Do you know those moments when the presenter opens his or her mouth for the first time and you think: "Oh dear! It's going to be exhausting!"? And once again find confirmation: The tone makes the music. This is especially true for important lectures and presentations. That's why today it's time to train your voice! After all, it is the voice and the tone of voice that open – or close – the ear. Otherwise, even the best ideas, the most effective solutions, the best products will fizzle out. "He who insults the ear does not penetrate to the soul," said Quintilian, the Roman teacher of eloquence.
But what does the ideal voice sound like that captivates all your listeners? You guessed it: just reading a few dozen PowerPoint slides is not enough. If your preparation consists only of perfecting the graphics and practicing the slide changes, you won't achieve much.
Read in this article how to train your voice effortlessly. Because getting your voice ready for lectures and presentations is much easier than you might think. And it brings you more in no time Sovereignty and safety – and more joy: you when you give a lecture and your participants when you listen enthusiastically.
Train your voice: Which mistakes you should avoid at all costs
When you think of all the voices you experience every day, what are the most annoying no-go's for you in terms of voice and way of speaking? Lecturers, for whom voice training is a completely unknown quantity, usually let a whole series of shortcomings be heard, which could be transformed into a convincing presentation style with little effort.
What is your error hit list?
- A survey on the Xing network revealed a clear "hit list":
- Speaking too quickly and too indistinctly
- Don't take breaks when talking
- Voice that is too high or squawking
What these mistakes do
Please keep in mind: Not all of your audience members are curious and excited about your next presentation. The reality in everyday working life today is usually quite different. Session follows meeting, one presentation follows the next. One mumbles like Til Schweiger, the next speaks much too fast, the last clenches his teeth while speaking. Nobody thinks of training the voice. If you want to get through with your report, your product or your proposal, you need more than colorful slides and a designed handout. Her Persuasiveness is in demand, your vocal and linguistic eloquence.
Mumbling is exhausting
Your listeners want it easy, simple and comfortable. Indistinct pronunciation and mumbling are enormously tiring when listening. Therefore, ensure clear articulation and understandable pronunciation with tongue circles and sniffing
No result without pauses in speech
The more details you want to pack into your presentation, the more likely you are to appear rushed and speak too quickly. Keep in mind that although it is easily possible to understand words spoken very quickly, pauses in speech are needed so that your listeners can develop their own associations, conclusions and the necessary understanding in their heads.
Too high a voice will send your audience fleeing
Voices that are too high quickly seem impersonal and, in the worst case, trigger a physical alarm reaction. This is noticeable in restless movements in the audience, your listeners feel physically uncomfortable. Not a good prerequisite for good results and amicable solutions.
How to train your voice for lectures and presentations
1. With physical pleasure to clear articulation
Speaking professionals know: If you want to keep improving the sound of your voice and the way you speak, you need two internal "measuring instruments" to be able to determine the degree of improvement. Obviously, one of them is hearing. If you can't distinguish the different nuances of the voice, you recognize the moods of others too late – but you can't actively influence your own voice either. But most of my clients are surprised when they realize how essential body sensation is, the active experience and feeling of movements and tension when it comes to training your voice for lectures and presentations! The following exercises do both: they improve the expressive and The persuasiveness of your voice and train your self-awareness.
Activate your tongue for 10 seconds
If you want to be well understood, your tongue comes into the spotlight as your most important articulation muscle. The more flexible the tongue, the faster it can dash from one sound to another. Since muscles tend to shorten if you are not pushed to their limits every now and then, stretch your tongue muscle with these two simple exercises:
- Tongue circles: Silently inspect your upper or lower tooth travel with the tip of your tongue. Meticulously feel every millimeter. You can't easily reach every interdental space? Good job! Your tongue should just make a good effort! (You can do this warm-up exercise even if you're already preparing for your performance!)
- Tongue showing: Stick your tongue out as far as possible and perform exalted movements – try to reach the tip of your nose or chin with your tongue.
With kissing lips for better pronunciation
Again and again, under the title "Train your voice", you can read that you have to open your mouth wider when speaking in order to be better understood. Experience shows that this is not so easy, because our masticatory muscle (a precise stress indicator) and the tension of our lips have something against it and keep our mouths closed as a precaution.
With the following simple exercises, you can seduce your jaw and lips to have more fun speaking:
- Lip fluttering: Snort heartily like a horse, once voiceless – and then again with sound.
- Shake out the jaw and lips: Deliberately let go of the lower jaw and then shake your head so that your cheeks and jaw fly as freely as possible from left to right.
- Kisses and white frog: How flexible are your facial expressions? Anyone who talks to a poker face usually sounds like one. So move your mimic muscles properly: Protect your lips into a kissable mouth, exaggerate as you please. Then pull the corners of your mouth outwards as if you wanted to touch your ears. And once again to the kissing lips and back. Enhance the effect by pursing your mouth with a strong "mööö" – and then imitating a white frog with an exaggerated "määäää".
2. In 60 seconds to a full, voluminous voice
Train your voice – many people suspect that this involves lengthy and demanding acrobatics of the vocal cords. However, you can only achieve more vocal volume and expressiveness if you look at your whole body as an instrument, from your head (articulation) to gestures (responsible for varied speech) to your feet (which represent your point of view).
As in sports, your instrument body needs to be briefly prepared and warmed up before performance. This doesn't take long and brings surprising improvements.
Find out more here: Talk and present better with these 9 laws of rhetoric
Mobility to more vocal volume
Voice and speech professionals know: The voice is audible body language. In other words, voice training always means activating the body. The way you stand and the way you gesticulate, that's how you sound. Therefore, activate your body awareness and muscle tone with a few short exercises before each performance. You will also strengthen your charisma and your physical presence in the room.
- Churn: Start walking at the stand, but deliberately let your arms and shoulders droop. Your shoulders will probably bounce up and down slightly as a result. Now strengthen your vocal awareness by letting you hear a relaxed "aaaaaa". Does the tone change with every movement? Now shift your center of gravity a little forward while running at the stand. Can you hear your voice getting stronger now?
- Shoulders circle: This is how you warm up your gestural range of action. First let your shoulders circle with your arms hanging down, then let your arms circle right and left like windmill wings. The more relaxed your shoulders and the more flexible your elbows are when speaking, the more pleasantly your voice modulates up and down. In this way, you can speak melodiously and attract the attention of your listeners again and again without any effort.
- Chew the air ball: Close your lips slightly and puff up your cheeks while intoning a long-drawn "mmmm". Now start chewing on this "m" with your cheeks still puffed up, as if it were a large ball of air that you are holding enclosed in your mouth. If you then succeed in creating the feeling that you want to yawn (which lowers the base of the tongue), you belong frankly and freely to the advanced. In technical jargon, this basic voice exercise is called "chewing" and is not missing in any professional warm-up program, as it significantly increases the sonority of the voice with very little effort.
Yours sincerely,
Arno Fischbacher
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Read Also:
- Perform confidently, but how?
- What particularly annoys listeners!
- Video Watch "More power in the voice, that's how it works!" on Youtube
- Three tips for a deep and powerful voice
Arno Fischbacher is a business voice coach and rhetoric expert, speaker and author. He prepares executives and employees of the top companies in Germany and Austria for negotiations, presentations and media appearances. Fischbacher is the author of several books, past president of the German Speakers Association (GSA) Austria, chairman of the European Network of Voice Experts, stimme.at.
If you would like to learn more about specific training opportunities with Arno Fischbacher, make an appointment here free information talk.
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