People at the back of the room kept saying, “Project!” and “Louder, please.” We were already having trouble hearing the speaker, even before the room was full of people, but their approach wasn’t working.

Frankly, I wasn’t surprised. Just telling someone to yell doesn’t solve the problem of projection. Similarly, just speaking louder doesn’t create a powerful voice.

The Three Key Components of a Powerful Sound

The key components of a powerful sound are:

1. personality,
2. passion, and
3. strong vocal physique.

The first two components are achieved by being yourself and by being clear about your intention. The third, through awareness and practice.

1. Personality

Personality is “you” and the unique gifts you share with your audience. Personality is the unique imprint your thought leaves on your voice, making it distinguishable from other voices and revealing things about your particular experiences and perspective. You cannot escape the revelatory nature of your voice. The essence of who you are is in your voice for all to hear.

If you want to be heard, it’s vital that you celebrate your authentic self. In a New York Times interview Ursula Burns, the impressive new head of Xerox Corporation, wisely remarked,  “I can’t try to say it in somebody else’s voice. I have to say it in my voice.”

2. Passion

Passion is the power of intention aligned with content and personality. We have already covered personality, so what about intention and content?

Content is simply what you have to say. It’s your message, your words, your ideas manifested in spoken form. Intention, on the other hand, is what you have in mind to do or bring about. It is why you are speaking in the first place, why you are standing in front of an audience, what you hope to accomplish. When intention, content and personality align, we have passion. And when there is passion, powerful things happen.

When a speaker is passionate, they seem authentic and genuine. For that reason, actors are trained to pour intent in their lines and speak with passion. We are so tuned in to this aspect of voices that babies as young as six months old can discern intention in voices. I have written about this subject in my blog.

If your intention is unclear, if it conflicts with your message or even with the reason people think you are there, your vocal power will diminish and you’ll lose your audience.

3. Strong Vocal Physique

Strong vocal physique is the ability to produce a vibrantly resonant sound and to have a good command of breathing technique.

Because sound travels on air, resonance and air are intimately connected in the voice. In an earlier Six Minutes article, I focus on good breathing technique for speaking. This is important because air itself makes the voice work. As you exhale, air moves from your lungs through your trachea (or windpipe). It then passes between your vocal folds (also called arytenoids and vocal cords) and brings those muscles together. As they vibrate, sound happens. You use your throat, tongue, lips, and jaw to shape the sound into words.

Now, if someone tells you to speak up, there is a good chance you will use more air as you increase your volume. That’s an improvement. But speaking more loudly may just come across as yelling — and you also risk straining your voice. It is more correct to suggest that you stand up straight, take a big breath, and use more air to carry the sound as you speak up, but that is a very long set of instructions for even the best of sound men! Better that you know what “project” means so you do it right.

Developing Resonance through Awareness and Practice

Resonance is the reverberation or repetition of sound in the environment in which it was created. When someone speaks, resonance is created in the body as well as in the surrounding area. The resonance in the body can be felt by the speaker. The two extremes of resonance are “head voice,” which is where high sounds resonate, and “chest voice,” which is where low sounds resonate.

However, most sounds the human voice makes can also resonate in the mask, or the front of the face. A voice with plenty of mask resonance is strong, and clear, no matter how loud or soft. A voice with good mask resonance is pleasant to listen to and flexible, allowing for rich vocal variety.

Mask resonance is a combination of nasal and mouth resonance. The sound you are looking for will produce a pronounced vibration in the front of your face.

Exercise…

Try it now. Say “Mmmmm.” See if you can feel the buzzy sensation in the front of your face. (I’ve had a lot of fun doing this on radio interviews.) That’s mask resonance. Another way to produce it is to simply say “Mmm-hmm,” like an enthusiastic “yes.” Now say, “Mmm-hmm one. Mmm-hmm two. Mmm-hmm three.” Can you feel that sensation carry over into the words “one,” “two,” and “three?”

Daily Practice…

Use mask resonance at the beginning of a sentence and try to keep that sensation in the words that follow. For example, say “Mmmmmm. It’s great to see you.”

Did you feel the resonance in the mask as you spoke “It’s great to see you,” or did it fade away?

Try it again. This does require some practice. Spend 20 minutes a day working with this, and add it to your awareness as you practice your presentations.

Don’t be afraid of nasal resonance, but know that you need a good combination of mouth and nose, which is why the focus is in the front of the face, not just the nose. If a voice sounds too nasal, it is as bad as one that has no mask resonance. Eventually, you will learn to use mask resonance all the time. As a bonus, according to Swedish researchers, mask resonance is also good for your health.

Being Heard

The next time someone tells you to “project” or to “speak up,” remember that projecting your voice is much more than just making it louder.

1. You project your voice by allowing it to shine with your personality, and having confidence that you have something unique to say.
2. You project your voice with passion for your message by setting a clear intention.
3. And you project your voice by developing a resonant sound that is supported with your whole body through air and energy.

When you do these three things, you will be heard.

Similar Articles You May Like... Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety Speech Preparation #7: Choreograph Your Speech with Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Kate Peters is a singer/actor, voice coach, speaker, and the author of Can You Hear Me Now? Harnessing the power of your vocal impact in 31 days. Through her presentations, seminars, workshops and private coaching, Kate helps executives, speakers, and performers find the strengths in their voices to better express themselves in their professional and personal lives. For more information, visit Kate’s blog.

The previous article of the Ethos, Pathos, and Logos series defined pathos and described why emotional connection is so important for your presentations.

In this article, we explore how to build strong pathos in your presentations through a variety of emotional pathways.

Pathos Superhighways: Your Primary Paths to Emotional Connection

All roads are not created equally. Freeways move lots of traffic fast; country lanes often guide just a single, meandering car.

Similarly, all pathways to emotional connection with your audience are not created equally. Some paths are more effective and more commonly used to connect emotionally. Let’s review these superhighways from which you can create the pathos of your presentation.

1. Themes and Points
2. Words
3. Analogies and Metaphors
4. Stories
5. Humor
6. Visuals
7. Delivery Techniques

#1: Select Emotional Themes and Points

You always have choices to make about which points to include in the time allotted. Be sure that some of them carry emotional power.

Example: Suppose you have identified fifteen reasons why your audience should consider public speaking training. Unfortunately, your short speech only allows you to discuss three or four of them. Which do you choose? “Conquer your public speaking fear” probably evokes stronger emotions than “Learn to speak with more precision.”

#2: Choose Words which Add Emotional Emphasis

Some words are emotionally neutral, while some are emotionally charged. Exercise judgment to select the words which fit the emotional tone that works to your advantage.

Example: Consider the difference in words used to label a suicide bomber on opposing sides of a political war. What emotion does the label “terrorist” evoke? What emotion does the label “martyr” evoke? Which one would best complement your speech?

#3: Use Rich Analogies and Metaphors

Analogies, metaphors, and other figures of speech not only make your speech more interesting, but often allow you to make an emotional connection by tapping into emotions already felt by your audience.

Example: If you speak about gang violence, you might plainly state that “We have a problem in our city…” On the other hand, you might say “We have a cancer in our city…” The latter analogy draws on your audience’s pre-existing feelings about cancer, and makes them want to eradicate the cause!

#4: Tell Stories

Stories are often the quickest path to the greatest emotional connection with your audience. Carefully crafted stories allow you to evoke any of a wide range of emotions. This may explain why stories are often the most memorable components of a speech.

#5: Use Humor

Humor is closely related to storytelling, because you usually arrive at humor through stories. Nonetheless, humor merits special mention. Humor in a presentation evokes emotions such as joy and surprise, and often triggers secondary emotions such as calmness and friendship. If your audience is laughing, they are having fun. If they are having fun, they are happy to be listening to you and they are attentive. As an added boost, humor makes your audience like you (at least for a moment), and that boosts your ethos too.

Nearly every presentation would benefit from more humor. How can you add humor to yours?

#6: Connect through Visuals

Maybe you have slides with photographs. Maybe you have a prop. Either way, a concrete visual element opens many more emotional pathways than abstract words alone.

Examples: Consider the following pairs, and ask yourself which creates the stronger emotional impact:

• Saying that “smoking damages lung tissue” versus Showing a slide with a photograph of tar-like lung tissue
• Claiming that cords from window blinds pose a risk to children versus Showing (with a prop) how the cords might strangle a baby doll.

#7: Model the Emotion with Your Delivery Techniques

The emotional effectiveness of stories, humor, visuals, and other “content” tools often depends greatly on your delivery. Great delivery magnifies emotions; poor delivery nullifies them.

Example: Words from your mouth or slides on a screen may induce sadness in your audience, but the effect is multiplied when combined with sadness on your face, in your posture, and in your voice.

Additional Paths to Develop Pathos in Your Speech

Now that you are familiar with the core pathos tools, we can sample some of the additional tools at the disposal of a skilled speaker. Many of these build on top of the core building blocks above.

#8: Analyze Your Audience

Without doing any audience analysis at all, you always know two things:

1. Everyone in your audience is human.
2. Most humans share many emotional triggers.

As a result, you can always achieve moderate success applying the first seven tools.

But to hit a pathos home run, you’ve got to analyze your audience. Are they old or young? Technical or non-technical? Male or female? Rich or poor? Liberal or conservative? These and many other factors will impact which emotional triggers will have the strongest impact. Do the analysis!

#9: Evoke Curiosity with Marketing Materials

When your audience feels an emotion, they are motivated to act. If the emotion is pity, they are motivated to address the situation (e.g. perhaps by donating money to your charity).

In a similar way, if you make your audience curious through your marketing materials, they are motivated to act. How does one act on curiosity?

• Show up to the presentation.
• Pay attention.
• Take notes.
• Engage with the speaker and follow along.

So, make your audience curious. Include a bold claim or a startling statistic. (Of course, you need to follow up in your presentation.) Focus on the benefits to be realized by your audience, and their curiosity will attract them to your speech.

#10: Evoke Surprise (in the Introduction and elsewhere)

A great way to connect immediately with your audience is to start with a surprise. I admit there’s no logical reason to suggest that a speaker who starts with a surprise will deliver a more valuable presentation. But, we’re not talking logic here (that’s the next article on logos). A surprise gets your audience excited. Getting them excited makes them listen.

Surprise can be effective elsewhere, particularly as the length of your speech grows. Like curiosity, your audience is motivated to act on the surprise. How? They try to resolve how this surprising element fits with the rest of the presentation. To do that, they have to listen.

Note that I’m not talking about deliberately confusing your audience. Surprise is planned, and is usually followed quickly by an explanation. Confusion, on the other hand, results from poor planning, and usually lasts beyond the end of your presentation, at least until the Q&A.

#11: Use Vivid, Sensory Words

Tool #2 above advised the use of emotional words. One way to do this is to concentrate on concrete, vivid, sensory words. When you use sensory words, your audience feels emotions they have associated with those words.

Example: When you mention “the touch of your father’s flannel shirt” or “the aroma of your grandmother’s kitchen”, you’ve done more than just mention fabric and smells. You have evoked emotions which, depending on your audience, probably include loving memories of childhood.

#12: Be Authentic

Remember that the goal of pathos is to connect with the audience and share emotions with them.

To share an emotion, you’ve got to feel it too.

Pathos is not about tugging emotional strings as if you were a puppeteer. You get zero marks for that. Actually, you get negative marks for that, because your ethos gets destroyed when the audience realizes you are toying with them.

Be honest. Share your presentation in a way that your audience will feel as passionately as you feel.

#13: Match Your Vocal Delivery to the Emotion

Vocal delivery is one clear clue to how you feel about what you are saying. Your tone, volume, pace, and other vocal qualities should mirror your emotions.

Examples:

• Anger might be accompanied by a loud, defiant voice.
• Sadness or despair might call for a softer voice.
• Optimism or excitement might be matched by a quickened pace.

#14: Match Your Gestures to the Emotion

Your body is another clue for the audience to gauge your emotions. If you are telling a story about love or joy, your body shouldn’t look like a mannequin. If you are revealing your own disappointment in a story, your shoulders should probably droop, and you shouldn’t be smiling.

Some speakers find it difficult to do this because they are speaking about past events where the emotions have dulled with the memories over time. The emotions were felt then, but aren’t as easy to summon now. You’ve got to show the audience how it felt in the moment. Remember that they are hearing this story for the first time.

#15: Connect with Your Eyes

Eye contact isn’t a scorecard. Your aim isn’t to collect check-marks from each person who you look at over the course of your presentation.

Meaningful eye contact is about connecting with one person at a time. Your eyes should express your frustration, your contempt, or your joy. In the ideal case, the person you’re looking at will mirror your emotion back to you. That’s connection!

#16: Eliminate Physical Barriers to Connect with Your Audience

In most speaking situations, your goal should be to reduce barriers between you and your audience. Get out from behind the lectern. Move closer to the audience. Ask them to sit in the seats near the front.

The closer you are to your audience, the more personal your presentation feels for them. The more personal it feels, the greater your chance for emotional connection. For much more on this topic, read Nick Morgan’s excellent article: How to Connect With Your Audience by Moving Closer.

#17: Eliminate Competing Emotions in the Environment

There usually are a myriad of competing elements in and around the room which are evoking emotions in your audience. For instance, a marching band practicing outside might be annoying your audience. If this annoyance is strong, it may prevent you from evoking competing emotions with your presentation.

The solution is to take charge and eliminate or minimize these causes whenever you can so that your audience can focus on you.

Examples:

• Hunger and biological needs create strong emotions. Take appropriate breaks if you delivering lengthy training.
• Excessive noise, temperature extremes (either too hot or too cold), or poor lighting make your audience uncomfortable and perhaps even angry at you or the organizer. Do whatever you can to optimize the conditions.
• Speaking over your allotted time may make your audience nervous or anxious if they’ve got to pick up their kids. Stick to your time bounds.
• Hecklers — and your response to them — can evoke many emotions. Learn how to handle them smoothly and professionally.

#18: Avoid Tripping Emotional Land Mines

Situations where you aren’t familiar with your audience are potentially dangerous. Perhaps you’ve been invited to speak at a company which has just experienced massive layoffs. Perhaps you’ve been invited to speak to an audience of a different culture. In either case, you’ve got to be careful not to say something (or gesture something) which accidentally triggers an emotion that you had not intended.

If you’re lucky, you’ll just say something that provokes unexpected laughter. If you’re not, you’ll say something that deeply offends your audience to the degree that they tune you out completely.

Your best defense against this is extensive audience analysis. Do your homework. Sometimes, it may still happen despite your best efforts. In this case, it’s important that you are actively reading your audience. If you have evoked an unintended emotion, you can usually tell. It’s wise to address it and, if necessary, apologize for the unintended offense.

What do you think?

The methods listed above are far from exhaustive. There are many other ways to connect emotionally with your audience as a speaker.

What other techniques do you use? Please share your ideas in the comments.

Next in This Series…

In the next article of this series, we focus on logos, your logical argument.

Similar Articles You May Like... What is Pathos and Why is it Critical for Speakers? Ethos, Pathos, Logos: 3 Pillars of Public Speaking Book Review: Thank You For Arguing (Jay Heinrichs) Book Review: Made to Stick How to Connect With Your Audience by Moving Closer Connect With Your Audience: Don’t Hide Your Emotions When Speaking

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

• What’s Inside?
• The Price
• What I Loved
• How could it be better?
• What Others Think
• Verdict

What’s Inside?

Based on the provocative title, you might think this book is heavy on memoirs and light on educational content. You would only be half right.

Confessions of a Public Speaker is packed with personal stories from the author and also packed with tips and advice for speakers from all backgrounds. A more appropriate title would probably have been “Insights of a Public Speaker” or “Lessons Learned by a Public Speaker”; of course, neither of those titles would like sell as many copies as this best-selling book is.

The video below shows the author talking about what the book is about…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Price

At the time of writing this review, you can get this hardcover book for only $16.49 from amazon.com. This is 34% off the list price.

At this price, it isn’t surprising that this book is the 7th most popular public speaking book on amazon.com since being released last November. Readers love it — everyone’s giving it 5 stars.

3 Things I Love about Confessions of a Public Speaker

The three things I liked most about Confessions of a Public Speaker are:

1. Packed with Great Insights

Confessions of a Public Speaker touches on a broad set of issues — fear of speaking, preparation, organization of ideas, delivery techniques, teaching approach, dealing with a difficult crowd, preventing mishaps, speaking technology, and many others. Every speaker will find new advice and insights here.

As just one example, the second chapter (just 11 pages) is perhaps the most concise, sensible advice on public speaking fear I’ve read.

2. Wonderfully written!

Most public speaking books are written by speaking experts who, if I were to guess, are not authors by nature.

Confessions of a Public Speaker is different.  Scott Berkun is a best-selling author (see: Making Things Happen and The Myths of Innovation) and refers to himself as a writer first, and a speaker second. His humorous, witty, and sharp prose make this a thoroughly enjoyable read.

3. Honest to a Fault

Confessions begins with an odd disclaimer:

This book is highly opinionated, personal, and full of behind-the-scenes stories. You may not like this. Some people like seeing how sausage is made, but many do not.

Although everything in this book is true and written to be useful, if you don’t always want to hear the truth, this book might not be for you.

It’s true. The honesty in this book may shock some, like this passage:

No amount of training will make a man with two brain cells seem anything but dumb, as the problem is not his ability to speak, it’s his inability to think. It’s rarely said, but some people will never be good public speakers. Unless they find someone to do their thinking for them, they only have, at best, half the tools they need.

[...] The problem with most bad presentations I see is not the speaking, the slides, the visuals, or any of the things people obsess about. Instead, it’s the lack of thinking.

Personally, I appreciate this fresh approach.

How could it be better?

1. More Cohesion from Chapter to Chapter

Each individual chapter is well-written and feels “just right” as far as depth. However, I didn’t notice much continuity from one chapter to the next, and there’s no obvious rationale for the ordering of material.

Maybe this isn’t a bad thing. Each chapter stands on its own. It’s easy to read the book in short bursts — like I did, one chapter each night.

2. Better Photos

There are photos distributed throughout the book (and even one short chapter with a whole series of them), many taken by the author at speaking venues. The photos are referenced in the text, and they help to tell the story.

Unfortunately, the photos are not in color, and the contrast levels are too low, so many of them hard to view. A few are completely washed out in my copy.

Maybe this was a tradeoff that keeps the price of the book low? Maybe it was only my copy? Maybe the photos could be shared on the author’s website for keeners like me who want to squeeze every drop of meaning?

Update: Apparently, it wasn’t just my copy. On Scott’s blog, he reports that the low-contrast photos were a mistake in the first print run, and says the 2nd and 3rd run fixes this problem. If you get a copy now, you should get the good photos.

What Others Think

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker:

If public speaking is a part of your job–and it is, in some capacity, whether or not you’re Barack Obama–this book is a worthy read. It’s converted at least one person who has turned down speaking engagements because the idea was too scary to someone excited about getting better at a special and important skill.

Ben Rothke, Slashdot:

[...] Confessions of a Public Speaker is unique in that it takes a holistic approach to the art and science of public speaking. The book doesn’t just provide helpful hints, it attempts to make the speaker, and his associated presentation, compelling and necessary.

Jeff Bailey, Wired Presentations:

If you are new to presentations this should be the first book that you read on the topic. It gives a lot of great advice that many people take for granted.

Rhett Laubach, Authenticity Rules:

I have given at least 100 public speeches each year for the past 18 years and I have found a ton of value in it.

Ian Griffin, Speechwriter:

Confessions of a Public Speaker offers presenters—and those of us who support executives who give presentations—a great source of ideas to improve both the content and delivery of future talks.

Verdict

Here’s my confession… I didn’t want to put this book down.

Confessions of a Public Speaker provides sound advice that can help anyone improve their speaking skills. Highly recommended.

Similar Articles You May Like... Book Review: Boring to Bravo (Kristin Arnold) What Does Your Personal Brand Say About You as a Speaker? 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them Book Review: The Wealthy Speaker by Jane Atkinson 12 Days of Public Speaking Christmas Professional Speaker Associations

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

However, if you ask singers to name the most important part of vocal technique, 9 out of 10 will say “breathing.”

So, is there some special way to breathe that makes your voice better?  Yes!

In this article, we explore breathing as it relates to vocal variety as a speaker. I’ll provide you an easy to follow technique, as well as tips to improve your voice through better use of air.

The results of applying these tips will be more Power, better Pacing, more interesting Pitch and more effective Pauses in your speaking.

Contents

• Lose Your Breath, Lose Your Voice
• Overview of Breathing
  • Breathing 101
• Breathing and Vocal Variety
  • Pace
  • Pitch
  • Pause
  • Power
• Practical Advice for Daily Life

Lose Your Breath, Lose Your Voice

In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “Loss of Breath”, the narrator loses his breath as he is about to berate his wife. Except for some frog-like utterances, his voice also stops with his breath. Shocked by this, he agonizes, philosophizes, and tries to hide his condition, all to no avail. Eventually, he finds his voice when he finds his breath. (Did I mention that someone stole it? This is Poe, after all!)  Although the story is a bit macabre, it underlines the fact that if you lose your breath, you lose your voice … and it’s never a good idea to berate your wife.

Overview of Breathing

So how does one breathe for better speaking and singing? Well, watch a baby breathe. You’ll see that she seems to breath from her stomach, but she is really using her abdominal muscles. It’s breathing 101 — so easy a baby can do it. Here’s how it’s done:

Breathing 101

Read the following instructions out loud carefully, and then try them. (An audio file of these instructions can be heard by clicking here.)

1. Sit forward in a chair and let your stomach muscles relax.
2. Breathe in through your nose and imagine that you are a vessel filling up with air as you would pour water into a vase. Fill up your abdomen first, then your lower ribs (you should feel them expand) and then all the way up to your chin.
3. Hold this breath for a count of ten.
4. Now exhale slowly. As you exhale, keep your ribs expanded and tighten your abdomen as you would if you were doing a “crunch”—that is, the lower abdominal muscles should come in first as though you were rolling up a tube of toothpaste. (Since you are not a tube of toothpaste, keep your chest up as you exhale.)
5. Repeat. Once you have mastered the exercise sitting down, practice incorporating it into your speaking and singing. You may need to do it slowly at first until you can coordinate all the actions smoothly.

The key thing to remember is that breathing should be low and expansive. If you do the exercise correctly, your stomach will go in while your chest stays out and expands. Practicing this technique will provide many benefits, including:

• Awareness of your breathing will enable you to breathe more effectively.
• Proper posture for breathing creates a confident, strong appearance. Deeper breathing makes you feel more confident and strong as well.  Andrew Weil, MD writes, “You cannot always center yourself emotionally by an act of will, but you can use your voluntary nerves to make your breathing slow, deep, quiet, and regular, and the rest will follow.”
• Deep breathing decreases tension and helps to focus intellectual activity.  Charles Kirk describes how proper breathing technique helps him to remain calm on the trading floor.

Breathing and Vocal Variety

An earlier Six Minutes article advised you to “use your voice to complement your message.” This is what I refer to as vocal image: how you are perceived by the sound of your voice.

Ideally, you want your content to align with your delivery method and both to align with the sound of your voice.  Vocal variety is all about the sound of the voice and, in this case, that vocal image is created through several aspects of your sound, including pace, pitch, pause, and power.

Pace

Pace is the speed of your delivery. In general, for vocal variety you are encouraged to vary your pace by speeding up and slowing down appropriately for the message you are delivering. However, some people have trouble with pacing due to poor breathing. If you speak too quickly, or if your speaking is labored or too slow, consider the following:

• Speaking too fast is often the result of not stopping to breathe often enough.
  Solution: To slow down your speaking with the breath, consciously take a breath before you begin. Remember to stop and breathe between ideas. The next time you practice a presentation, take time to inhale and exhale deeply five times before you start to speak. Then take one more deep breath and exhale vigorously into your first words.

• Speaking too slowly can also be caused by not taking in and using enough air.
  Solution: Not using enough air can cause a person to sound dull and lifeless. This may also be caused by poor posture. Practice the breathing technique above, paying special attention to posture. Be sure you move that air with the abdominal muscles as you speak. Overdo the latter when you practice so you really feel the breath in the sound. By breathing deeper and then using all the air in your sound, you create a more energetic sound and you feel more energized, too.

Pitch

Pitch is determined by the notes we use when we speak. Yes, we use notes when speaking just as we do for singing. Speaking notes, however, are random, informally ordered, and usually of shorter duration than notes we sing. To create vocal variety, one uses different pitches to make their sound more interesting.  Sometimes problems with creating variety in pitch can be the result of poor breathing technique. Here are two such problems, their likely causes, and some ways to fix them:

• A voice that is too high-pitched and thin can be the result of shallow breathing (without abdominal expansion and support).
  Solution: The solution to shallow breathing is to relax the abdomen and drop the air in lower. This also relaxes the larynx so it doesn’t ride so high. A high larynx can create a higher, thinner sound.

• If your voice sounds squeezed or strained, or too low, you may not be using all the air you take in.
  Lisa Braithwaite comments rightly that speaking too low can do vocal damage.
  Another lesson from Poe’s prose is that you can produce a sound without breath. He writes:

I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued … this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.

If you don’t want to be limited to a guttural growl, air should flow freely in your voice. You can improve a strained sound by practicing a breathy sound and then gradually adding more and more vocal sound to it. I call this “energizing the voice.” It also has the effect of making pitch variety much easier to achieve because the voice becomes free to move and create more pitches. If you do this correctly, you will definitely feel the freedom in your voice!

Pause

When speaking, pauses are the golden silences that allow your listeners to take in what you are saying. They are the “beats” an actor uses between phrases; they are that special something that leads to “comedic timing.” Importantly, pauses also give us time to breathe.

Here’s how to apply breathing to your pauses:

• Breathe before speaking your first words.
  Taking that first breath allows you to align everything physically, mentally, and emotionally. It also allows your larynx to be stimulated but relaxed. And finally, it gets the oxygen flowing so that you can think more clearly and look your best.

• Be aware of your breathing.
  It is amazing to see how many people simply forget to breathe when they are in front of an audience. As you may have experienced, nerves can play a big part in forgetting to breathe and feeling out of breath. So the short term solution to this, as blogger Denise Graveline mentions, is to pause and breathe!  The long-term solution, however, is to practice being aware of your breathing all day long. Awareness of breathing makes for natural pauses. The more you practice, the more likely it is you’ll remember to breathe when you’re speaking in public.

Power

A common misconception about Power is that it is the same thing as volume.  The truth is that vocal power is so much more than how loud you are. Vocal power is all about the impact your sound has on others. Your personal vocal power may be found in the tone of your sound or in how you phrase a thought.  Many people are surprised to learn that power can be heightened or lessened by how they breathe and how they use their breath.

• Sound moves on air, so you need to have air to get a powerful sound.  You can speak loudly, but if you aren’t incorporating that air into your sound, you will be shouting. Your impact on others may be quite different than you intended! In addition, keeping the air moving with the sound allows for wonderful control of your voice so that you can use all of your vocal variety techniques more effectively.

• A powerful speaker is one who is relaxed and comfortable. A powerful voice is relaxed and comfortable. Breathing deeply relaxes the larynx so the voice can settle into a comfortable, natural sound rather than one that is contrived or forced.

Practical Advice for Daily Life

Try to practice good breathing technique several times a day and soon you will naturally incorporate it into your everyday speaking. Here are a few tips for practicing breathing:

• Practice breathing while driving. Your hands are raised as you drive which makes it easier to keep your chest high. And practicing breathing can also ease road rage significantly!

• Practice breathing while sitting at your desk when you would normally be slumped over in your chair. Sit on the edge of your chair and take 10 practice breaths three times a day.

• Practice breathing when you are about to go to sleep or lying down on the floor at the end of a workout session. When you are lying down, it is easier to isolate the abdominal muscles and strengthen them for proper breathing. (You can even put a book on your abdomen to exaggerate the way you use those muscles for even better awareness of how to do this correctly. Watch the book go up and down as you breathe “with your stomach.”)

The final and real test, of course, will come in how well you incorporate good breathing into your presentations. On the day of your big presentation, remember to consciously practice using the air you take in. Take time to inhale and exhale deeply five times before you start to speak, then take one more deep breath and breathe into your first words. Don’t forget to slow down and breathe from time to time during the course of a talk in front of an audience.

As they say, practice makes perfect. So practice and it won’t be long before you are able to make your learned breathing as natural as the breathing you are using now, and the benefits will be enormous.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Kate Peters is a singer/actor, voice coach, speaker, and the author of Can You Hear Me Now? Harnessing the power of your vocal impact in 31 days. Through her presentations, seminars, workshops and private coaching, Kate helps executives, speakers, and performers find the strengths in their voices to better express themselves in their professional and personal lives. For more information, visit Kate’s blog.

What is relevant to them?
What do they already know?
How do they feel about our topic?

When I recently spoke at two conferences in Africa, I discovered that there is another, more fundamental layer of audience needs to consider as well.

In this article, I will share the lessons I learned about basic communication issues when speaking to a culturally distinct audience.

1. Don’t assume they can understand you
2. Be cautious of cultural jargon
3. Be adaptable to local style
4. Slow down
5. Watch your body language

Tip 1: Don’t Assume They Can Understand You

Although English is the official language of business in both places I spoke (Nigeria and Kenya), their English is more formal, flowery, and structured than casual, American English where we regularly use contractions (e.g. can’t, mustn’t, would’ve) and drop the endings on words (e.g. are you comin’ to the party?).

To enhance the audience’s ability to understand you, speak clearly and articulate carefully. Minimize your use of contractions. Check with the audience to see if they understand; encourage them to interrupt you if they do not.

Tip 2: Be Cautious of Cultural Jargon

Local terminology, popular culture references, and humor likely will not translate. If they don’t, the point you’re trying to make is lost on the audience. Humor from your culture may even be offensive in other cultures. Things you are very familiar with (e.g. Starbucks, Seinfeld, online banking) may not have any meaning to your audience.

For example, in part of my presentation in Nigeria, I was talking about various social media tools and quickly found that, although Facebook is popular, LinkedIn is not widely recognized there.

If you want to use a cultural reference in your presentation, do some research and find a local one that will resonate with the audience. If you must use one local to your culture, explain it. Avoid jargon and slang. If you use acronyms, spell them out.

Tip 3: Be Adaptable to Local Style

In my presentation skills training classes I teach people not to open their presentation with the standard “I’m so happy to be here”, but instead use those precious first moments to grab the audience’s attention with a powerful, on-message opening. When I speak, I follow my own advice. However, in both Nigeria and Kenya, openings were uniformly formal and almost ceremonial.

In Nigeria, as the only Western, white person in a room of 350 people, I felt it was much more appropriate to abandon my normal style and open my remarks by telling the audience that it was my first visit to Africa and how honored I was, and grateful to the Board of Trustees, to be a part of their conference. My comments were completely sincere, but style-wise, a little over the top for me. In this case, however, it was the right decision: the audience responded with a huge, welcoming round of applause.

Tip 4: Slow Down

This is actually good advice for most presentations, but it’s particularly important in a cross-cultural context. If you have some difficulty understanding your audience speak, because of accents or cadence, they probably have the same difficulty understanding you. The faster you talk, the more difficult you are to understand. If you are being simultaneously translated, speaking quickly also makes it more difficult for the translator.

Tip 5: Watch Your Body Language

Gestures (e.g. pointing) or unconscious habits (e.g. maintaining direct eye contact) may be offensive in other cultures. Do your research to determine what’s appropriate and what’s not where you’re speaking.

A resource to check is Gestures: The Dos and Taboos of Body Language Around the World by Roger Axtell. It is available from amazon.com for just $11.53.

The Bottom Line

Speaking in another country to people from another culture is an amazing experience. Do your homework, incorporate a few modifications into your presentation, and eagerly embrace any opportunity that comes your way.

Learning More

You can research the cultural characteristics of your audience with these resources:

• CIA: World Factbook
• BBC: Country Profiles
• US Department of State: Country Notes

Have you ever spoken to an audience from a culture different than yours? What tips can you share?

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Kathy Reiffenstein is the founder and president of And…Now Presenting!, a D.C. area business communications consulting and training firm, where she draws on her background in sales, marketing and customer service to create confident, persuasive speakers. She works with business executives, authors, non-profit leaders and the military to help them speak clearly, effectively and engagingly to their audiences.

What do you do when you prefer not to use a lectern, but its use is implied by the nature of your speaking engagement?

Do you follow convention and stand behind it?

Or, do you go with your gut and break free?

Ask Six Minutes

That’s the question posed in a message I recently received from a Six Minutes subscriber. He writes:

I am planning a speech to about 2,000 people where I will be asking for a significant donation. The venue is a pulpit where clergy perform their work from behind lecterns.  As a speaker, I am more comfortable moving around but do not want to appear too casual or disrespectful to the clergy.  Any thoughts or coaching will be appreciated.

Lectern or No Lectern? 8 Factors to Consider

There’s no definitive answer here because every church is different.

So, let’s examine 8 factors you might consider if you were faced with this situation.

1. The Elevation Advantage
2. Sound Amplification
3. Symbolic “Weight” of the Lectern
4. Your Height
5. Sensitivity of the Clergy
6. Expectations of the Audience
7. Visibility of Gestures
8. Vulnerability and Audience Connection

1. The Elevation Advantage

Speaking from the lectern usually means you can be seen. Sometimes, the area around the lectern is raised higher than its surroundings. Sometimes, there is a step or two to ascend. The lectern itself is usually placed in a location with clear sight lines to most of the congregation.

Stepping away from the lectern may not provide the same elevation advantage. If it doesn’t, you become harder to see, particularly for people farther away.

2. Sound Amplification

There’s usually a microphone at the lectern that allows you to be heard without straining your voice. With an audience of 2,000 people, you definitely need help to reach people in the back of the church.

If you step away from the lectern, you may put yourself at a disadvantage:

• If there is a portable microphone that can be worn or held, you can probably compensate.
• If there is not, I would definitely advise staying at the lectern. Even with a very strong voice, it would be difficult for you to be heard, particularly if you speaking longer than a minute or two.

3. Symbolic “Weight” of the Lectern

There’s a reason that lecterns are used in many religious settings, as well as by CEOs and politicians. By its nature, a lectern carries significant weight (both real and metaphorical). When you speak from behind the lectern, your credibility can be heightened, provided your message and delivery is dignified and respectful.

In this particular context (asking for a donation), credibility is critical.

4. Your Height

The “weight” advantage afforded by the lectern is maximized by speakers who have the physical presence to match it.

Tall speakers have an advantage in this scenario. Shorter speakers, on the other hand, may find themselves overwhelmed by the size of the lectern. In a worst case scenario, a very short speaker may appear to only be peeking over the top of the lectern. It is definitely worth swallowing your pride and compensating with a step stool if necessary.

Of course, stepping out from behind the lectern eliminates this entirely.

5. Sensitivity of the Clergy

If the presiding clergy member would take offense to you stepping out from behind the lectern, then you would be ill-advised to do it. Remember that you are a guest in this setting, and it isn’t a good idea to offend your host.

The best (and only) way to assess their sensitivity is to ask them beforehand. (In general, you should always include questions like this as part of your audience analysis.) Explain where you’d like to stand, and why you’d like to avoid the lectern. I think this is a case where it is better to ask for permission rather than beg for forgiveness.

6. Expectations of the Audience

Depending on the culture and accepted practices within your congregation, you may be expected to speak from the lectern. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, some may take offense. Again, the only way to gauge this is to talk with members of the congregation ahead of time.

Having said that, shocking the expectations of your audience may be to your advantage. If nobody ever speaks away from the lectern, they will certainly notice if you do! For a bit of (appropriate) drama, you might consider starting at the lectern and then moving away during your delivery. Perhaps this “breaking of convention” ties into your core message? Maybe the visual shock of moving away from the lectern complements your desire to shock your audience to abandon their preconceived opinions about the cause to which you would like them to donate?

Whatever you choose, be respectful.

7. Visibility of Gestures

Provided there is no extreme elevation disadvantage in moving away from the lectern, there’s no question that you can employ a wider range of gestures if you free yourself.

Standing behind a lectern hides a significant fraction of your body. Depending on your height, the only gestures that are visible are likely those made at or above the level of your chest. Further, the “weight” of the lectern will tend to diminish any gesture you deliver.

On the other hand, being free from the lectern makes your entire body visible. (Again, this depends on sight lines.) You will have a wider range of gestures at your disposal, and they will appear larger and more effective.

8. Vulnerability and Audience Connection

Stepping away from the lectern enhances your vulnerability. As mentioned by Nick Morgan, moving closer to your audience often aids your attempts to connect with them. In addition to moving physically closer, you will also be free of the symbolic barrier which the lectern creates between you and your audience. Eliminating barriers — physical or symbolic –  makes you more effective.

What Do You Think?

Do you have experience speaking in church? What did you do?

If you were in the congregation, would you encourage the speaker to step away from the lectern, or expect them to stay behind it?

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

And as you get more advanced in your speaking, and comfortable with the stage, how should you move in relation to the audience?

Is it a good idea to move deep into the audience or not? What about those situations where it seems awkward to get to the audience at all, either because of the logistics of the room or the positioning of your listeners?

Human Interaction Zones

In establishing a few rules for the effective choreography of a speech, several key insights from research on non-verbal communications will help. The first comes from Edward T. Hall and his classic work The Silent Language. He described 4 zones of space between people:

1. Twelve feet or more is public space.
2. Twelve feet to 4 feet is social space.
3. Four feet to a foot and a half is personal space.
4. And a foot and a half to zero is intimate space.

The exact dimensions of these zones vary a little from one culture to another, but all cultures have them.

Audience Personal Space is the Key To Connecting

Sharing public space is quite low-key for us – we’re not very interested in people in that space simply because they’re too far away to be important. Social space is a little warmer, but it’s not until someone moves into our personal space that we really begin to pay attention. And of course, when someone is in our intimate space he or she has all our focus.

The bottom line is that nothing significant happens between people except in personal and intimate space. Since public speakers can’t get into intimate space — it violates something quite profound — that leaves personal space.

Here’s the way to think about it: you can’t make a real impact on people unless you can get into their personal space.

By now, you’re thinking that this zone research creates a real problem for public speakers. You obviously can’t get into the personal space of everyone in the audience; you’d be running around like a mad person. Won’t the majority of the audience feel left out?

Your Audience Shares Emotions

I’ll get to the logistics in a minute, but first there’s a nice bit of recent brain research that sheds more light on the subject. An Italian group of brain researchers have studied mirror neurons (See: Mirrors in the Brain: How Our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience). It turns out that when someone near us experiences an emotion, a special kind of neuron – a mirror neuron – fires in our head giving us the same emotion. It’s how we’re able to be empathetic as a species, how we can feel other people’s pain and joy, how we can care for others, and so on.

In this case, it means that if a speaker focuses his or her attention on an audience member, all the people sitting near that lucky individual will experience the same thrill of attention. The effect diminishes over space, but it’s quite powerful and it means that to give attention to a great majority of the audience, you don’t have to run around the room.

Trust (and Connection) Increases as Distance Decreases

We can then add to these research insights with a third phenomenon: our trust of people increases when they move closer to us, and decreases as they move away from us.

By now a picture should be emerging of why it’s so important to move into an audience to connect with them – and why you shouldn’t believe that old misconception that other audience members will feel left out if you focus on several people in the room. Moving into the audience, and getting into the personal space of selected audience members, is the only effective way to move beyond bland and make a world-changing impression on people. And the only reason to give a speech is to change the world, right?

Okay, But How Do You Move Closer to the Audience?

Okay, you say, but we’re still left with the logistics.

• What if I’m speaking in a ballroom with all those round tables and people facing every which way – how do I negotiate that space?
• What if I’m up on a stage and jumping down is hazardous to my health?
• What about those times I’m on a camera for the people in the back – the AV people tell me not to go off the stage because they can’t follow me. What do I do then?

In over 20 years of work as a speaker and as a coach of speakers, I have seen virtually every imaginable room configuration. Many of them make it extremely difficult for speakers to move successfully into the audience. In those cases, you just have to do the best you can. And the best may only be moving to the edge of the stage. But even that will increase the audience’s trust in you, and their sense of connection, because humans are very quick to notice when someone is moving toward or away from them, even in small amounts.

Understanding how mirror neurons work lets you know why working the audience is effective even if you only get close to a few people. Nonetheless, you don’t want to spend a lot of time deep in an audience so that your back is turned away from a significant percentage of your listeners. Turning your back on people sends out a powerful message of lack of interest or disengagement.

This is especially true in a room filled with those round tables, where it seems like you’re always turning away from someone. With that kind of configuration, your should spend most of your time at the front of the room, approaching the tables you can easily get to. Try to get to each side of the room. The audience will appreciate both that you’ve attempted to reach them and that you haven’t spent a lot of time lost deep in the thicket of tables.

You also don’t want to spend too much time on one particular audience member. The exact timing depends on the nature of your speech, and the kinds of interactions you have, but as a rule of thumb, think in terms of 30 seconds to a minute, not much more. Audience members will feel left out if you allow one person to monopolize your attention for too long.

It’s a matter of (1) tact and (2) quick thinking on your feet. You need to size up the room, figure out how you’re going to move in it, and plan how much you can work the audience.

The goal should always be to move toward your audience, even if it’s only a few feet, on points in your talk that you want to emphasize, or when you want to interact with audience members. Moving toward the audience – closing the distance – says, “this is important.” Moving away says the opposite. So use your body like a punctuation mark to add clarity and impact to your speaking. The choreography should be in service to the message. Always.

What Do You Think?

As a speaker, has moving toward the audience been a rewarding or frustrating experience?

As an audience member, what do you like or dislike when the speaker steps into the audience?

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Nick Morgan is President of Public Words Inc and author of Trust Me: Four Steps to Authenticity and Charisma, and Give Your Speech, Change the World. He has coached professional speakers, executives, educators, and politicians in effective public speaking for more than 20 years.

But do you know how big these gestures should be?

In this article, you’ll learn to match the size of your gestures to your audience and venue.

What is meant by gesture size?

Just as your voice can be loud or soft, your gestures can be large or small.

For example, consider the spectrum of hand and arm gestures.

• Gestures involving your fingers only are small gestures.
• Gestures pivoting at your wrist are a bit larger.
• Gestures pivoting at your elbow are larger still.
• Finally, gestures pivoting at your shoulder are large.

Okay, how do you choose the right size?

It depends. Gestures that are effective for one audience might be completely ineffective with another audience.

Factors you should consider are:

1. the distance between you and your audience, and
2. sight lines between you and your audience
3. cultural and contextual factors

From these factors, we can derive some basic guidelines for effective body language.

Distance

In general, the farther your audience is from you, the larger and more pronounced your gestures need to be. Small audience = small gestures. Big audience = big gestures.

For example, when seated at a board room table, you might use a small hand gesture. When speaking in an auditorium, you need to use full arm gestures.

Sight Lines

In general, if sight lines are clear, you can make smaller and more intricate gestures. If sight lines are partially blocked, you need larger (and higher) gestures.

Cultural and Contextual Factors

Cultural and contextual factors may impact the appropriate size for your gestures. A few examples are:

• The culture of your audience members may dictate more subdued gestures. (In general, beware the use of large gestures if you are not familiar with your audience’s culture.)
• When delivering a eulogy or news about layoffs, your gestures should be subdued.
• When speaking to children, your gestures can probably be magnified.

In all cases, it is best to research this as part of your audience analysis, particularly if you are speaking to a new group.

Example Scenarios for Speech Gestures

Let’s consider a few sample scenarios to illustrate how the size of your audience (and, by extension, the size of the room) influences which gestures are most effective.

1. Speech Gestures for a Small Group (2-6 people)

Example Scenario: You are having a conversation with a colleague in an office, or sitting at a table with customers.

Guidelines for this small group setting:

• Your gestures can be small and still effective because everyone is close to you.
• Finger gestures and hand gestures pivoting at the wrist can be effective.
  For example, consider the finger gestures displayed by the man in photo A on the right.
• Eye gestures and facial expressions are inherently small gestures. They are critical in an intimate small-group setting, because everyone can see every nuance, both conscious and unconscious.
  For example, the woman in photo B is communicating non-verbally simply with her eyes and facial expression.
• The smaller your audience is, the more likely that you will have their full attention. They will tend to be looking at your eyes with a rather narrow field of view. Therefore, small hand gestures may work best if you raise your hands up closer to your eyes.
  For example, see how the man in photo C is gesturing with raised hands.
• Beware nervous gestures (e.g. tapping your fingers on the table; clicking a pen repeatedly) which are magnified in this setting.

2. Speech Gestures for a Medium Group (7-40 people)

Example Scenario: You are presenting to an audience which is seated around boardroom table, or in a small meeting room. You may be standing, or you may be seated yourself.

Guidelines for this medium group setting:

• Your gestures should be scaled up a bit as the average distance between you and the audience members increases.
• Your eye and facial gestures are still important. People in the front rows may still be able to see every nuance, both conscious and unconscious.
• Hand/arm gestures should pivot from your elbows at least.
  For example, consider President Obama in photo D as he gestures with his arm pivoting from his elbow.
• Watch your sight lines! Hand gestures which pivot at the wrist may be too small for people to see, particularly if you are speaking with a lectern or if views are obscured (e.g. by computer screens).
  For example, the man’s gesture in photo E may be invisible to his audience (and thus, ineffective) because it is blocked by the computer screen.
• Depending on the room layout, you may be able to incorporate some larger gestures with your upper body.

3. Speech Gestures for a Large Group (40-100 people)

Example Scenario: You are presenting a lunchtime seminar at a company, or perhaps a conference break-out session in a large meeting room. There probably is not a significant stage, nor is there raised seating (i.e. you are standing at the same level as your audience).

Guidelines for this large group setting:

• Your gestures should scale up even larger with arm gestures out and away from your body.
  For example, the woman in photo F is gesturing with her arm which is pivoting from her shoulder.
• Eye and facial expressions become less important because they are probably invisible to much of the audience unless you really exaggerate them.
• Because of the obscured sight lines for most of your audience behind the first few rows, this can be the most challenging audience size because they can only see you from the chest and higher. Any gestures you make lower are invisible to much of the audience.
  Note how the man in photo G has raised both his arms just under his face to gesture. This allows audience members to see him above the head of the person in front of them.
• One way to magnify smaller gestures is to hold them for a longer period of time and turn your body slightly as you display it. This increases the likelihood that more people will see the gesture.

4. Speech Gestures for a Huge Group (100+ people)

Example Scenario: You are presenting a keynote address at a conference. Audience seating is elevated as you move from front to back, and you are speaking from a stage which is probably set back from the front row.

Guidelines for this huge group setting:

• Your gestures need to scale up again. Full body gestures are necessary. Don’t hold back.
• Small gestures, like small objects, are invisible. Gestures with your fingers (e.g. putting up three fingers to indicate your third point) are invisible. Your audience will see your arm up, but they cannot see your fingers.
  For example, consider Steve Jobs as he unveils the MacBook Air in photo H. He realizes that most of his audience cannot really see what he is holding. (And his hands and face are even smaller!) So, a photo of a manila envelope appears on the screen behind him to compensate.
• Eye and facial gestures are invisible. This does not mean you should have a “dead” face. Quite the opposite, you should still have expressive eye and facial gestures because this will tend to keep your vocal variety high.
• Because of improved sight lines, you can probably use “low” hand/arm gestures that are centered around your stomach and waist.
• Also, your legs are now visible and you can exploit this to great advantage with full body gestures such as strolling or kicking.
• In rare cases, a video system may be used to magnify you for your audience, as with the woman presenting in photo I. If this is the case, smaller gestures can, once again, be seen. Large gestures are probably still more effective.

In Summary

Always be aware of the distance between you and your audience and the sight lines in the room. Based on this knowledge, scale your gestures accordingly and you will be effective.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

The focus of her article — her TEDGlobal 2009 talk — is now available on video. Watching it will be the best seven minutes of your day. Click here to watch it.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Does your voice put your audience to sleep? Does it put you to sleep?

Do you find it hard to  conveying emotions with your voice?

Are you easy to listen to, or does your voice let you down?

The sixth Toastmasters speech project guides you to harness the power of your own voice. This article of the Toastmasters Speech Series examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to numerous sample speeches.

Why is This Speech Important?

The aims for this speech project are to use your voice to complement your message by enhancing your:

• pace,
• pitch,
• power, and
• pauses.

Your voice is the best tool in your delivery toolbox. You must learn to use it effectively to enhance your presentation.

Tips and Techniques

1. Plan Around the 4 P’s: Pace, Pitch, Power, and Pauses

Be conscious of all four major vocal variables, and work all of them into your speech.

1. Pace — One of the easiest ways to incorporate variable pace is to slow down through key statements.
2. Pitch — A convenient way to hit different pitch points is to play with different emotional content. A sad voice takes on a different pitch than a content voice, which is distinct from an excited voice, and so on. Stories are good speech building blocks for many reasons, including how they bring a speaker’s voice alive through different emotions.
3. Power (Volume) — Don’t overdo it with changes in volume. Again, align your variations in volume with emotional content. Anger or joy tends to bring out a loud voice. Fear or sadness calls for a quiet voice.
4. Pauses — There are a multitude of ways to incorporate pauses in a meaningful way (watch for a future Six Minutes article dedicated to pauses). For this speech, keep it straightforward. Make sure you’ve got short pauses following every sentence, and longer pauses at the ends of paragraphs or transitions within your speech.

2. Be Deliberate (Keep Score if You Have To)

Don’t just write a speech and try to incorporate vocal variety on the fly as you deliver it. You won’t get any value from this speech project if you take that approach.

As you write, edit, and rehearse your speech, select words or phrases where you will consciously vary your voice in each of the four P ways. As you grow as a speaker, you’ll hit all four of these unconsciously, but when you are learning, it’s okay to be a little more deliberate.

Consider annotating your speech with colored pen to highlight vocal variation opportunities.

You might even consider making a “scorecard” in the margin of your page, and giving yourself one point for each vocal manoeuver. Shoot for a score of at least 3 for each P.

3. Align Your Voice with Expressive Gestures

One of the best ways to bring out your most expressive voice is to use expressive gestures, particularly facial gestures!

If participate in teleconference calls or webinars, you may have learned this trick. Even though nobody can see you, it really helps to stand up in your office and give body, hand, and facial gestures as you talk on the phone. Your voice will naturally come alive, as if synchronized with your gestures.

The same trick applies to face-to-face presentations as well. If you are expressive with your face and other gestures, your voice tends to naturally align.

4. Ditch the Notes, Keep Your Head Up, and Project Your Voice

Maybe you have used notes for the five previous Competent Communicator projects, but now is a great time to break free of your notes.

• When you glance down to read notes, your neck and throat bend and can get contorted. Your voice tends to be low, or poor quality, and low volume.
• Without notes, you’ll be able to keep your head up high and your eyes on your audience. With your head high, your neck and throat will be stretched out, and the quality of your voice will be much more resonant.

5. Exaggerate Words

If your speech allows, find some words where you can play with the pronunciation to add some vocal spice to your delivery. For example:

• Instead of saying “The car was a long way from the beach,” you could say “The car was a looooooong way from the beach”.
• Instead of saying “The hamburger was delicious,” try “The hamburger was deeee-licious.”

6. Don’t Speak About Vocal Variety

When choosing your topic for this speech, avoid the temptation to speak about vocal variety, like this guy (who admits he “cheated”). If you do, you are missing the point of this speech project.

Your objective for this speech project is not to educate your audience about vocal variety. Your objective is to incorporate vocal variety to enhance your delivery.

You have infinite speech topics at your disposal… explore!

What I Did for Speech 6

I chose to deliver a biographical speech about Theodor Seuss Geisel, the children’s book author better known as Dr. Seuss.

This topic was fantastic as it begged for me to use my voice in a wonderful variety of ways:

• My “normal” speaking voice was used for “bones” of the speech — the biographical details which formed the framework. Even in this section of the speech, I used vocal variety to emphasize key words, phrases, and points.
• I included numerous quotations from his stories, each carefully selected to both (a) illustrate the biographical details and (b) allow me to convey a different emotion or mood. Each of these required varying the pitch, pace, and volume. For example, I included:
  • Happy, sing-songy passages from Fox in Sox and The Cat in the Hat
  • A stalwart, committed passage from Horton Hatches the Egg
  • An angry passage from The Lorax (this was one of my all-time favorite moments in Toastmasters as I used one of the audience members as a “prop” to be the source of my anger)
  • An optimistic passage from Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Reading Dr. Seuss books and other stories with my daughter is one of my favorite activities. Therefore, this topic revealed an inherent passion, and I knew this would come through in the quality of my voice.

Toastmasters Speech 6 Examples

Here are a few sample video speeches which may provide inspiration for you. As you watch some of these videos, ask yourself which speakers are using vocal variety to enhance their speeches, and which are missing opportunities. Then, try to emulate the best behaviors in your own speech.

• How to Communicate with Me by Shana(?)
  • Pauses are used effectively, particularly before/after transition statements. This (along with clear language) helps convey the structure of the speech.
  • Increase volume and pace when impersonating another person @ 2:00
  • Varying voice to mimic personality traits on “the person who needs love more than information” @ 2:35
  • Emphasis on the word “perturbed” (to make it sound perturbed!) @ 2:55, and the great emphasis on  “I wish you’d show me more respect” (in a way that is demanding respect)
  • “I was in this one loooooooooong class about muscles” @ 4:05
• For the Love of Animals by Emilie Staryak
  • Effective use of pauses throughout, particularly in the opening minute of the speech, to enhance the understandability. For example (starting @ 1:00), notice the pause after phrase  “herding, hauling, and hunting”; brief pauses after after “loyalty” and “security”; and then the longer pause after “companionship”.
  • Effective exaggeration used in the phrase “DESperate meOW” @ 2:08
  • Notice the variation in pitch @ 2:25 and 2:40, and also how this is accompanied by gestures
• The Art of Procrastination by Chance Litton
  • Effective vocal variety throughout.
  • The speaker’s variation in pace and pauses conveys much of the humor.
• Is Your Dream a Loud Gong or a Faint Whistle by Daniel
• Unknown Title by Anonymous
• Last Child in the Woods by Paul Miller
• That’s Just Rude by Dianne
• Friend or Foe: It’s All In Your Perspective by Robin
• Sioux Hockey Fan by John Sanders
• My Turn Around by Jerome Moore
• Who Wrote That Book? by Stephanie Bryant
• Beyond the Nineteenth Hole by Glenn Woodson
• It’s Your Money by Anonymous
• Unknown by Dick
• The Upside of Failure by John Armstrong

Next in the Toastmasters Speech Series

The next article in this series will examine Speech 7: Research Your Topic.

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Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.