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Looking for a New Voice
 Your voice - its quality, pace, clarity and personality - speaks volumes about
you. Thirty eight percent of the impact you have on people has to do with your
voice. Have you ever thought, what does your voice say about you?
We've all had conversations with strangers over the telephone and painted a
picture of how the person looked, as well as what they were like, based on what
we heard. We make judgments about age,
appearance, confidence, vitality,
background, ability and lifestyle - just on how a person speaks.
The good news is that we all learn how to speak and so, therefore, we can
unlearn and learn again. If you feel let down by parents, teachers or friends
for not having helped you to develop a better voice, it's now down to you to do
something about it.
Think of a woman whose voice you admire. What is it about her voice that you
like? Are these qualities lacking in your own voice? How would you like to sound
or have others describe your voice?
A fit voice
Your health, both
physical and mental, influences the quality of your voice. A
depressed spirit is conveyed in an instant. If you want to make a good
impression on others, even if you aren't feeling on top of the world, you've got
to get yourself physically and emotionally in gear.
Tips to sound energetic at a meeting
Before an important meeting or phone call, you want to be both energized and
calm. These are complementary, not conflicting, values. An energized voice
conveys enthusiasm and interest, while a note of calm and control conveys
confidence.
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To sound energetic you need to be energetic - so get moving. Get the blood
pumping with a brisk walk around the block before an important phone call.
Filling the lungs with long, easy, deep breathes not only wakes you up but
also calms you down.
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If nervous before a meeting or phone call, stretch out on the floor.
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Place a cushion or rolled-up towel under your pelvis to ease the strain on
your back. Don't have a snooze but rather gently stretch your body in different
directions. Put your arms up over your head and pretend that your
arms and
legs
are being pulled in opposite directions. Hold for ten seconds and release.
Obviously this is one to give a miss if you work in an open-plan office!
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Now bend your legs up to your chest and roll them down to one side while
your upper body and arms go in the opposite direction. Gently roll from one side
to the other, holding the stretch for ten to twenty seconds when upper and lower
body are in opposite directions. Do ten of these: five of each stretch.
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Stand up and swing your arms forward, from the
shoulders, in large circles
ten times. Now repeat in the opposite direction another ten times.
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Standing again, inhale, filling your lungs from the bottom to the top, and
hold for ten seconds when the lungs are full. Empty the lungs slowly from the
top to the bottom. Do this five times.
After this brief routine your brain cells and blood are revitalized with an
extra shot of oxygen, and you are calm and controlled and ready for that
encounter.
A final note on helping your voice to sound more energized - smile. Try this
exercise. With a straight, expressional face, say: I would really love to join
you all on Saturday night. Oh really? Could have fooled me. Try saying it with a
smile. Better still, stand up, smile and say it. Now I believe you!
Body Language
 If you think that a little box at the back of your throat does all the talking,
you are sadly mistaken. Ineffective voices are the result of not using all your
equipment: your posture, lungs, throat, mouth and face.
Posture
The way you sit and stand affects the quality of your voice. A
slumped demeanour neither sounds enthusiastic nor looks it. If your
posture is
letting your voice down, take steps to stand to sit tall to allow the sounds to
resonate as fully as possible.
Lungs
You need to use the full capacity of your lungs to sustain your
words. Nothing is more unnerving than a short, breathless voice, or someone who
runs out of puff and has to take great gasps to get going again. Poor fitness
can let down your health, appearance and voice. Strengthen a thin, weak or
breathy voice by increasing oxygen intake and improving the ventilatory
efficiency of your lungs. To increase the oxygen you need to add brisk, aerobic
activity to your life and quit or cut down on
smoking.
To ensure that your lungs work as efficiently as possible, practice long, deep
breathing. If you haven't learned how to breathe properly (okay, okay! I know
this sounds ridiculous as you are alive and breathing) find a
meditation or
yoga
class with an instructor who will take you step by step through the process.
Deep breathing is a life-enhancing experience - so simple yet so powerful. By
using deep-breathing techniques, you will strengthen your lungs, potentially add
years to your life and be able to relax and de-stress yourself when necessary.
Deep breathing is a tried and tested remedy for nervousness and worth practicing
before any speaking opportunity. Practice this technique standing or lying down
for best effect. Relax your facial muscles. Inhale through your nose slowly to
the count of ten. Imagine having to slowly inflate your lower abdomen, then your
tummy, then your chest with air. Hold the air for another ten counts, then
slowly exhale through your mouth, imagining you are letting air out of a balloon
from the top of your chest, through your tummy, then the
abdomen. Sit quietly
through three to five sessions of deep breathing and you will find yourself
markedly relaxed at the end of it.
Throat
The quality of your sounds is affected by how well you use your
throat. Many of us restrict the use of the throat (and the mouth), effectively
strangling the words and sounds. Singing is a great release for a constricted
throat. Take singing classes to help improve your throat and improve your singing voice. You know you sound heaps more like Celine Dion if you widen the back of
your throat and let those notes sail out. To speak well, you don't need to go to
such extremes, but try to open up the throat so that the sounds reverberate to
come over as rich as possible. An open throat requires a relaxed jaw and
flexible facial muscles, which helps to ease the mouth and throat. The throat
then 'feels' capable of more expansive, fuller sound.
Mouth and face
 A stiff upper lip cannot produce a rich voice or make
words sound magical. Many adults have indifferent voices because their mouths
and faces are stiff and hardly move. If you have good breathing, diction and
articulation but you use your mouth as a funnel, you won't have a compelling
voice. Try to open up your face, mouth and jaw when you speak. Do so, in a very
exaggerated fashion, in front of a mirror. Have a laugh. Work your face, mouth
and jaw like an animated speaker you admire. Dawn French, Sharon Stone, Joanna
Lumley, Andie McDowell, Gloria Hunniford, Ruby Wax, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler
all make full use of their face, mouth and jaw and have rich, distinctive voices
as a result.
The sound of your own voice
If you want to improve your voice, you need to start by analyzing it. Take a
tape recorder and read something from the newspaper or talk about your day into
it. Play the tape back. Note what you like and what you don't. Keep the original
recording to see how your voice improves as you continue to practice speaking
better, using better diction, varying the pitch and pace, and improving the
general quality.
Imitate characteristics in others that you like. For example, a colleague at
work might sound quite impressive to you because she speaks more loudly than you
do. Imitate her and turn up your volume. Watching a movie, you might note how
another voice has variety and isn't monotone (as yours might be). Try 'acting'
the new voice with your tape recorder by reading a story for a few minutes,
trying to imitate the pitch of the voice you admire. If you hear a change - and
you like it - keep practicing. Start to use your new techniques every time you
speak and soon they will be your voice.
Pace of speech
Confident people tend to speak more slowly because they
believe others want to listen to them. Rushing over words can make them indistinct and make a person
sound more tentative. This is because the words themselves have lost their
clarity, we feel the speaker has lost confidence in them and by extension what
they are talking about.
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