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Master Your Voice: Enhance Your Presentation Skills
You can’t get taller, or instantly become more attractive or richer but there is one thing everyone can work on and make better. And improvement is simple, fun and super effective.
Your voice is a servant instrument that you have either treated well and looked after, or been mean to. Your tough treatment of this delicate instrument in times gone by is now manifest every time you open your mouth to utter something.
Brand
The way you speak is almost as important as what you have to say. And it is a lot easier to improve the former than to upgrade the latter. People unconsciously and consciously clock and register the beauty or irritating quality of your speech and voice.
Crimes
Crime One – Mumbling Minnie
You send your words down to the floor, bunch the words together like a French commentator covering a horse race, and you make your words squashed raisins. The crowd shudders when you speak, as they instantly switch off from your message, choosing to protect themselves from the irritating airwaves.
Action
Learn to put space between the words and give each words its full value. When you treat words with respect as demonstrated by carefully choosing appropriate ones and giving them complete expression, the audience will change from disgust to delight and your job will become a lot easier.
Ts exist, initial consonants are important and the end of words complete the listener’s understanding of that word. None of this can be missed out or minimised.
When you pronounce words clearly and distinctly, you are making everybody’s life so much easier. Presenting is not the same as conversing with an old mate down the pub. It is about the transfer of value and it demands to be taken seriously.
Crime Two – Wet, soft and mushy
My singing teacher, Rachel, told me, “Matthew – Give it some power – better strong and wrong than light and right!”
Action
Breath from the diaphragm and control your breath to broadcast sounds with some welly, gusto and strength.
Distance diminishes. If you are producing 70% power, only 50% is reaching the back of the room. If you give it 110% or 130% then everybody will get everything.
Crime Three – Scratchy, rough and abrasive
Some people have abused their voices with cigarettes, shouting in clubs or adopting some harsh accents that hurts the voice. The most extreme example of this is with some Spanish women who have literally worn out their voices, speaking over machinery in factories.
Action
You may think it is impossible to repair your bashed up vocals, but you will be surprised. I worked with a wonderful person last year and with a couple of exercises we rediscovered her pure sound, hidden amongst the broken glass. Each time it was a magical to hear the clean sound come through. It took just one hour to have this happen 3 times.
We did arpeggios – singing one note on each “step” up and then coming back down those same steps. Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do. Do Ti La So Fa Mi Re Do. You know the one.
This will often be enough to release your long lost smooth sound. Isolate the mouth shape and breathing action that produced the lovely sound, and you will start to gain control over the quality of your voice and become able to reproduce a beautiful pure sound on command. A minor miracle.
Voice quality
The voice is one of the parts of you that can be improved in just one hour. And, the more you practice, the richer your sounds can become. Add some other exercises and you will become a technically advanced presenter. Add a decent microphone when Zooming or on Teams and prepare to be amazed when people start to comment on the quality and their experiences of the new beauty present in your voice.
About the Author
Matthew Hill is a Presentation Coach, working with corporate executives who wish to make a bigger impact when presenting, talking with and influencing their audience to engage, get it, and take action. Happy to chat…
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