Speak Up!

Have we ever attended a talk or a presentation that requires us to lean forward and strain our ears to listen? I believe we will find it hard to understand a speaker when he or she speaks really softly. Changing the role, do we ourselves encounter this problem? Are we too soft for our audience?

District Officers, Presidents and Fellow TMs, speaking up and be audible is key to a successful speech. When our speech is loud enough for people to hear without having to adjust in their seats, we have achieved our first step – catching their attention, and then we can focus on delivering a good speech. This is why the technique of voice projection is very important. I am saying this will regards to occasions where using a microphone is not possible, or when you need to be heard across a very noisy room. Tonight, allow me to share with you some techniques that you may want to use to try to project your voice and be heard.

First thing first, when we speak, what do we need? Our mouth to form the words.. 

Our throat where our voice comes from… what else? Air! We take a breath of air and then speak, without air, we cannot articulate any sound. Therefore the first thing to do is to ensure you breathe right. We must all use the right technique to inhale and exhale in order to project our voice.

Question, what do we use to breath? We can inhale through our nose or our mouth. Anyone can tell me, where would the air go? Our lungs? The correct place to push our air through is our diaphragm – the area below our lungs above our stomach. 

Let’s all try this together – Let’s all stand, and place one hand over our lungs and another over our diaphragm – the area underneath the lungs and above our tummy. Now breathe normally… how many felt that your lungs has expanded? How many felt that your diaphragm expanded? The correct way is for your diaphragm to expand. Now try again, try to breathe such that there is no movement at your lung area but your diaphragm expands accordingly.  You can do this with your nose or our mouth, however, I personally find this easier for practice sake breathe through my mouth.  This is an exercise that we can all try at home, where you practice breathing to ensure that your diaphragm expands. How to make this better? Your stance is important -stand up straight with the feet shoulder width apart and relax. This improves balance and breathing.

Now that we have air in the right place, how is it to be used? As you exhale, air moves from your lungs through your windpipe.  It then passes between your vocal cords. As they vibrate, sound happens. You use your throat, tongue, lips, and jaw to shape the sound into words. The only way for your voice to be heard is to allow air to carry your voice through. That’s what we refer to as resonance. It is the concentrated pressure through which one produces a focused sound. True resonance will produce the greatest amount of projection available to a voice by utilizing all the key resonators found in the vocal cavity. Where is the vocal cavity? Our mouth alone? Actually it is our mouth, nose, and the whole cavity that is within our head. 

The two extremes of resonance are “head voice,” which is where high sounds resonate, and “chest voice,” which is where low sounds resonate. However, most sounds the human voice makes can also resonate in the mask, or the front of the face. A voice with plenty of mask resonance is strong, and clear, no matter how loud or soft. A voice with good mask resonance is pleasant to listen to and flexible, allowing for rich vocal variety. Mask resonance is a combination of nasal and mouth resonance. The sound you are looking for will produce a pronounced vibration in the front of your face.

Let’s try it. You can try this sitting down. Say “Mmmmm.” See if you can feel the buzzy sensation in the front of your face. That’s mask resonance. Another way to produce it is to simply say “Mmm-hmm,” like an enthusiastic “yes.” Now say, “Mmm-hmm one. Mmm-hmm two. Mmm-hmm three.” Can you feel that sensation carry over into the words “one,” “two,” and “three?” This is how we should be producing our sounds in order to create the most resonance and the best projection. 

So far, we have learnt how to breathe, and how to speak. Now let’s put this all together. Let’s practice breathing and speaking. Best if we stand to do this. Let’s do this together. Stand, with our feet comfortably apart, our hands at our lungs and diaphragm, and breathe to expand our diaphgram. Next hmm with our mouth and nose, and say “One” Can we all feel resonance? Now’s let’s try it with one breathe and count to 5, with as much strength as we can. No shouting or yelling, just breathing and speaking.  Breathe in, hmm, count 1,2,3,4,5.

Can we feel and hear the difference? Thank You, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have successfully completed our first voice projection exercise.

Going forward we can practice at home and try to use mask resonance at the beginning of a sentence and try to keep that sensation in the words that follow. Spend 20 minutes a day working with this, and add it to your awareness as you practice your presentations, and you are on your way to more powerful speeches.

This is a speech delivered in front of an audience for the Advanced Project - A Demonstration Talk.

Evaluation - The demonstration of breathing and resonance took too long and the speech was exceeded. Timing of such speeches is important in order to know exactly how long each demonstration with take. On the whole it is not particularly successful as the technique is hard for the average audience to grasp. Vocalists took years to master them!