Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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A Voice like Honey - 5
Following on my little series of posts about improving our speaking voice, you may be interested in a little exercise that can help free up your voice so it has more resonance.
When we're under pressure to present something at a meeting, or at a job interview, or making a speech we can often experience tension creeping into our neck and voice. In the previous post I referred to a blog I wrote about how to free your neck from tension and if you haven't read this, you may find it helpful.....at least I hope you might!
With regards to freeing up our own voice, it's helpful if we can endeavour to make as little effort as possible, while also allowing the loudness to be sufficient to carry. Effort does not equal loudness; the volume is made by the way we make the sound, not by force. Indeed it's often the case, when we make less effort, the sound will be more pure, with more harmonics within the sound that will help it carry great distances.....without strain.
This is an exercise of humming through closed lips but will be developed in to a more open sound later. As always it will be helpful to ensure that your poise is as upright and free as possible to allow your vocal mechanism to function well.
Bring yourself up to your full stature, free your neck, shoulders and back. Remain upright and endeavour to be relaxed.
1. Free your neck by allowing your nose to drop slightly.
2. Allow your head to ‘teeter’ on top of your spine.
3. Let your tongue lie relaxed on the floor of your mouth with the tip of it just behind your lower teeth.
Now we will hum.
4. Choose a note that is in your mid range to hum through closed lips.
5. Do not purse your lips. Just allow them to touch each other lightly.
6. Listen to your sound and detect whether it is husky, breathy, or tight sounding.
7. Try and relax your lips and cheeks so they can freely vibrate. You may even sense them quiver.
8. Work on your sound and experiment with using the minimum of air, so that it doesn’t come out excessively through your nose and at the same volume. The sound should be clear, free, pure, resonant, with ‘bite’.
9. Choose a slightly lower note and sense the resonant vibrations in your chest.
10. Choose a higher note and sense the vibrations higher in your head.
Ensure that you do not force the sound, and stop before you run out of breath. Make your hums last 3-4 seconds long. Don’t over reach too high or low. Use your comfortable vocal range and always use less effort rather than more. Don't worry about loudness. Just see if you can make a lovely pure sound that's not forced, that's not husky but with a little more resonance than usual. Do this exercise for just 2-5 minutes then have another go another time. Little and often is far better than doing one long stint then getting tired.
Remember, stop after 2-5 minutes. Use the 'little and often' approach and you'll make far quicker progress.
To see all the posts in this series 'A Voice Like Honey' click Here.
