Your voice can radically affect your personal image as well as the impact of your text. Constant use of the telephone and voice mail makes your vocal quality more important than ever before. Even if you rarely make a speech or presentation, once you master your voice’s abilities, you can achieve your full potential.
Speakers who wish to improve their communication skills should consider analyzing the elements of vocal quality—pace, pitch, modulation, articulation, volume and breath control. Through exercises you can uncover your unique vocal quality and learn to use it to your advantage.
Practical exercises can help you combat vocal tension, which can lead to vocal fatigue and even the loss of your voice. You will have many elements to consider and improve, including posture, effective breathing, diction and placement of the ‘natural voice.’ You can develop a clearer tone using your ‘resonators’—primarily the open cavities of your throat, mouth and sinuses.
Voice production involves two main things: air pressure and vibration of your vocal folds. Air, passing through the vocal folds, causes them to vibrate. Similarly, when air is allowed to escape from an inflated balloon, the vibrations of its ‘lips’ produce sound.
You can improve your voice through:
Good posture
Breathing and breath control
Amplification and resonance
Finding the natural voice and its placement
Good diction
Maintaining vocal and general health
Poor posture, inadequate breath support, poor breathing-techniques, tension in your neck and throat and manipulating your natural voice will all hamper good vocal production. Addressing these elements will give you a voice that is highly resonant, easily understood and more effective.
