Module 9
Finding YOUR voice
For Radio Presenter
Public Speaker
I Hate The Sound of My Voice
Few people like the sound
of their own voice. Why? Because
you normally hear your voice through the bone in your jaw, while everyone else,
including the microphone hears it from your mouth.
Hearing yourself recorded
for the first time is a shock.. but you must be objective about it.
•
I don't
like my accent!
•
I sound
sooo posh.
•
I don't
like the way I pronounce my r's
•
My accent
makes me difficult to understand
Energy, clarity, variety
Regard your accent, your
'poshness' the way you pronounce your 'r's as part of your personality – in the
past voice coaches have beaten a personality out of a voice with elocution
lessons. In the UK we taught and
still teach r.p. - 'Received Pronunciation' an accent that might come from one
of the home counties around London have clarity but very little personality.
I prefer to encourage your
personality but improve your clarity.
To be an effective
broadcaster you need:
•
To be
heard – energy
•
To be
understood – clarity
•
To have
variety in your voice – understand the words on a script or what you are
saying.
ENERGY
You need petrol to run a
car, you need electricity to light a lamp and you need AIR to project your
voice and add energy to your delivery.
Use your breath to support
your voice. 'Think' your voice
down so that it projects from your stomach, biologically your vocal chords are
in your throat but a combination of good breathing and moving your voice to
your stomach will really help you keep a constant energy level.
WARNING If you exert
pressure on your throat muscles to speak louder, your voice will sound strained
you will get a sore throat and long-term might damage your vocal chords.
BREATHING
Most of us don't use our
lungs well. In everyday lives we
take short shallow breaths and only fill the top half of our lungs. Under stress we breathe more rapidly but
because we are not using the full capacity of our lungs – we become breathless;
when we are speaking, we can even run out of air before we reach the end of a
sentence.
The DEEPER you breathe the
more air you will have to sustain your voice and project it to all your
listeners.
Exercise:
Place your hands on you
ribs, inflate your lungs fully and feel them inflate. Now count aloud on that one breath. You should reach 30+ DON'T CHEAT.
Full lungs will enable you
to finish sentences or natural clarity pauses – as spoken language has
different rules to the written word.
Try and do this a few times
every day when you read out loud or mimic commercials and the spoken word on TV
and Radio.
Work on increasing your
number count and keep the energy levels constant, keep projecting from the
stomach.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
If you are a broadcaster
you will know that microphone's are sensitive little creatures and quite
capable of picking up the nuances of your voice, providing that you speak with
clarity and have energy in your voice and that your voice has a natural variety
of tone, generated by understanding the words.
BUT if you are speaking to
a crowd of people without the help of a microphone you need to practice reading
out loud projecting your voice into the next room – to do this you just inflate
your lungs with more air and speak – do this consciously as you speak normally
through the day.
WARNING: Public speaking is
very different from broadcasting, sure it shares some of the same rules and
exercises BUT the energy and projection levels are very different.
When you broadcast you want
to sound natural – you do not want to sound like you are preaching to your
audience. (The exception – if you are on a religious station, er preaching)
DROPPING ONE OFF THE
END
Imagine yourself as Usain
Bolt running the 100 metres and just before you run over the finishing line you
slow down and amble to the line.
If you did that you would win very few Gold Olympic medals.
It is a common thing for
you to do when you read a sentence, your energy levels drop off at the end of
sentences, as if you are just fading away into the night.
Try and keep those energy
levels UP and at the end of a sentence, if English is your language try and
slightly lower the last word in tone.
Particularly if it is at the end of a thought or paragraph. This gives a signpost to the listener
that you have finished completely or are moving on to another
thought/point/idea.
UNDERSTAND ME
To start with open your mouth,
many people speak through clenched teeth, hardly move their lips.
Exercise:
Say the alphabet out loud
BUT you must keep your mouth wide as if you were half-yawning, your jaws cannot
close and your lips cannot touch, except on the letters B.M.P. and W.
One breath sentences – sya
the following without pauses or jerkiness:
'No man would listen to you
talk unless he knew that it was his turn next.'
'It is always the best
policy to speak the truth, unless you are an exceptionally good liar.'
'One of the tests of
leadership is the ability to recognise a problem before it becomes an
emergency.'
VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF
LIFE
Clarity and diction does
not mean you have to change your accent or personality. If you were a musician and you took the
feeling and pathos out of a piece of music you would sound like a machine,
mechanical and you would ruin a performance.
You just need to
concentrate on the way words are pronounced – make the vowels sound as they
should, to emphasise and add emotion, use the consonants to flit onto and over
like a butterfly moving delicately but precisely over a flower.
Variety and tone comes from
understanding:
If you understand what you
are reading you can add emotional tone.
Here is a famous line from
Shakespeare:
'To be or not to be, that
is the question:'
Often said out loud in a
boisterous ham voice. But the back
story of that soliloquy is about Hamlet contemplating suicide and whether he
should continue living – so it would be read slowly, mournfully and with a
heavy heart.
YOU GOTTA SPEED IT UP
THEN YOU GOTTA SLOW IT DOWN
Wise words from Eurovision
winners 'Bucks Fizz' to begin with you should slow down, nerves and your
frantic panic to finish what you are saying will make you speak faster than you
think you are.
BUT slow down too much and
again you will sound like a machine.
CONFUSE do not confuse
slowing down with leaving pauses.
SILENCE is golden – having the confidence to leave dramatic pauses is a
skill set that every broadcast should process.
Lets go back to that
soliloquy read it out loud – leave the pauses.
'To be or not to be, that
is the question:'
Right onto speeding up,
just told you to slow down now I am asking you to speed up? There will be some
parts of your broadcasting that involves crossing to the travel centre, cueing
to the news – if you are making a speech there might be some parts of it that
are familiar to your audience – you can afford to speed up.
'He rushed to his darkroom'
If he rushed to his darkroom you should probably speed up the delivery of that
line, it will lift it from the page and help your audience visualise a man
rushing to a room to develop a picture.
UP ON HIGH
Nerves will make your vocal
register rise, it's natural to be nervous, a healthy reaction to a
situation. Try and consciously
lower your pitch. A lot of how and
why we speak the way we do is physiological rather than physical.
Exercise:
I would like you to be Big
Ben – the large bell that hangs in St Stephen's Tower at the Houses of
Parliament.
Every hour it chimes out
'Bong' 'Bong'
Long and loud – say it out
loud 'Bong, Bong' feel the sound elongate feel the vibrations in your throat.
Do this for just 2 minutes
in the morning and 2 minutes at night and your voice will be permanently
lowered – I wonder if Lady Thatcher used this exercise to lower her voice on
the path to becoming the first female Prime Minister?
INFLEXTION
Say it like you mean it.
Answer my questions with
the word really.
'I have just lost my job' –
Really (horror)
'You need to get your hair
cut' – Really (annoyance)
'Your work is exceptionally
good.' - Really (pleasure, remember to smile)
'We will finish on time I
will not start telling anecdotes.' - Really (disbelief)
'I really love garlic
flavoured ice cream.' - Really (Sarcasm)
One word, at least 5 ways
of saying it.
GIRLS (AND BOYS)
ALOUD
Read aloud everyday – mimic
commercials, radio and TV continuity announcements – de-construct the way
others work, copy and make your own.
•
Breath =
authority
•
Open =
mouth for clarity
•
Vary =
understand, change speed and lower pitch
•
Silent =
pauses are powerful
Steve Campen with
acknowledgement to Cristina Stuart
© 2012
