Shape Your Conversational Voice   

 This week we'll focus our attention on just one aspect of the speaking voice that can be troublesome, then provide a simple exercise that can be the remedy for the vocal problem of resonance.   

The bad news is that there's a 50/50 chance that your conversational voice is unpleasant to the listener's ear. It may be too nasal, which turns listeners off, or too high pitched, which lacks credibility and authority. Or deep and rough and gravelly, resonant only in the throat. Or not resonant at all-breathy--and thus difficult to hear.   

The good news is that you can locate and speak from your natural voice. And that you can find this voice quite easily, on your own, without expensive treatments or lessons. Here's how:   

1. With your mouth closed, hum any familiar melody. The tune to Happy Birthday will work just fine.   

2. Usually, your humming will allow you to both hear the hum and feel a kind of buzz around your nose and lips. (This is part of the facial mask area that extends from your eye-brows down to your voice-box.) Your natural voice is projected from this mask.   

3. The easy, natural voice  not too nasal, not too low resonates in roughly equal proportion in the areas of the nose and the mouth, which forms a kind of megaphone effect. The lower throat also resonates and helps to form a blend for an efficient and pleasant-sounding voice. (Too much nasality sound like Fran Dressler  the Nanny of TV fame, comedic but not pleasant, or Woody Allen, weak and whiny; too much lower-throat would sound like Henry Kissinger, gravelly and flat.   

Mask resonance will allow you to speak clearly without forcing. The carrying power of your voice is not so much a matter of breath control working like a bellows to force the air through the vocal cords. Instead, it is a matter of resonance that gives your voice strength and even charisma.   

Obviously, it is sometimes inappropriate at a meeting to hum a tune to re-locate your natural, resonant voice. At such times, you can simply ummmm a bit until you feel the buzz, then speak from that focus.   

Try this one simple exercise for until next week. Of course, you'll often forget to do so before a conversation or a talk you must present. Doing it even once in a while will help to habituate your voice to find its best placement and resonance without your thinking about it.   

Any vocal change must begin with awareness that notices an unconscious habit, such as breathiness or nasality. After you experiment with this one simple change, you may find friends noticing, too, and even commenting on the change. You may also want to make a simple audio-recording of your voice-shapes before and after you work with this exercise. Many of you will notice two differences: The sound will be more resonant and pleasant, and your speaking, while strong, will also be easier, un-forced, and more naturally you.   

Some years ago I used to do a vocal practice exercise called toning, in which you let your voice effortlessly float up and down while being fully resonant and melodious. There are a number of simple exercises one can do with the voice to make it more effective. If readers indicate an interest, in later articles I will write about some other key aspects of the human voice and how you can optimize them.