SKILLS FOR ENHANCING VOICE POWER

SKILLS FOR ENHANCING VOICE POWER

Every budding student wants to improve his ability to enhance his voice power. These days business schools are organizing stage shows, dramas etc so that student managers can hone their skills in throwing their voice to their best advantage when they face the listeners.
For stage actors, this skill is extremely valuable for their professional advancement. In modern production methodologies for movies, „acting‟ part is separated from the „dubbing‟ part and actors either learn formally or through repeated experience how to modulate their voice, increase or decrease the pitch, tone and speed of delivery to make the maximum impact on the scene that is being dubbed.
Successful orators spend hours in practicing their speeches. They pre-decide the points of importance and how to modulate the voice so that they can impact the understanding of the listeners most. Every significant stop or pause is well thought of. The positioning of anecdotes, humorous or otherwise, is thought out before hand and executed with finesse.
National and international leaders get their speeches written by reputed persons who know their style of delivery. Even so, these speeches are pre-tested with a select audience of critics, political and other thinkers who listen to the draft speech carefully, give their valuable suggestions on content and delivery and even suggest changing and chopping of critical sentences etc.
Whatever be the level of the speaker, in addition to the suggestions as above, they should also indicate corrections to the draft speech. These usually relate to:

 Pronunciation
 Enunciation
 Speed of delivery
 Pitch of the voice
 Pauses

These are detailed as under:

(1) Pronunciation

Pronunciation imparts life to the words. Leaders who are international travellers, global trainers etc have to spend time learning the way the pronunciation changes among communities and countries. These also change in different parts of the same country as is common in India. If speakers can learn and quickly adapt to the local lingua, the impact of their message goes a long way.

(2) Enunciation

Enunciation and tone of the voice go together. Some sentences, anecdotes play central role in conveying the message and need to be enunciated properly and correctly by varying the tone of the voice to suit the story in the message. Suggestions to improve their rendering in a speech are fetching and speakers should learn to modify the speech from possible listeners‟ point of view.

(3) Speed of delivery

Some speakers deliver their speeches very fast while others are very slow and boring. The correct speed is between 150 to 200 words. Anything above 200 words per minute is fast. The only exception to this rule is the need to enunciate the message. If faster delivery for a few sentences is required to make the right impact, it should be so incorporated in the speech.

(4) Pitch of the voice

Husky voice may be an asset for an actress. Most speakers have to use the mike to deliver the speech. For such persons, ensuring use of the right pitch of the voice is important. That would also be comfortable for the audience who are the customers as the message is intended for them.

(5) Pauses

Pauses are like punctuations in a written message. They should be observed at the right places. It makes the speech more effective. Effective speakers pause just before making an important point and sometimes, even after making an important point to ensure that it has been well received. Absence of pauses distracts listeners.
A few deep breaths at the beginning of a formal speech and correct breathing throughout the delivery embellish a speech.