Rules of the Game (7 page)

With the help of several vocal coaches, I've put together five exercises designed to eliminate weakness in your speech and bring out your most full, powerful, and commanding voice.

Before beginning this activity, you'll need:

There are two factors that make all the difference between a good orator and a bad one: breath and posture.

Breathing deeply before you speak fills your lungs with air, allowing you to give full power to your words. To ensure that you're doing this correctly, take a deep breath. If your chest expands, your breathing is too shallow.

Try it again until your diaphragm—the sheet of muscle beneath your rib cage—expands. To check this, place your hand on your stomach to make sure it rises with each inhalation.

Bad posture can restrict your diaphragm and breathing, effectively neutering your vocal power. Whenever you speak, make sure that your upper body is straight and aligned. If necessary, use the technique of imagining a string running from the bottom of your spine to the top of your head and then pulling it taut. But don't get too tense; make sure you're relaxed comfortably into the frame of your body. If this seems unnatural, don't worry: Tomorrow we'll examine your posture in detail.

PROBLEM: Low or Soft Voice

SOLUTION:
Find a large, open space indoors or outdoors. Bring an audio recorder, a trusted friend, or both.

Take three large steps away from your audio recorder or friend.

Take a deep breath from your diaphragm. Hold it, then slowly exhale.
Take two more deep breaths. Then inhale one more time, and as you exhale, say, using your everyday voice, “I can say this without shouting and still be heard.”

Now go back and listen to your voice on the recording, or ask your friend how you sounded.

Return to the same position and recite the same line. This time, instead of speaking to your friend or the recorder, aim your voice at a spot six to ten feet above. Imagine your voice is a football, traveling a wide arc to make a field goal. Afterward, check the results for improvement.

Take three more large steps away and repeat the same sentence: “I can say this without shouting and still be heard.” Try to increase the volume of your voice without screaming or changing the tone.

Take another three steps away. Remember to send your voice in a high arc, past the listener. Afterward, listen to your recording (or your friend's reaction) and critique your vocal projection. See how far away you can stand and still be heard clearly without shouting. Practice this until you're comfortable talking at loud volumes without changing the tone of your voice. You'll notice that, in the process, you'll begin to speak more clearly as well.

If you've been a quiet talker all your life, chances are that the volume of your voice in your head isn't the volume at which other people hear you. So if you normally talk at a 5, from now on take it up to a 7. Don't worry about speaking too loudly. It's much more likely that your friends will start complimenting you on how clearly you've started communicating.

PROBLEM: Fast Speech

SOLUTION:
Speaking too rapidly is one of the most common and crippling vocal mistakes. Not only does it make you difficult to understand, but it gives others the impression that you're nervous, you're not confident, and what you have to say is unimportant.

A calm, slow voice commands authority.

For this exercise, sit up straight in front of your audio recorder or computer microphone. Take a deep breath. Now say without slowing down the following sentence—all in one breath: “I will no longer speak too quickly and cram all my words together in one breath because I have lots of thoughts in my head and I am trying to get them all out and I am afraid that if I pause, people will stop listening.”

Listen to the recording. Most likely, cramming a run-on sentence into one breath worsened your enunciation and caused you to swallow some words.

Now inhale and say the same line. But this time, make the pace exaggeratedly slow and deliberate; leave excruciatingly long pauses between phrases; pronounce each word carefully; and take a breath more often than you feel you need to. Then listen to the recording.

Repeat this exercise five to ten times, gradually increasing the pace, normalizing your breathing, and shortening the pauses between words while making sure you're still speaking slowly and pronouncing each word fully. This is going to feel unnatural at first, but stick with it until you find a comfortable and clear speaking pace that captures the attention of others.

Repeat the run-on sentence several more times in front of a mirror until you get used to your new speaking pace.

After you've mastered this exercise on your own, your voice may well speed up again in social situations. So make sure you monitor yourself, and take a breath and slow down as soon as you catch yourself speed talking.

Just like turning up the volume on your voice, it may take a while for your inner ear to get used to this change. You may think you're boring others, but you're not. Fast speakers often discover that, even when they've slowed down to what seems like an interminable crawl, they're still talking faster than everyone else in the room.

PROBLEM: Brain Farts

SOLUTION:
Brain farts, or pausers, are the enemy of confidence.

Whether or not you know what a brain fart is, try this exercise before reading any further: Record yourself speaking with a friend. Either take an audio recorder with you when you leave the house, or record your end of the conversation next time you're on the phone.

Play back the recording and carefully transcribe the first few sentences. Make sure you write down every single word you say. Don't leave out anything.

Now take a look at what you've written. Do you notice the words
um
or
uh
anywhere? How about “you know,” “like,” or “whatever”? These are known as pausers, or brain farts.

We've learned to use these meaningless utterances for several reasons: as placeholders, to make sure we don't lose anyone's attention while we're thinking
of what to say next, and as a sonar system, to make sure the other person understands or agrees with what we're saying.

But do you know what message these pausers actually send to others? Insecurity.

Pausing for a moment won't cause you to lose someone's attention. Always speak as if you're making complete sense—even when you don't think you are. The fact is, the way you communicate makes more of an impression than what you say.

Now listen to ten minutes of the conversation you recorded. Write down every pauser you say, then read them out loud (unless the sheet is blank, in which case you should apply for work as a newscaster immediately). Repeat them until they're imprinted in your mind so that you'll be conscious of them during future conversations. From now on, slow down and consciously choose each word when speaking.

The secret to eliminating pausers—and to breaking most other bad habits—is to become self-correcting. In other words, listen to yourself when you speak. If you notice a brain fart, stop, correct yourself, and repeat the sentence without the pauser. It may also help to carry your list of pausers with you, as a reminder to monitor your speech for these small signifiers of insecurity.

PROBLEM: Monotone Voice

SOLUTION:
If you drone like an old geography teacher when you speak; if your friends close their eyes when you tell a story; if your colleagues tune out halfway through your presentations, you just may have a monotone voice.

Here's an excerpt from a children's short story. Read it out loud into your audio recorder now:

Leopold Elfin had a problem: His nose whistled. He couldn't help it. Every time he breathed through his nose, out came a note. Not the quiet hiss that occasionally issues from the hoary nostrils of men three times his age, but a loud, shrill shriek like a crossing guard blowing for traffic to stop. Leopold was well aware of this problem, but he'd never been to see a doctor, figuring it was more a matter of anatomy than medicine. Maybe it was his
pinched septum, his narrow oval nostrils, or the crook at the bridge of his nose that was responsible for his one social impropriety
.

Now play back the recording. If possible, listen to it with a friend or family member to get a more objective opinion.

Do you have a dynamic storytelling voice, the kind that sucks listeners into the world you're describing? Or do you have a monotone voice, the kind that listeners tend to tune out?

If it's the latter, then turn on the television. Find a male host, comedian, or other broadcaster with a dynamic voice that you like. Listen to him speak. Pay attention to every detail and nuance that make his voice compelling. Notice how he is present in the material, how his voice rings with energy, warmth, and immediacy.

Next, try repeating what he says, using exactly his words, tone, and style.

When you feel you're able to convey a few of his engaging qualities, go back to the story excerpt. Read it again into the recorder, using the techniques you just learned. Experiment with changing the volume, pitch, speed, timbre, rhythm, and flow of your voice as you read. Try emphasizing different words; creating pauses where they don't normally belong; shortening or elongating words; and speaking in different voices and accents. Read the excerpt several times, and don't be afraid to get silly if it helps you break through your limitations.