Improving Your Speaking Voice

You can I think, but ti can be work and some people aren't cut out for it. I had to get rid of my accent to be an actor and I did it almost instinctively. I'd study other people's voices. I have more of a tenor speaking voice, but I can bring it down to baritone if need be. It's just practicing.

When I studied acting, I also studied voice. FREEING THE NATURAL VOICE by Kristen Linklater is a good text. But, I also studied with a voice coach who helped me to learn and apply Linklater methods . . .grounding your body, placing your voice and breathing.

REMEMBER: Helium travels from your heels and targets the larynx.

OP, Yes, I improved my speaking voice, doing exactly what you've done so far. Record your voice, then read the same phrases, purposefully altering your voice: it helps to have examples. I'm from a working class family in the Midwest, where my neighbors were mainly black or Appalachian (I'm neither). So I had a nasal twang, and wanted to get rid of it. I managed to do it. I listed to Masterpiece Theatre, and while I didn't go all British, I did manage to make my voice more resonant, and to get the flat notes out of it. You also need to be true to yourself about what your real voice is (and you may need a voice coach). I didn't know that my natural voice is bass, until I taught myself to project it: my voice had been much higher before I learned that (which also made me "sound gay": please don't stone me for that).

[quote]I did manage to make my voice more resonant, and to get the flat notes out of it.

What are "flat notes," r4?

Demi Moore screamed into a pillow for months to make her voice so deep and cracked. True story.

Plus the 60 cigarettes she smokes a day R6.

"Demi Moore screamed into a pillow for months to make her voice so deep"

Hmmm, I actually do more biting than screaming.

I knew DL fave Andrew Sullivan when he was a graduate student at Harvard (where I was a an undergrad n the mid 80s), and in those days he spoke with a THICK Essex accent. You would have thought he was a character on "EastEnders."

Just a few years later I heard him speak on TV (after he had become editor of the New Republic) an he had removed all trace of Essex and Britain both in his accent--he sounded 100% American. But he was an actor back when he was in graduate school (I remember seeing him as Alan Strang in "Equus" and Ferdinand in "The Tempest"), so it is not at all surprising to me he learned to speak with an American accent. I never learned if he professionally trained himself to drop the Essex accent or if he did it all by himself, however.

p.s.--r8, coincidentally enough, the rumor was that at Oxford Andrew Sullivan's nickname was "King of the Pillow Biters."

The adrenaline causes me to get cottonmouth.

My technique: Take a Xanax. Have some sour patch kids… and orange juice with a splash of cranberry. It may sound gross but it's better if the juice is at room temperature so it will keep your voice relaxed (cold beverages can cause tenseness). I drink it with a straw so it's a bit faster if I need to take a sip. It all coats the voice and I sound soooo much better. A spoonful of honey can also help.

I don't drink caffeine before a big presentation--only afterwards because I get really tired after.

Also, before a presentation, I practice slow breathing… deep breath in, hold for 5 seconds, exhale slowly. I also tense up every muscle in my body and then release (and repeat) to get my body to become relaxed.

R5, I guess I don't have the correct vocabulary for this, but I think I mean 'nasal notes', which are pretty common in parts of the Midwest. I'm in Southern Ohio, and it was a high school teacher from Northern Ohio that explained to one of our classes how awfully nasal we all sounded. I would never have noticed, if it hadn't been pointed out to me: it was how we all talked. I still notice it now.

Anyway, I didn't realize when I was younger how I was trying to quickly deliver a message, instead of taking the time that the audience could hear all the words, and take them in. I spend a lot of time now on conference calls, with people from all over the country, and it's been an important skill to develop. What works in conversation with a family or friend won't necessarily work in public speaking.

BTW, I'm terribly shy, and public speaking is one of my great fears. If you can develop some rudimentary skills, and focus on the message and how to deliver it effectively, it's amazing how the fear becomes secondary.

great thread

Singing actually helps because it makes you aware of where your voice is pitched and how it feels when it's resonating in different places.

Learning at least a bit of IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) will help you recognize your problem vowels and know where to put your breath to make more sound (on the open, pure vowels). Vowels are vessels of emotions, consonants are vessels of ideas.

Keep a work list of words that you need to learn to repronounce.

Your recorder is your best friend, you've got that part already.

To get the effect you really want:

--get a tape that will give you exercises to rid your voice of regionalism

--remember straight men tend to only speak on one or two pitches. Their pitch tends to go in more or less a straight line, creating emphasis with volume and rate of speech only. Whereas gayvoice fluctuates all over the place pitchwise, with emphasis created with volume, enunciation, rate of speech, and facial expression.

--a well produced male voice tends to find its optimal pitch at about 1 1/2 - 2 whole step tones on the musical scale above the lowest note you can sing. For example, if low G is the lowest note you can sing, your speaking voice optimal pitch will be Bb or B natural. Don't fall into the gay trap of raising the pitch to get louder.

In addition to Linklater's FREEING THE NATURAL VOICE, recommended above, the other landmark text is Skinner's SPEAK WITH DISTINCTION.

For accents and reduction, recommended is Paul Meier, founder of the IDEA. There are people who love David Allan Stern, I'm not one of them, but you may want to check out his site too. Sam Chwat is dead, but you may want to glance at Tim Monich's AccentPros.com too if your accent is part of the issue. Some of these sites also have general voice and speech training modules that may be of help.

I read that your voice is at its deepest register when you say the word "NO" and you should say it before you give a speech

Lift your head.

Sinful Caesar sipped his snifter,

seized his knees and sneezed.

[quote] My technique: Take a Xanax.

Shounds entishing!

I think most straight men restrict their vocal range. They start practicing "being masculine" as soon as their voices change at puberty, and you can sometimes sort of catching them trying to talk lower and with a straighter tone than they did as children. Some gay men, on the contrary, want to use a fuller range of vocal expression, but since this is often modeled on actors or singers, they will sometimes unconsciously model a female actress they admire. I do notice that when I'm in what I perceive to be a somewhat "hostile" environment, I modify my speech and tone quite a bit. I speak with a deeper and flatter tone. On the other hand, if I'm with gay friends and we are being campy, I will exaggerate my vocal range. If I'm in a group of mixed straight and gays, but non-hostile, I will land somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

bump

Too much tension in the vocal chords. Concentrate on relaxation in that area.

Act af if I'm Darth Vader and the voice projects itself. "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of The Force. "

A lot of men talk in a breathy tone

Not my voice but my speaking style after listening to recordings of myself. I do consciously modulate at the outset and lower my voice from my conversational pitch.

I speak slower.

1 I use shorter sentences.

2 Avoid run on sentences.

3 Repeat important sentences and thoughts.

4 Make sure I don't swallow the end of my sentences.

5 More emphasis on the stressed syllables.

6 Stopped trying to be funny. I just can't.

think "low slow tones"

How do you keep from nervously swallowing in the middle of giving a talk? That is my problem. I get so nervous and I always give it away by swallowing.

Keep a glass of water r27. Sip from it when you feel like swallowing. Make it part of your act so to speak.

Patsy Rodenburg is great on this. She's amazing. And she's family.