they do not consciously hear the melody you're following.
Resonance and Voice Register
The human body has its own speaker system. This system includes the bones and cavities of the throat, the larynx (voice box containing the vocal cords), mouth cavity, head, and chest.
The Mask is a term professional actors and singers use to describe the resonating cavities above, behind, and around the nose, forehead, and cheekbones.
The middle resonator is your throat.
The lower resonator is your chest.
Your middle voice has vibrations in all three sets of cavities and is your natural voice.
When you lift your tone through your middle voice (throat) and further into your upper mask, pitch goes up to a bright, sharp, piercing sound. The chest cavity does not contribute.
Chest--dark and warm resonance quality. It communicates confidence, control, and wisdom.
Middle--medium resonance quality. It communicates connection, kindness, and compassion.
Head--naturally light, bright. It communicates sincere interest, intelligence, and attention.
Gifted storytellers often use the entire range of these options. Variation between tones is a form of communication, while remaining entirely within one gives your speech a "recorded lecture" monotone ("one tone") or "bored tour guide" quality.
Breaking out of Monotone: Pick up a book or magazine and record yourself reading a passage. As you play back the recording, listen to where your voice register is--chest, middle, head? Does your voice rise and fall with feeling or with changes in narration or dialogue? Practice reading with feeling using Readers Theater or poetry recitations.
Use the News: You can also practice by varying the pitches and stresses of your voice by imitating the reporters and anchors on the evening news, sports commentators, or talk shows to pick up helpful strategies and techniques . . .
"Punching" particular words for emphasis;
Using rising tones for questions or issues;
Using falling tones for the concluding sentence of a report or comment.
These may feel artificial at first, and I do not recommend them as a 24-hours/7-days a week approach to narrating life around you (although some very successful comedians have parodied the "professional speaker's voice"), but you can use them as a springboard to more natural ways of speaking by leaving monotone behind.