To secure purity of voice, no particle of breath must be allowed to escape unvocalized. A persistent effort should be made to produce this quality, at first "feeding" the breath very gently to the vocal cords and increasing the volume only after long practice. "He is the best speaker," says Lennox Browne, "who can control the expiration, that the least possible amount of air sufficient to cause vibration is poured with continuous effect upon the vocal organs."
Sing oo in gentle, smooth voice, avoiding unnecessary muscular effort.
Sing ah, with mouth well opened, aiming at purity, depth and smoothness. Sustain and repeat on various pitches.
Repeat with o.
Gradually change singing o to ah, maintaining a uniform quality throughout.
Repeat with oo-o-ah.
Practice various musical scales.
Pronounce e, a, aw, ah, 6, do, prolonging each ten or more seconds.
Repeat with rising, falling, and circumflex inflection.
Practice shock of the glottis in gup, ge, ga, gaw, gah, go, goo.
Repeat in hup, he, ha, haw, hah, ho, hoo.
Repeat with rising slide and with falling slide, aiming at great clearness.
Count very deliberately one to fifty, inhaling after each number.
Count to fifty, ten to each breath. Repeat last two exercises in loud whisper.
Project by slight waves of sound woo-woo-woo-woo.
Toss the sounds e, a, aw, ah, oh, oo.
With mouth closed hum a mental maw. The vibration should be felt on the lips and in the facial resonators.
Repeat with bright and with sad vibrations.
Repeat in very low pitch.
FLEXIBILITY AND COMPASS
Flexibility means vocal responsiveness, or the ability to produce any tone or variation that may be required.
Sing e, a, aw, ah, o, oo in chromatic scale, from the lowest to the highest pitch. The use of a piano in these exercises is desirable.
Repeat with trill.
Repeat with tremolo.
Repeat in speaking voice, with short, medium, long and very long rising inflection. Repeat in falling and circumflex inflection.
Repeat with gradually increasing force, and with gradually diminishing force.
Repeat with swell, one pitch at a time, then combined with change of inflection both rising and falling.
Commence the following upon a low pitch, reading each successive line in the next highest pitch: O thou that roll'st above, Round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O sun! Thy everlasting light?
BRILLIANCY
To secure brilliancy or a musical quality of voice, practice daily upon exercises containing long vowel sounds.
1. Hear the mellow wedding bells Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the future! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
2. Inhale deeply, force the breath against the closed lips until they burst open on the word "bell," prolonging the "1" as long as possible and allowing the tone to gradually die away in imitation of bell vibrations. Repeat with variations.
3. Laughing exercises will add brilliancy and strength to the voice.
Practice m-m-m-m-m-m-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Aim to produce a hearty, spontaneous laugh. Practice with varied feeling, such as merry, rippling, polite, silly, angry, appreciative, sad, scornful, etc.
4. Practice the following with great freedom:
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!Hurrah! Hurrah!Hurrah!
Practiced regularly, you can be sure to greatly enhance the quality of your speaking voice, and it will be well worth the time and effort spent.
Our speaking voice should be a wonderful expressive instrument for communication. However, many of us have unconsciously fallen into bad habits either in conversation or public speaking. Others will inevitably associate the habits of our voice with habits of our mind and will use these habits to draw a conclusion as to our character. Very few of us ever make the time to improve the quality of our voice to make it pleasing and melodious. We do have the makings of a good voice and training will help make it better.
An excellent check on the qualities of your voice is to record it and play back. Even without this a little listening practice will make you conscious of your voice. Listen to your voice and honestly analyze to determine any bad habits.
The most common public speaking bad habits, their consequences and their simple remedies are listed below:
Bad Habit 1 - A strident high pitched voice. This has the hallmarks of a nervous person. It is hard on the listeners and many will find it difficult to listen to the point they lose interest.
Remedy - Take several deep breaths, this will help to calm the nerves and make it easier to control your voice.
Bad Habit 2 - A monotonous drone, speaking too slow or deliberately. This will ruin even the best prepared presentation by making it sound dull and may even put some people to sleep.
Remedy - Pick up the tempo of your talk through thinking faster. You will naturally talk faster when your zest to do your best gets into gear.
Bad Habit 3 - Rapid delivery - this exhausts the audience and they will lose the context of your ideas.
Remedy - Start off slow and adopt a conversational manner as talking to a friend. Make sure you enunciate clearly.
Bad Habit 4 - Too soft - who will know what you said? Remedy - Test the volume when you speak. Ask whether they can hear you at the back. Most audiences will appreciate you taking the time.
Additionally many voice faults can be remedied by reading "out loud." Read a variety of material; try everything from casual quotations to vigorous argument. The "out loud" reading must have feeling put into it. Reflect the feeling of the words in your voice. Experiment with words that reflect love and compare the sounds with words that convey hatred. Your voice will reflect the mood you have in mind and the audience will target in on it. Practice rounding out your syllables and opening you mouth wide to raise the resonance of your voice. This will help cure mumbling. However, be careful you don't end up with an affected accent that sounds worse than the original issue.
By understanding your own voice bad habits and tackling them you can replace these habits with good "listening" tones. It is useful to recall that Demosthenes a famed Greek orator from long ago struggled with stammering. It is recorded that he overcame this challenge by filling his mouth with pebbles and talking over the roar of crashing waves.
Both Jimmy Cox & Edward Hope are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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