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Train your voice

Your voice is a fair indicator of your personality- the way you feel,your attitude, and your moods. If you are the irritable type, your voice will have an edgy note. If you are under confident or a chronic-worrier, your voice will have a tendency to whine. Maybe you find life devoid of any excitement and end up speaking in a dull monotonous tone. Poor health and fatigue could give you a dreary flat voice.woman talking

There are good reasons for you to consider how you sound because even a well-groomed, beautiful woman could give a nasty knock to her personality if her voice is shrill and thin or loud and coarse- all the more so, because these voice defects can be corrected with a little conscious effort and self-training to make the voice sound soft, nice, and pleasant.

If you doubt the power of effective and engaging speech, listen carefully to the calls you get in the course of the day. You will be amazed by the range of patterns you hear, and realize how instantly you judge a person by the quality of her voice. And of course, if you are making your judgment of a person, based only on hearing the voice, it could be a let down too; but the impression you create with your voice matters a lot. In the book, “Winning with your voice”, Morton Cooper says, “We depend on the voice for up to 80 percent of all communications, but in our quest for self-improvement, it’s one detail we usually overlook. Most of us work day after day with a voice that sells us short”. But how to improve the voice? Here are some tips to start off. But do remember you rarely hear yourself as others do.

To test the quality of your voice:

  • Stand in the corner of a room with face close to the wall.
  • Hold your hands behind your ears, thumbs under the chin and bring the ears gently forward.
  • Now start talking as you normally do.
  • If you feel your voice is good, keep in mind that, most women have high-pitched voices and could speak in a lower volume and more beautifully with minimal effort.

Now check you voice:

  • If it is high, try lowering it slightly.
  • If it is too loud and some what harsh, try to soften it.

And, when you begin to correct your voice defect, make it a habit to talk pleasantly all the time, not just on special occasions. Using different tones on different occasions makes no sense and labels you as an artificial person. Many women with naturally lovely voices ruin them by speaking very fast. Even when you are in a hurry, there is little excuse for not speaking slowly. If you always think before you speak, you can eliminate words, and have time to speak clearly and beautifully. Your voice will automatically pitch itself correctly. To nurture a compelling voice, you may even seek professional help. Undergo a course to learn voice modulation to make the voice sound more interesting and not grumpy or monotonous. Other strategy is to enroll in a voice culture class. Give your voice a chance to improve. You have nothing to lose, and hopefully, a new world to gain.

(Guest Post by Smitha)

Comments

  1. Anonymous6:34 PM

    You definitely can train your voice too much. If you're planning on singing for that long each day, try to sing lightly. Singing and doing vocal exercises all through the day is great, but you should be careful not to strain your voice. It's like if you spend a night at a club or concert and you have to talk really loudly to be heard, or if you spend a day talking more than usual, your voice might be scratchy the next morning. Same thing - if you sing too much, too heavily, you'll lose tone quality and volume temporarily.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:41 PM

    Make sure that you are warming up your vocals before you sing. Practice breathing the correct way, singing with your diaphragm and practice hitting the notes correctly.
    Singing with your diaphragm will definitely help the sound come out better. Singing with your diaphragm instead of your throat is easy once you get used to it. To sing with your diaphragm make sure your breathing right first. When you breathe and your shoulders or chest moves, it is incorrect. If you put your hands on your stomach and breathe and your stomach is expanding and contracting, then your breathing correctly. This may take some practice, but after you get it, it will happen naturally.
    So after you've got breathing down, singing with your diaphragm is the next part. To sing with your diaphragm is to make it so your not putting so much pressure on you vocal chords. When you sing and you feel a lot of vibration on your throat, you are singing with your throat. But if you feel little vibration, you aren't

    ReplyDelete
  3. Musician6:45 PM

    I have to echo the advice of a couple other answerers. You have to practice, practice, practice.

    Some people (myself included) do not have a natural affinity for singing. There are those lucky ones who have great ears, great vocal skills, and a talent for hitting all the right notes. If you are one of those, then congratulations. Just keep practicing and you'll get even better.

    If not and you're like me, you just have to keep at it. The breathing, posture, and mechanics of sound production can all be learned, but definitely take time. When I first started, I made huge progress pretty quickly, but got to the point where I just couldn't get any better. Learning to breathe better made a difference, but I am still limited to my natural range and abilities, which aren't that great.Learn where your natural limits are, and practice at that limit and you'll become the best you can be

    ReplyDelete
  4. unknown6:47 PM

    you need to do vocal exercises on a daily basis. After 90 days of this you might be amazed at the difference it can make.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Vasundhara8:53 AM

    Great tip

    ReplyDelete
  6. Farida10:20 AM

    This was very helpful

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are very cool tips . Thanks for these very useful advices. I would try to follow. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Sometimes people don't realize how much their voice is a part of their personality. Nothing like hearing a pleasant voice on the other end of the phone.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous9:19 AM

    You definitely can train your voice too much. If you're planning on singing for that long each day, try to sing lightly. Singing and doing vocal exercises all through the day is great, but you should be careful not to strain your voice.

    It's like if you spend a night at a club or concert and you have to talk really loudly to be heard, or if you spend a day talking more than usual, your voice might be scratchy the next morning. Same thing - if you sing too much, too heavily, you'll lose tone quality and volume temporarily.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Vrinda9:04 AM

    Thank you for this post,Aparna.

    ReplyDelete

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