Learn to use your voice to advantage
Many of us underestimate the power of our voice. Like our looks, the sound of our voice has the power to attract or repel people. The moment we start talking, we make an impression on the other person. Our speech conveys our intentions but our voice conveys information about us. So, maintaining the right quality of voice is important for creating the desired impact.
A pleasing voice is our authentic, relaxed voice with which we articulate our message appropriately. It perks up the ears of the audience, grabs their attention and keeps them listening to us. Each word of the speech is comprehensible, deliberately articulated, resonant and effective.
It has the right rhythm, variations and pauses that generate desired emotions in the audience and makes them think. It helps to engage them by generating more enthusiasm and trust in us. In one to one conversations, it reflects our empathy for the other person.
Voice often leaves an unconscious impact on the other person. This can guide him on whether to continue conversing with us to agree to what we say. Based on our voice, people can assess our credibility. Today, when conversations are increasingly involving technology, a quality voice can ensure that the receiver takes the message in the right spirit.
We can improve the quality of our voice by overcoming nerves and bad speaking habits. Nerves cause dry throat and cough. This fear and hesitation reflects on our voice and tampers it.
On the other hand bad speaking habits include swallowing speech in between, inappropriate variations in pitch, overloud/ harsh/ meek/ monotonous tone, repetition of ‘errs’ and ‘ums’, speaking too fast, ramblings and dropping the ends of sentences. Fortunately, we can overcome these with a little attention and effort or improving our voice skills.
Voice skills are an essential component of communication skills. The success of business presentations, public speaking, negotiation or any conversation that aims at influencing people depends on the speaker’s voice skills. This is supported by the fact that voice communicates around 40 per cent of the message in a verbal communication process.
Voice skills help us uncover our most appealing and resonating voice. They guide us in exploring the different characteristics of a voice and exploiting them. They deal with the right energy, momentum, volume, pace and pitch we have to apply to our speech, in a given context, to get the intended impact.
There are several institutes that offer training in voice skills. They teach us to use breath support, relax vocal chords and articulate words appropriately through simple exercises.
Information can be found on the Internet and also in books. In the beginning, some of us may find it awkward or sound artificial practising these skills but later we will be amazed with the richness of our voice.
The following are some tips that can improve the sound of our voice:
Being prepared and relaxed: Preparation gives us the confidence required to face our audience. Along with it, if we practise some simple exercises, yoga or meditation to relax, we can gain the composure required to speak properly.
Control on breath: By practising long and controlled breathing, we can learn to breath at punctuating points of our speech so that the audience can reflect during that time. It also helps to sustain our vocal energy till the end.
Pitch, volume, pace: Lower pitch is generally soothing to hear. But to emphasise a point, we have to vary it. The volume of speech has to match the situation and should be maintained throughout the conversation. The pace should neither be slow that the audience gets bored or too fast that they get tired trying to keep up with us. We can learn these by recording our speech, analysing it and correcting the faults. Feedback from others can also help.
Talking: Playing tricks like turning our faces away, lowering our voice, swallowing words or jumping between subjects to hide information will make our audience lose trust in us. So, we should maintain eye contact and speak clearly and confidently.
A conversation is not about words but expression that influences the audience in the desired way. A quality voice can even incline a decision in our favour. So, we should practice vocal skills that highlight the different dimensions of our voice and in this way they can be used to our advantage.
NITYA SAI SOUMYA
faqs@cnkonline.com
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