THE VOICE! Your Best Communication Tool

How the Voice works All professional speakers must “reawaken” their voice and exercise it as a muscle. There are four basic parts to the voice: The Motor The Vibrators The Resonators The Articulators

The Motor THE LUNGS provided force and energy for your voice. Breath-support is poor for most people; we run out of breath easily. Strengthening breath-support help give us a more flexible and usable voice!

The Vibrators Energy from the lungs transfers to the VOCAL CHORDS. Air vibrates the vocal chords as air passes through them and this creates sound. Muscle tension in the neck makes it harder to produce sound. Getting rid of this tension will improve your sound.

The Resonators Sound from the vocal chords resonates in your vocal “cavities”: your mouth, nose, chest, and your ear cavity. These cavities amplify sound. Open these cavities for a rich and powerful voice. You can change the quality of your sound by controlling where it resonates.

The Articulators The voice separates and “shapes” into sounds with meaning by the articulators: the lips, tongue, and teeth. Most do not fully exercises the articulators. We suffer from “lazy lips.” Tongue twisters are the best workout for your articulators.

The Guitar Analogy Motor = The Fingers Vibrators = The Strings Resonators = The Body Articulators = The Frets

Articulation Articulation: lack of this usually occurs because your mouth is not open far enough. Say: Peter Piper picked a peck of Pickled Peppers… If your jaw was wired shut With normal lip/jaw movement With exaggerated lip/jaw activity Speaking should occur in between 2 and 3.

Articulator Problems Fricatives: Sounds caused by gradual escape of air through constriction in the mouth or vocal tract. f, v, th, s, z, sh, zh, h Plostives and Stops: Sounds caused by an explosion of air or sudden stop of air flow. p, b, t, d, k, g Frictionless Consonants: semivowels, nasals, and laterals.

Frictionless Consonants Semivowels: Continuous, vowel-like quality. w, r, y Laterals: Similar, but the breath exits from the side of the mouth rather than the front. l Nasals: Similar to laterals but with a nasal Resonator. n, m, ng

Let’s Practice….. A simple vocal warm up… Find a partner and try the rest! When you are done, wait for the rest to finish. Try some for the class and reflect. Turn in the sheet!

How to Improve! Phrasing: Also known as breath groups. Dictated by announcer’s desire to be understood Has little to do with pronunciation Allows for logical pausing There are two types of phrases: Main Ideas: Uses key words that are more important to stress. Secondary Ideas: Additional information that qualifies the main idea. Key words get greater Stress or EMPHASIS!

Emphasis There are four different forms of emphasis: PITCHRATE VOLUMEQUALITY

Pitch The “musical” tone of a voice. Key Shifts: differs between main and subordinate phrases, denotes new ideas, begins new ideas at a new pitch. Upward v. Downward Phrasing Upward Inflection: Incomplete thought, unsure. Downward Inflection: Completion, authority. Downward pitch is important to give complete emphasis to an idea.

Volume Emphasis can be achieved by variations in loudness. This can be sudden or gradual. Volume use depends on three things: What you’re saying (emotions) Where you’re saying it (auditorium v. classroom) The size of your audience (large, small, spread out, close together, etc.)

Rate The speed, pace, or tempo of a voice. PAUSE before a key phrase to indicate its importance. This is the most effective tool an announcer can use! Speed up or slow down for a similar effect. When reading your script, mark these element of emphasis. (We will read this in Chap. 3).

Quality The timbre of your voice; how it sounds: Whisper Breathiness Huskiness/Harshness Nasally You can change the shape of your voice depending on the purpose of your presentation: Commercials Acting News reporting