For any of these and other situations, your voice plays a key role in making a powerful impact on your listeners.

What makes a good voice?

A good voice is one that is easy to listen to, that holds your audiences’ interest and is confident and inspiring. A good speaker will :

• Command the attention of their listeners
• Communicate their messages clearly
• Influence and inspire their listeners

Training the voice

Most people don’t like to listen to the sound of their own voices. You will often see people cringe when they have to hear themselves being played back on a camera or recorder. You may think that a good speaker is born that way and that you are stuck with your own vocal limitations.

However, training the voice to sound better doesn’t need to be a complicated or lengthy process. It’s easy to develop some simple but key vocal skills to help you sound more confident and interesting. And many of these techniques can be applied straight away to make an immediate difference.

Controlling the way you speak

Nerves play a very important factor in influencing your voice. When you are nervous your natural tendency is to speed up. The effects of this can be that you

• Lose your thought track and start to waffle on
• Mumble and become unclear
• Sound monotone and uninspiring

You therefore need to control the speed of your delivery so that you avoid falling into these bad habits. There is one key way to do this. This is to use a pause -which acts like a brake pedal to help you slow down.

When you first start to speak, aim to pause for about 2 – 3 seconds after your first sentence. This may seem like a life-time but it will actually help you to control your speed and avoid racing ahead of yourself. It will also seem very natural to your audience as the pause allows them time to adjust to your voice and take in what you have just said.

Vocal exercise to help control your voice

A good way to practise getting use to pausing is to read out aloud a piece of text. This can be from a newspaper or magazine etc. When you get to a full stop make sure that you pause for 2-3 seconds before moving on to the next sentence. This will help you to train yourself to pause at the end of your sentences and maintain a steady pace.

If you practise this exercise, the next time you have to speak to a group of people, the effect will be quite noticeable. You will come across with greater:

• Focus
• Clarity
• Confidence

Training the voice to sound more interesting

So now that you have learnt how to develop greater control over your voice, the next thing is to learn how to sound more interesting.

Some of the most common turn-offs to an audience when listening to a dull and uninspiring speaker are:

• A monotone voice
• A voice that is too quiet
• A voice that lacks emphasis

You need to speak with energy and enthusiasm if you want your audience to want to listen to your every word.

If the audience can’t hear you they will switch off very quickly. To avoid this you don’t need to shout but you do need to learn how to project your voice.

To help project energy and power into your voice, emphasise the key words in your sentences, which will catch the attention of the audience. For example, take the sentence

“I encourage everyone to work together as a team so that we all achieve greater success.”

You could pull out the key words in this sentence such as

• Everyone
• Team
• Greater Success

By emphasising these words you will automatically project energy and passion into your voice and your voice will sound stronger and more confident. Emphasising words also tends to lift the pitch in your voice – so that it is no longer monotone but more varied and interesting to listen to.

Vocal exercise to help you sound more interesting

It doesn’t take long to get used to using emphasis in your everyday speech. With a bit of practice it can happen very easily.

You can practice in a similar way to the exercise on vocal control. Use your piece of text again and this time before you read it out aloud, underline the key words in the sentences.

When you read it out aloud emphasise these key words. The more you practise doing this, the easier it becomes to emphasise words naturally.

Making the most of your voice

We have looked at two simple techniques to help you make the most of your voice:

• Using the pause to control your voice
• Using emphasis to help make your voice more interesting

There are many more easy-to-practice exercises that help to bring out the best qualities in your voice. If you attend a voice training workshop or have some personal coaching with a voice coach, you can learn how to unlock the power of your voice. You will learn to develop a much greater awareness of your vocal potential and how to use your vocal qualities to help influence others in a positive way in all speaking situations.

Like to develop your voice to its full potential?

Voice coaching from an expert can help you to discover your true voice; develop your own vocal strengths and thus communicate with greater influence in all situations.

To get some expert advice and coaching and enhance your vocal skills, click on one of the links below:-

Voice Coaching - 121 coaching
Vocal Impact Courses – Open to members of the public
Voice Coaching Workshops – In-house training for companies and organisations

Skillstudio also offer public courses, 1-2-1 coaching and in-house training in many aspects of presentation skills and communication skills, including public speaking, job interview skills and body language awareness.

Call us today on 08456 444 150 if you want to discuss how our voice training can help you or your team.

We hope you found this article interesting

Please use the buton below to bookmark this page as a favourite, email it or share it with friends or colleagues.

The Benefits of Voice Coaching is one of many articles from Skillstudio Limited providing expert help, tips & advice on how to improve your business communication skills. See Skillstudio Help & Advice for the full list of articles.

Public speaking skills honed to perfection

In the opening gambit of his victory speech, Obama demonstrates a skill which has not only been honed and developed since the roaring oration at the Iowa Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in November 2007, cited by Michael Tomasky as the most engaging speech of the campaign (The best of times, the worst of times, Guardian 8 November), but one that is also quite obviously natural and instinctive to him. It is a mixture of the stirring preaching of the pulpit and the inspirational poetry of the political heavyweight.

His use of Pace, Pitch and Pause is a masterclass

Technically, Obama is more than adept at his craft. His employment of the three ‘p’s – pace, pitch and pause – is a master class in itself. His opening sentence in Chicago contained 45 words and it took him, from the moment he started speaking to the beginning of his next point, 30 seconds to deliver. This equates to an average speech rate of 90 words per minute or 1.5 words per second. All great orators appreciate the importance of pause, and within that a variety of pause, and they ignore it at their peril. We want to hear what they say (mostly) and to see the images they paint and we cannot do that at the sort of speeds that some politicians speak at.

Obama’s long vowel sounds helps us connect with what he’s saying

His skill at extending the long vowel sounds in words such as ‘schools,’ ‘seen’ and ‘first’ not only draws those words out so that we can connect with them but also gives us the benefit of enjoying his rich, balanced and mellifluous resonance. And as for his diphthongs (words with two vowel sounds such as ‘time,’ ‘old’ and ‘poor’) he positively sings them bringing music into his voice.

His vocal energy is magnetic

Leaving aside the rhetorical skill of the text itself, he speaks each thought with a vocal energy that brings his audience to the crest of a wave and keeps them there until he, and only he, decides to bring it crashing to its climax. Lists, which lesser speakers clumsily reel off like the football scores, become great cadenzas which carry us with them on a tide of enthusiasm. His understanding of the power of repetition and how to add optimum vocal function to that celebrated phrase ‘yes we can’ is so simple it is seemingly obvious – repeating the same tune – but demands such confidence and excellence that few could achieve it so convincingly.

His vocal variety is inspirational  

He adjusts his pace to suit the mood of his crowd, gathering speed and slowing down with effortless ease and he pitches his voice perfectly applying the range of notes that some of our most distinguished actors draw on in the great Shakespearean soliloquies.

Maya Angelou wrote: “words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning,” and President – Elect Obama has that capacity in bucket loads. It is invigorating to be reminded of what an inspirational politician actually sounds like and our own leaders and would be leaders could do worse than to tear a leaf from Barack’s book.

Poetic legacy of the new president 

Those lucky enough to have been at Grant Park in the early hours of that Wednesday morning for his victory speech witnessed the culmination of a long and fascinating campaign with an oration that will surely join the ranks of some of world’s greatest political speeches. They, and those listening around the world, could not help but be engaged and, to quote Homer: “he ceased, but left so charming on their ear his voice, that listening they still seemed to hear.”

Let’s hope his politics match his rhetorical ability.

About the author of this article

This article was written by Luan – one of Skillstudio’s consultant trainers.

Luan is an acomplished voice coach and public speaking trainer – and delivers voice coaching; public speaking and presentation skills training to Skillstudio clients.  

You can read Luan’s training bio here.

Like to develop your voice to its full potential?

Voice coaching from an expert can help you to discover your true voice; develop your own vocal strengths and thus communicate with greater influence in all situations.

To get some expert advice and coaching and enhance your vocal skills, click on one of the links below:-

Voice Coaching - 121 coaching
Vocal Impact Courses – Open to members of the public
Voice Coaching Workshops – In-house training for companies and organisations

Want to improve your public speaking?

To get some expert coaching in public speaking from Luan or one of our other trainers, click on one of the links below:-

Public Speaking Coaching  - 121 coaching
Public Speaking Courses - Open to members of the public
Public Speaking for Business - In-house training for companies and organisations

Skillstudio also offer public courses, 1-2-1 coaching and in-house training in many aspects of presentation skills and communication skills, including public speaking, job interview skills and body language awareness.

Call us today on 08456 444 150 if you want to discuss how our training can help you or your team.

We hope you found this article interesting

Please use the buton below to bookmark this page as a favourite, email it or share it with friends or colleagues.

The Poetry of Obama's Campaign is one of many articles from Skillstudio Limited providing expert help, tips & advice on how to improve your business communication skills. See Skillstudio Help & Advice for the full list of articles.

What has changed in his voice?

Listening to a clip from 2002 (tinyurl.com/549czy), Miliband is very clear and articulate. Back then, the foreign secretary used all of the consonants. Now, in a speech at the conference (tinyurl.com/3s9dp3) and elsewhere, as well as dropping the dark L – so the “L” sound at the end of “people” becomes a “w” sound – he is also dropping “t” from the end of words.

Take “government”. In 2002, Miliband pronounced it with three clear syllables and the little “n” – gov-ern-ment. In 2008, Miliband has joined those who replace the “t” on the end with a glottal stop: it becomes something like “guv-mund”.

The Blair influence?

He also repeatedly introduces this Blair-like glottal stop (a build-up of air beneath the vocal folds, which is quickly released) on phrases such as “down and out” and “important point”. As well as eliding words and syllables, Miliband also imitates his old boss by saying five or six words and then pausing.

His pace used to be fairly fluid. Now, it is too staccato, which can sound patronising, impatient and a little preachy.

I’m one of you … you can trust me

These changes are often subconscious but can also be chosen. People often adopt an accent that says, “I’m one of you.” I might do it too if a plumber is giving me a quote so they don’t assume I’m wealthy. But Miliband risks over-egging the pudding, as you can hear on radio phone-ins such as the Jeremy Vine Show in July, when he said: “We ‘ave a role to play.”

Deliberate or natural change?

Miliband’s dropping of received pronunciation could be a conscious effort to move away from David Cameron’s almost heightened RP as well as copying Blair. But Cameron has a much more flowing manner and pauses in the right place, at the end of a sentence.

Politicians don’t often admit to voice coaching because they see it as a sign of weakness. But Miliband should seek help from a coach. I would want him to be a lot more fluid in his speaking. He should also be himself – not another Tony Blair.

About the author of this voice coaching article

This article was written by Luan – one of Skillstudio’s consultant trainers.

It was originally published in The Guardian in September 2008.

Luan is an acomplished voice coach and public speaking trainer – and delivers voice coaching and presentation skills training to Skillstudio clients.  

You can read Luan’s training bio here.

Like to develop your voice to its full potential?

Voice coaching from an expert can help you to discover your true voice; develop your own vocal strengths and thus communicate with greater influence in all situations.

To get some expert advice and coaching and enhance your vocal skills, click on one of the links below:-

Voice Coaching - 121 coaching
Vocal Impact Courses – Open to members of the public
Voice Coaching Workshops – In-house training for companies and organisations

Skillstudio also offer public courses, 1-2-1 coaching and in-house training in many aspects of presentation skills and communication skills, including public speaking, job interview skills and body language awareness.

Call us today on 08456 444 150 if you want to discuss how our training can help you or your team.

We hope you found this article interesting

Please use the buton below to bookmark this page as a favourite, email it or share it with friends or colleagues.

Is Miliband morphing into Blair? is one of many articles from Skillstudio Limited providing expert help, tips & advice on how to improve your business communication skills. See Skillstudio Help & Advice for the full list of articles.

In this article we’ll be looking at some techniques to help you achieve more from your voice in the business environment.

Elocution and Voice Training can make all the difference

If you want some expert coaching to help you enhance your voice then Skillstudio are there to help. We provide:-

Elocution Coaching
2 hour, Half day of full day, 121 coaching in elocution by an expert trainer.

Voice Course
These 1-day public courses are held regularly in Central London and Manchester.

Voice Workshops
We can also run our 1-day voice workshops for your organisation on an in-house basis at your premises throughout the UK and Europe.

Call us today on 08456 444 150 if you want to discuss how our training can help you or your team.

What is elocution?

Elocution describes the way in which you speak – how you use your voice to sound confident, dynamic and expressive. In today’s highly competitive world it is important to stand out above the competition. Having the ability to communicate messages with greater authority and conviction will help you to do just that.

What does elocution involve?

Elocution lessons are very practical and help you to develop a range of simple techniques to help you make the most of your voice. The skills that you develop can be applied across the wide range of business and social environments.

Three common areas that elocution addresses are:

• Developing a clearer voice
• Developing greater authority through the voice
• Developing a more interesting voice

Developing a clearer voice

In order to achieve great clarity your listeners must hear every word you say. Try the following simple exercise to help you develop greater clarity in your voice:

Take a short piece of text – this can be from a novel, newspaper etc and practise reading it out aloud. As you speak, exaggerate the movement your mouth makes so that you pronounce each syllable of every word you say. This will help you to articulate all your consonant sounds and word endings so that every word can be heard clearly.

Developing greater authority through the voice

In order to convey greater authority your voice must be controlled so that you speak at a steady pace – not too fast or too slow.

If you are in a situation where you feel nervous, you may well end up speaking too quickly. This will result in you feeling less confident and in control of the situation. If you speak at a slightly slower pace than your normal speed you are more likely to sound calm and authoritative. So to help achieve this try the following exercise.

Read your text out aloud and aim to inject a short (2-3 second) pause at each full stop. The pause acts as a break pedal – to help you racing ahead. The more you practise this, the more likely you will speak at a steady pace when you are talking with others.

Developing a more interesting voice

A voice that has a limited range in expression can easily sound monotone and boring to the listener. To help develop greater variety in the voice try the following exercise:

Practise your piece of text as though your were speaking in different roles – eg a children’s TV presenter or a politician giving a key note speech. This will help you to bring out more emotion and conviction in the voice and increase your range of expression.

Developing your vocal skills further

Using your voice is a very physical activity and requires a lot of energy if used to its full potential. Elocution is a form of vocal training and just like any other practical training – eg training for a marathon, it requires plenty of regular practice in order to build up the required skills and stamina. Elocution can help you to develop your own vocal strengths and thus communicate with greater influence in all business situations.

To get some expert advice and coaching and enhance your vocal skills, click on one of the links below:-

Elocution – 121 coaching
Vocal Impact Courses – Open to members of the public
Voice Coaching Workshops – In-house training for companies and organisations

Skillstudio also offer public courses, 1-2-1 coaching and in-house training in many aspects of presentation skills and communication skills, including public speaking, job interview skills and body language awareness.

We hope you found this article useful

Please use the buton below to bookmark this page as a favourite, email it or share it with friends or colleagues.

Elocution for Business is one of many articles from Skillstudio Limited providing expert help, tips & advice on how to improve your business communication skills. See Skillstudio Help & Advice for the full list of articles.