AN EFFECTIVE SPEAKING VOICE The power of voice comes from projection Don’t raise your pitch.
Don’t raise your pitch. Make sure your pitch
Our voice, a God-given gift, is an important
instrument in conveying meaning and feeling.
It plays a very significant role in
communicating thought. This oral
representation of words is the expression of
the speaker’s mental and emotional states,
together with his/her attitudes at the time of
speaking.
THE DESIRABLE SPEAKING VOICE
Voice is the raw sound produced when the
surging air from the lungs vibrates the vocal
cords in the throat. It can exist without speech,
but speech cannot exist without it.
Identifying your strength and weaknesses in
speaking is the first step toward the
development of an effective speaking voice. It
therefore, pays to know the five most
desirable characteristics of voice. They are as
follows:
Audibility
The voice should be loud enough to hear.
Pleasantness
It should be pleasing to the ears. It is your
natural voice, which is low, well-modulated,
resonant and mellow.
Clarity
It is clear and distinct enough to be
understood.
Flexibility
It has ready capability for modification or
change. This readiness in making adjustments
makes it versatile enough to carry the greatest
possible amount of meaning.
Fluency
It is articulate and effortless. Like fluid, it
flows smoothly and easily.
VOICE PROJECTION
mood. This may also depend on the though
rather than mere volume. Often, voice
projection is mistakenly identified with
loudness. Projection may be related to
loudness but it is not all loudness. It is not
exclusively dependent upon the force with
which the air from the lungs strikes the vocal
bonds. It depends on three thing: the force of
your breath, clarity of articulation and the
muscular energy with which you from your
words.
For effective voice projection, the following
factors may be done in combination:
Direct your voice with controlled vocal force
trough proper breath management. Proper
breathing gives vocal energy.
Makes your voice sound as if you are
sincerely alert of your thoughts and feelings.
Show your genuine desire and interest to
communicate with your listener. It is not
merely speaking for the heck of it. Speaking
because you simply have to say something is
different to say.
Use your body, especially your face to show
this interest in communicating with your
listeners. Facial expressions, meaningful
gestures and movements, an alert posture, and
eye-to-eye contact, are extremely useful even
in projecting the thoughts and feelings of your
speech.
Develop greater precision, sharpness and
clarity of articulation through an active use of
your articulators in conjunction with the
points of articulation.
Expand fully the stressed vowel sounds of
your speech by using the three elements of
stress: intensity, pitch, duration.
Take care not fall into the tendency to push up
the pitch of your voice when you want to
increase its volume.
EXECISES ON PROJECTION:
Count aloud from one to ten, starting at low
volume and getting progressively louder.
always remains even and unchanging.
Say “ah” softly. Prolong the sound at normal
pitch level. Gradually increase the loudness in
a monotone as long as the breath lasts.
Imagine your target is walking far away.
Reach him with your voice until a distance of
about twenty feet is spanned. Then, decrease
the loudness slowly as if the person is getting
nearer.
Say “hey”
a) to someone besides you
b) to someone seven feet away from you
c) to someone at a disco
d) to someone across a narrow street
PITCH
Pitch is the relative position of a tone in a
scale. It refers to the higher or lowness of the
voice when you speak. An effective voice
makes use of a wide ranges of pitches. In
English, your pitch may range from low,
normal, high and extra high. You rely on these
pitch changes to make thoughts emphatic and
to suggest emotional attitudes.
HERE ARE EXERCISE TO CORRECT
YOUR PITCH RANGE:
Practice changing pitch. Say and do the
following:
I can make my voice go higher and higher.
I can make my voice go lower and lower
Practice changing pitch up and down within
the space of a few words. Try saying the
following in four different ways by raising the
pitch on each of the following sentence has a
raised pitch.
I will help you. I will help you. I will help
you.
TEMPO
Tempo is the rate by which we speak. It refers
to the number of words uttered within a given
time. This is another indicator of the speaker’s
being expressed. Serious ideas would be said
slowly while exciting stories would be told in
a faster rate.
VOICE INTENSITY
Intensity refers to the volume of the voice or
the loudness with which we speak. This tone
amplification is done not by the constriction
or tightening of the throat but by the force of
the expiratory air stream and the efficient use
of the resonators.
TYPES OF COMMUNICATION
1.) Intrapersonal –is the communication
within oneself. It involves thinking,
remembering and feeling… all things we do
internally.
2.) Interpersonal –is communication among a
relatively small number of people. Much of
our communication takes place at this level. It
may be:
a. Dyadic –this is communication between
two people. It may be face to face such as
ordinary conversations, dialogs, or interviews.
Telephone conversations is also dyadic.
b. Tryadic –this communications participated
in by three people.
c. Small Group –Here, more than three people
communicate. This is the enlarge type of
communication usually done to solve
problems. The committee, panel, symposium,
brainstorming and small business meetings are
good examples of small group
communication.
3.) Public Communication –this involves
communication between one and several other
people. This is large group type of
communication. A public speech is an
example. Primarily, it is a monologue one
engages in rather that a dialog.
4.) Mass Communication –This convers other
forms of public communication. These are the
printed form , radio, television, and the
movies. The tools materials used are called formulated and organized to answer a need to
mass media. communicate.
5.) Organizational Communication –is 3. Encoding - The ideas, which have been
communication in the organization. It may be organized in the ideation stage, are put into
horizontal or vertical. The letter one may be code to make transmission possible. To
upward or downward. represent these ideas, symbols in the form of
sounds or words are made use of.
ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION
4. Transmission - The encoded message is
The SENDER –is the speaker or the
sent through a chosen appropriate channel or
communicator who has his/her own purpose,
medium. The choice hinges on the sender’s
knowledge, interest, attitudes, skill and
purpose in sending the message. He sees to it
credibility.
that it is free from barriers or interference to
The MESSAGE –is the idea being transmitted insure a good reception of the message.
by the sender to the listener. It includes the
5. Reception - The message, which has been
three aspects of content, structure, and style.
sent through a medium selected by the sender,
The CHANNEL –is the medium or vehicle reaches the receiver.
through which the message is sent. It may be
6. Decoding - The codes or symbols used to
verbal or visual. The letter is often
transmit message are converted into ideas or
supplemented with the pictorial and aural
mental images to be interpreted by the
channels.
receiver.
The RECIEVER –is the target of the
7. Understanding - The message, which has
communication. S/he is the destination of the
been transformed into thought or mental
message, the listener, with his/her own
images, having been interpreted now becomes
purpose, knowledge, and interest levels,
clear to the receiver. If s/he does not, because
attitudes and listening skills.
of certain barriers, miscommunication set in.
The FEEDBACK –is the reaction given by the
8. Action - This is the last stage of the
listener to the sender of the message. It is what
communication process. The receiver
completes the communication process.
responds to the message received by sending
THE COMMMUNICATION PROCESS feedback This there, however. The feedback
sent in turn, serves as stimulus that may
Essential in establishing a communication are trigger the communication cycle to go on. As
five elements: a sender, a message, a channel, communication continues, so do the taking of
a receiver, and feedback. turns and switching of roles between the
STAGES OF THE COMMUNICATION speaker and the listener.
PROCESS
1. Stimulus/Stimuli - This is the triggering
event of the communication process. It may be
in the form of event, conditions, situations,
feelings or emotions, which urge the message
sender to communicate and start the ideas to
be verbalized.
2. Ideation - Based on the idea fed by the
stimulus, an idea or several ideas are