If your voice is a pleasure to listen to you’re more likely to hold your audience’s attention.

In order to do this you need to enhance your vocal delivery. Here’s how:

Body and Breath

1. Stand relaxed and tall

We need to find a comfortable, flexible body alignment, which helps us, look alert and ready to speak. Your body is like a column with the feet supporting the column – just slightly apart or one foot a little in front of the other. No wide apart stance or crossed ankles.

Now, release tension by gently, slowly allowing your head to drop forwards, then your shoulders and torso, arms nice and floppy – no need to touch your toes, just as far as is comfortable. As you do this breathe out.

Then slowly, slowly uncurl yourself bringing the head up last as it is the heaviest part of the body. As you uncurl breathe in calmly and then once upright gently breathe out.

Your head is now crowning the column of your body. This means you can breathe freely and your voice can travel easily.

2. Use your breath to carry your voice

Our voice starts with the breath that comes up from our lungs and travel through our voice box and mouth into the big wide world. We also breathe calmly during an expressive pause in our speech.

We need to train ourselves to move away from a stressful, shallow, high-in-the-chest breath, which often accompanies nervousness. Instead we want to breathe using our full lung capacity so that our breath is anchored lower in the body and brings poise. This is the kind of breathing that opens the door to vocal range and variety.

Remember you need your breath to be free to carry your voice to the back of the room. Good breathing and good posture will go a long way to achieving this.

3. Keep hydrated

Remember your voice needs humidity to work well. Speakers should always carry a bottle of water. Take regular sips during warm up and always have water with you during your presentation.

Read aloud

If we read out a presentation there is a good chance we will become monotonous and dull. However, if you have ever read aloud to children you’ll be used to an audience that actively demands that you are vocally lively and “do all the voices!”

If you practised 10 minutes of reading aloud a day following your vocal warm up you’ll soon find an improvement in your voice. Want to go a step further? Here’s how:

Firstly, read the passage silently to yourself. Look for the meaning of the words.

Read the passage aloud - aim to express the meaning behind the words. Is the writer happy, frustrated, sad, ironic, or humorous?

Take a rest and read the passage silently again two times. Note any key words or phrases the writer uses to construct the message. You are allowing the words to play on your imagination and open the door to expression.

Read the passage aloud again. If you do not mind listening to your own voice you could record and listen for the differences between your very first and later attempts. In this way you will begin to train your ear to experience new sounds. You will undoubtedly hear improvements in your vocal variety.

The reading material can be anything you like. The point is to do it and make your voice sound more interesting when you speak.

Accents

A regional or foreign accent adds character and distinctiveness to your speech. It’s part of who you are. All we are interested in is making sure your words can be clearly understood by your audience. What is important is clarity and expressiveness.

Practice, practice, practice

Make sure that you find time to practice your own words and speeches to integrate your new skills. The whole point of my suggestions is to be able to share your message with your audience.

There is no quick fix to finding vocal variety. Each of us has to practice a little and often to extend our abilities, which is so much more effective than long, irregular session of practice.

The path to vocal freedom and expression is an exhilarating one to take. I encourage you to follow my tips. Your audiences will thank you and you’ll find you are in demand as a speaker and presenter.

By Andrew P Bennett, Toastmasters International

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew P Bennett is from Toastmasters International a non-profit educational organisation that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of meeting locations. There are more than 300 clubs in the UK and Ireland with over 7,500 members. To find your local club: www.toastmasters.org