Your Voice Is Your Calling Card

How to Power-Charge Your Voice, Boost Your Confidence, and Speak with Joy, Ease, and Conviction

Suzann Rye

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781614482413
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Communication & Public Speaking

"A step-by-step approach... touches on the spiritual, the emotional, and the physical aspects of performance"—includes free audio bonuses (Roger N. Quevillon, coauthor of Living in Clarity ). Whether a professional stage performer, teacher, coach, or business professional, everyone is a performer. This primer is the ultimate voice and performance coaching package for overcoming nerves and stage fright and becoming a remarkable, inspiring speaker. "The holistic approach to voice training offered in this book will benefit speakers looking to break free of formulaic approaches to overcoming speech fright that just don't work. A 'must add' for every speaker's library." —Susan Berkley, author of Speak to Influence "Tackles your fears, expands your comfort zone, and emphasizes several breathing/projection exercises to improve your delivery." —Mark Cravens, author of The Ten Commandments of Investing TM "A wonderful guidebook for anyone who relies on their voice. In particular, the section on vocal training provides an incredibly comprehensive explanation of the many aspects of voice quality and provides a full set of exercises allowing them to be developed." —Michael Nicholas, author of Being the Effective Leader "I was amazed by [Suzanne's] profound understanding of the mechanics of the vocal instrument, but perhaps even more importantly, I realized what a remarkable advocate of the holistic dimension of the voice she is. This book contains a wealth of practical knowledge. It is both helpful and inspiring. I invite you to let Suzanne be your guide in this fascinating journey to discover your own inner voice and build it step by step to make it 'your calling card.'" —Nabil Doss, President, 2008–2009, Canadian Association of Professional Speakers, Montreal Chapter

Part 1
You and Your Voice

CHAPTER 1

Make Friends with Your Voice

You've heard the expression that “the eyes are the windows to your soul”? Well, for a speaker—indeed anyone needing to present or express something to a crowd of people:

Your voice is your calling card.

Your voice is very personal. It is a direct expression of who you are. It is the most direct medium for communication—the immediate link between you and your audience. It is a powerful tool that you can use to communicate strong, poignant messages in a way that will grab the attention of your peers, colleagues, bosses, etc. You carry it with you at all times, honed and ready—so make the best of it!

If you haven't done so already, make friends with your voice. If you do, your voice will pay you back tenfold. It will open new doors for you and change how other people regard you.

You see, the way you present yourself and the way your voice carries your message across are crucial to how you are perceived, no matter what the actual content of your message is. Regardless of your expertise, you need to be convincing to be taken seriously. If you are not convincing, nobody will be interested in your presentation; it's that simple! Just like any other instrument, if you play it well, you can play any tune and people will listen. But play without conviction, and you will find yourself time and again playing even the most popular tune in the world to an empty room.

So what does it take to develop the necessary skills? How can you move from good to great; from bundle of nerves to comfortably, even astoundingly confident; and from your current skill level to inspiring, powerful, compelling, and convincing?

Since you're here, you've already taken the first and most important step: you have begun exploring the possibilities. The rest of the journey may be easier than you think.

However far along the road you may be, know this: there is no such thing as a bad voice. But there are such things as bad posture, shallow breathing, and tension which can influence your voice and prevent it from doing its job! Take a few simple steps and your voice will already be a lot happier. A seemingly little, weak, and breaky voice is rarely a chronic, physical problem, although it may seem that way. Voice problems arise mainly from insecurities leading to restrictions. Sure, they manifest physically, and they do seem very real—and sometimes they can be. But it is rarely as bad as it seems.

Much of basic voice training consists of teaching people not to be afraid of their own voice, not to be afraid of volume, and to relax—to set their voice free again. Your voice is a wonderful palette of colors that you can infuse in your language and use to captivate others. Use it. You have to allow your voice to work its magic.

Have you ever wondered why screaming kids and small babies never get hoarse or lose their voices for just five blissful minutes? Have you been amazed at how a tiny newborn can make so much noise for so long? Let me tell you why: because they don't hold back. They simply allow the body, including the voice, to do what it's supposed to do, without interfering. They just scream as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Well, guess what? It is!

Babies' breathing works perfectly, and they do not strain their voices, for they have not yet learned to hold themselves back. They have not yet learned that it is “bad” or inappropriate to be loud. Once they start learning “how to behave” and certainly once they're halfway through school, that all changes and they start getting the same voice problems as the rest of us because part of social conditioning, unfortunately, is learning how to hold yourself back—how not to be too self-expressive!

Illustration 1 - Baby Clerk

This may come as a surprise to you, but because of this conditioning, the older and more self-conscious we become, the more dysfunctional we tend to become as well. Is this a strong claim? Sure it is, but just think about it for a second. How often has somebody asked you or told you to be quiet at times of blissful self-expression? Maybe as a kid on the bus or train (perhaps listening to your favorite music wearing headphones) or somewhere else in public. Maybe at times you found yourself happily crooning away in the shower or perhaps while doing the dishes. Do comments like “Do you mind?” or “Don't give up your day job” sound familiar?

People often comment without even thinking. Maybe they mean what they say; maybe they don't. It doesn't matter. Comments like that may seem harmless at the time, but often they aren't. They frequently seem to haunt us much more than we are aware of—certainly much more than we'd care to admit. What a great shame that is!

Over the years, many people have come to me claiming that they had a bad, abnormal, or horrible-sounding voice. This is rarely the case, of course. Nevertheless, they seem convinced! Somebody told them, you see.

Do not listen! Refuse to be limited by other people's meaningless comments or mindless critiques. Express yourself freely and creatively, and pay no attention to other people's opinions unless they have some genuine, positive, constructive advice to offer—something that is useful to you. (Well, unless it's 4:00 in the morning and you're keeping your neighbor awake!)

I always encourage my singing students to work freely and unrestricted, to play with their voices and allow them to come out. You should do the same. Explore your voice. Be bold. Be loud if you want. It's all about expression.

Speaking—sharing your message with other people—can be a wonderfully empowering and fulfilling experience. Don't allow it to be a painfully awkward and terrifying struggle. It is a privilege to be able to express yourself, your views, your knowledge, and your wisdom—to have the opportunity to share information with other people. Enjoy that privilege.

Get familiar with your voice, overcome the first barriers, and open the floodgates! Allow yourself to speak with vitality, passion, excitement, and conviction!

It is all yours to have. It is a matter of small adjustments.

You can easily and quickly make friends with your voice. Everyone can.

CHAPTER 2

Your Voice Never Lies

Your voice is a sensitive little fellow, very susceptible to both physical and emotional influences. In order to establish a strong and long-lasting friendship with your voice and to get the best results, you simply have to be aware of both the voice technicalities and your emotional and psychological well-being.

Don't worry—I'm not going to put you on the couch here. I'm simply going to tell you how your voice, your mind, and your emotions work together and offer you a way of approaching your development. Then it's up to you to decide which information applies to you and which methods, techniques, and exercises are the most useful for your particular needs. This is always very individual. Some techniques you might already know, while some you might find to be strangely out of context. If so, please bear with me and rest assured that everything in this book is included because years of experience have proven it to be valuable, even crucial.

Most of the time the buck stops at one thing: your mind. Know this for certain: your voice never lies. It will reflect your psychological and emotional state of mind. It will support or undermine your verbal messages and reveal more than you might imagine about your personality and your thinking.

Being energetic creatures, we react subconsciously to energetic vibrations and to frequencies. And that is what sound is—a cluster of frequencies. Simply put, the sound and the energy of your voice send out frequencies and vibrations signaling emotional messages beyond your words.

And that's not all you've got working for you—or against you, as the case may be. Your body has a language all its own. Posture, gestures, and movements speak volumes. We will take a closer look at body language in chapter 13, where we talk about performance.

Body language, voice dynamics, and voice technique are all important factors for successful speaking. You can work on all of those and gain a certain degree of mastery from a purely practical perspective.

But what is it on a subconscious level that controls both body language and voice dynamics?

You do. You, the person behind the voice, add life and emotion to the sound and the message.

So using your voice properly really means two things. There is your physical voice, which is operated by your body and is clearly audible to everyone, and then there is your voice, as in who you are and what you project energetically. What kind of energy is behind your words? Do you speak with a balanced, clear, and strong energy—or do you sometimes communicate mixed messages when you speak? Is the message behind the message telling a different story than the one you wish to communicate?

Your voice, your mind, and your emotions are connected, and they always correspond. If you're feeling nervous or insecure—it will show. If you're feeling small, not worthy, not knowledgeable enough, or not successful enough—it will show. If you're impatient, anxious, needy, sad, or angry inside—it will show, and so on. People will be able to hear it in your physical voice— your sound, and they will pick it up energetically.

You are always transmitting something—so you are always communicating, even when you don't mean to and even when you are not aware of it.

If you send out mixed messages, people won't “get” you, or they will get parts of you that you did not intend or did not want for them to get. Your spoken message will not come across in the way that you wish for it to do if your energetic message counter-communicates. Your intended message will be tainted, diluted, or distorted. Often, when this happens, people subconsciously react with resistance or even distrust.

What does this all mean?

It means that it is not just what you say—it is how you say it. But perhaps even more importantly, it is who is saying it.

Who is the person behind the voice? What is the message behind the message? What are you transmitting beneath or beyond your words?

We obviously want people to realize how wonderful and amazing we are and how valuable our service is. This is why to be truly great communicators, we simply have to look the full picture. We need to work holistically. If we want to truly inspire and impact people, we cannot afford not to look at our own dissonance if it's there.

Technical skills will support and greatly improve how you come across. They will make your voice more powerful, more dynamic, and more resonant and so on. But nothing beats what I like to call “the resonance of authenticity.” This resonance will extend from your heart to the hearts of others. When you listen to someone who clearly has a purpose and a vision that they are passionately compelled to share, you cannot help but feel their message resonate within you. And you cannot help feeling inspired by them.

When we are able to connect with that deep authentic part of ourselves that speaks our truth, our wisdom, and our passion—we don't need any gadgets or fancy stuff. We simply have all that we need inside of us.

We all have a natural resonance of authenticity—don't be afraid to use it.

Don't ever be afraid of being you.

Listen to your heart and speak in your own voice. When you do, people will let you in and listen to you with open, receptive ears and hearts.

The more authentic and genuine you are, the more you will appeal to people and the more they will appreciate, trust, and respect you—even if they happen to disagree with your message.

During my years as a professional singer, the importance of both energetic transmission and body language was very obvious. What I learned back then has proven to be just as relevant for me as a speaker and teacher as it was for me as an artist. Music is a universal language, but not only in terms of technicalities, notes, and common terms. Music is about communication— heart-to-heart, person-to-person (or persons) communication, using emotional expression and signals which can be difficult to define but easy to read.

I have worked with many people. Some of them I could not converse with in the usual sense of the word, but we could certainly communicate. Although we were from opposite parts of the world, we did share a common language. Our shared passion—our love for music—opened our hearts and took us to a place where we managed to find that common language mainly by listening to and watching each other and allowing an exchange to take place. In other words, we managed to communicate clearly and strongly through emotions and by using nonverbal or nonlinguistic communication.

Nonverbal or nonlinguistic communication includes gestures, postures, facial expressions, and even the verbal inflections of the words that we use. The term verbal inflection refers to the musical qualities of the voice, such as the melody, tone, pitch, rhythm, volume, and pausing—basically the dynamics that we use when we speak. This adds an extra dimension to your performance—good or not. Again, one thing is certain: whatever is lurking underneath the surface is likely to pop out.

Just like energetic transmission, nonlinguistic communication can change the entire meaning of a given message. It supports, emphasizes, or contradicts what is being said. Multiple studies support this; some claim that between 60 and 80 percent of all communication is nonverbal or nonlinguistic! Salespeople, for instance, rely heavily on nonverbal communication.

If you were to make a presentation using no movement at all a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1: You and your Voice
• Part 2: Voice Training, Facts, and Practical Strategies for Speakers and other Voice Professionals
• Part 3 The Art of Performance
• Part 4 Persuasive Speaking through Inner Power
• Part 5 Simple Steps to Great Results
• Glossary
• About the Author
• Free Bonuses to help you Jump Start your Progress