Archive for November, 2005

Step Up Your Spiel

You naturally talk faster when your zest to do your best gets into gear. Remember you are trying to arouse interest in what you have to say, and the fastest way to get your voice into a high gear is to step up the zeal of your spiel.

Enunciation

Your speaking voice may be pleasant, but if it isn’t loud enough who will know what you’ve said? Your vocal tones may have all the clear pear-shaped perfection of the “How now brown cow” graduate, but if your diction sounds affected, it carries no conviction. Your speech may be a masterpiece, but if your delivery is song-song, no one will know the wonderful things you came to say because the hum will lull your listeners to sleep.

Some Simple Remedies

The volume of your voice may be increased without letting it sound artificial. Do not hesitate to test its volume when you start in to speak. Ask whether you reach the outer fringes of your audience. Even the best speech falls flat when it can’t be heard, and almost all listeners appreciate a speaker’s effort to please them. The “almost all” is accentuated in a story told by Homer Livingston, President of Chicago’s First National Bank.

Livingston was addressing a group of bankers and the microphone proved to be faulty. He raised his voice and asked whether the men in the back row could hear. One of them hollered “No” and with that a chap in front stood up: “I can hear,” he called back, “and I’ll be glad to change places!

Every normal individual has the makings of a good voice and training will help to make it better. Precious few of us ever take time to improve the quality of our own voice by making it pleasing and melodious. Demosthenes, a famous Greek of long ago, had less than the rest of us. He started out as a stammerer, but history credits him with conquering his handicap. He learned to control his vocal muscles by filling his mouth with pebbles and competing with the roar of the sea.

How Does Your Voice Sound?

If your voice sounds strident, high-pitched, or has a nasal twang, you are handicapped in selling yourself. These poor qualities are hard on listeners who couldn’t be blamed for finding them distasteful to the point where they lose interest.

A monotonous drone is equally bad and could ruin the best speech ever prepared. Variety in vocal tones is important to keep the sound of your voice from becoming dull. One excellent check on the qualities of your own voice is by means of a recording, but even without that mechanical assist, a little listening practice will make you voice conscious. Listen to your voice as you speak; analyze it honestly to determine whether you sound dull, or whether you speak too slowly or deliberately. These characteristics put people to sleep and anyone guilty of such an unintended lullaby must pick up the tempo of his talk by thinking faster. Just don’t go to the other extreme and accelerate that tempo to the point where the rapid delivery will exhaust your audience and they lose the context of your thought.

How It Should Sound

A natural, clear, pleasant voice expresses friendliness as readily as an extended hand, and resonant tones convey forthrightness and sincerity. A voice that vibrates with vitality reflects a spirit of fire and force that carries conviction. A flexible voice keeps changing in volume, pitch and tempo, thus conveying fine shades of meaning and keeping people interested.

At the outset it is well to start slowly-not SO slowly though that the words drag; nor so quickly that they tumble out in confusion. Adopt a conversational manner as though speaking to a friend in private conversation. Enunciate clearly but (and here comes the commercial), “Don’t let your dentures let you down!” A high-pitched voice has all the earmarks of a nervous person. More than anything else it is this strident quality that grates on hearers’ ears. This voice can be controlled by taking several deep breaths.