Are you attracting listeners or turning them off? The importance of your speaking voice to your listeners, whether you are a presenter, a trainer, a speaker, or an entrepreneur should not be ignored.
In whatever realm that you wish to communicate orally, the voice is an instrument which you should not tarnish.
The three basic components to improving your voice quality lie in your breathing; your relaxation; and your sound production, or phonation, which produces your speech.
Actors regularly do vocal work to enrich their speaking voice which any professional speaker should be doing.
Here are some venerated approaches to improving your voice quality that fall under the scientific fundamentals of voice production.
1.
Breathing Process: First, diaphragmatic breathing has the most overwhelming benefits to enhance your vocal sound and control.
It significantly supports your speech to allow for projecting the sound farther; and it will help you control your interpretation of your message, story, or text.
Through the guidance of a vocal coach you can intuitively calculate the amount of air or breath that you will need, and when to take each new breath.
This is convenient for applying pauses and nuances of expression.
Diaphragmatic breathing will allow for more capacity and control of your exhalation of air; so that, you will have a fuller tonal effect.
The intercostal muscles are attached to the diaphragm located under your rib cage to allow these flexible lower ribs to move and expand the amount of air in your lower chest cavity.
In contrast, this is much better than using only your upper chest, called clavicular breathing, because of the limitations of a smaller fixed area.
Your upper chest breathing is restricted and produces shallow breathing, and potential nervous or panic results.
2.
Relaxation Preparation: The second fundamental of vocal improvement is to learn core relaxation strategies for your body muscles and mind.
Using the correct diaphragmatic breathing will initiate relaxation of any anxiety as an added strategy.
Next, remove all physical muscle tension while you mentally direct releasing this tension progressing from your toes to your head, ending with a relaxed mind.
Add in stretching and wide open yawn, and this will refresh yourself and relax your voice.
3.
Sound Production: The resonance of tone is reverberated in your chest, pharynx, mouth, nasal passage, and practically anywhere in your body.
This third level of vocal training transitions into the process of producing your tones at different pitch levels.
You will discover your range of lows and highs to provide you, as a speaker, with the variety of expression.
This in turn sets you up for gliding these tones into your persuasive, passionate, or meaningful inspiration for your audience.
Your clarity is always in top form with repeated tongue and jaw exercises for your articulators to shape your sound into defining words.
Your movement and body alignment should match and balance your vocal quality.
These are the rudimentary ingredients in a recipe of speech and vocal performers for a novices or experienced speakers.
Discover the freedom and expansion of where your sounds will lead you, and you will be miles ahead in your vocal richness.
If you missed this fundamental process, it's never too late to boost your vocal sound just like the actors do, and discover where it may lead you.