IMPROVING YOUR VOICE - Christianity Today

Jack felt his voice failing. It tired quickly, whether he was singing, counseling, or preaching. It often became weak and hoarse. Frequently he had a sore throat, and he had virtually no singing voice.

Jack increasingly strained in order to be heard. He kept turning up the volume on the PA. But he suspected this was a temporary solution at best. He would have to find a more permanent answer if he wanted to continue his public ministry.

Jack is like many ministers who fill their weeks with sermons, committee meetings, and countless conversations. Unintentionally, they abuse their voices. Voice fatigue sets in. Even if they don’t develop chronic hoarseness, weakness, or vocal nodes, their effectiveness as speakers may be diminished by weakened or forced voices.

The human voice is like a musical instrument. And like a musical instrument, the voice is not always played beautifully. But you can train your voice to produce a pleasant, confident sound. As your skills increase, your voice can command more attention and strengthen the message-much as a virtuoso summons more from a musical composition than a beginner.

Some people think, God just didn’t give me a good voice for speaking or singing. It’s true that not everyone has “golden pipes,” but anyone can improve the sound of his or her voice. The point is not to develop a “stained-glass voice” but to strengthen the natural voice we’ve been given.

After six months of voice lessons, learning the proper use of vocal muscles and breathing, Jack felt his voice becoming stronger. His hoarseness and sore throats cleared up, and his voice sounded better, too.

Here are some of the things Jack discovered to help improve his voice.

Good posture

Since our bodies house our voices, good posture becomes an important prerequisite for the best use of our vocal instruments. Francesco Lamperti once said, “You don’t sing, your body sings you.”

Proper external posture means your head lines up with your back, causing your rib cage (not your shoulders) to lift. Your feet will be flat on the floor with the weight evenly distributed, your knees unlocked.

Poor posture crowds the breathing process. After adopting good posture, one speaker’s voice stayed strong to the end of his sermon for the first time.

The internal posture maintains a space inside your mouth for a perpetual “Ahh.” This helps relax your jaw and tongue and opens your throat. The volume of speech determines the size of the “Ahh”-the softer your voice, the smaller the “Ahh.” When singing, the pitch determines the space needed inside your mouth-higher notes require more room, lower notes less.

Reduced muscle tension

Tension is an enemy of good performance, whether we’re speaking, singing, or trying to sink a putt. Reduced tension means we’ll be free of tightness in our bodies generally, Lightness in our shoulders, jaws, and tongues specifically. If the muscles above and below the vocal cords relax, then the breath can freely vibrate the vocal cords in the larynx, or voice box.

Incidentally, a mirror works well as an effective, but inexpensive, teacher. Speakers can use a mirror daily as they practice to monitor their posture and watch for signs of tense muscles.

Proper breathing

The vocal process that produces sound can be divided into three basic areas: (1) the breathing technique-the activator of the sound; (2) the vocal cords-the source of the sound; (3) the resonators-the reinforcers of the sound, adding quality, volume, and control.

Much as a violin bow vibrates strings to produce sound, your breath causes your vocal cords to vibrate. The breath carries the sounds into air-filled chambers (resonators) in and behind the mouth and nose. The chambers act much like stereo speakers, adding quality and dimension to the sound.

Breathing should be free and silent with no obstruction in the way. Any tightening of the muscles above or below the larynx can inhibit the breath and keep it from carrying the sound into the resonators. When the muscles reduce the effectiveness of the breath in this way, voice fatigue and strain follow. Results can range from loss of stamina and inferior sound to chronic hoarseness and sometimes even temporary loss of voice. It can lead to a major problem: nodes developing on the cords.

“Tone can be no better than the breathing habits that gave it life,” Jan Peerce, a famous tenor, once said. Here are some steps that can help ensure effective use of the breath

Open your throat as if to begin a yawn (“Ahh”).

Relax, then open your jaw, inhaling through both your nose and mouth. Take only enough breath for a sentence.

Keeping your mouth open, speak an average length sentence (or read this one), staying relaxed the whole time.

Think of aiming the moving air about three feet in front of you. This helps keep the sound from hanging in the back of your mouth, projecting it out instead.

It also helps to imagine your lips not touching your teeth. This keeps the muscles around your mouth from tightening and allows enough room for consonants to flow over your tongue and for vowels to resonate in the chambers.

Amplify with your entire face

Sandie burst into my studio one day, interrupting a lesson with another student. “I’ve got it at last!” she exclaimed.

“What do you have?” I asked.

“I can feel the sounds vibrating in my head,” she explained.

This is often called “the mask,” a term used by the early Italian singing school. The sound of your voice vibrates your whole face, not just your mouth. We had worked for some time to achieve this. Now Sandie demonstrated her “mask”: her voice was in fact producing a new sound. Sandie learned to let her breath carry her voice, her best voice, so it would resonate properly inside her head.

Some do not like the way their voices sound. They may feel a lack of vocal confidence, thinking their voices sound unpleasant or weak. These perceptions may be caused by a lack of resonance from the mask. If your breath can freely carry your voice to the resonators in the mask, you can enhance the sound vibrations and add timbre, strength, and control. Without this, your voice may sound thin, lack color, and project poorly.

In today’s technological world, a voice with poor resonance is often amplified by microphones. That [ merely changes small, thin, uninteresting voices into loud, thin, uninteresting voices. Resonance is critical to achieve a quality sound in a voice.

Good vocal health

Friedrich S. Brodnitz, M.D., says, “To no group should the preservation of physical health be more important than to men and women who make professional use of their speaking and singing voices.” Here are some things to do to keep your body and voice in good condition: ;

Limit starch, dairy products, and rich food- especially before speaking or singing.

Walk, swim, do aerobics. These are good “toners” for the body.

Get enough rest to restore body energy. An afternoon nap may not always be possible, but strive for at least seven or more hours of sleep at night.

Never yell or force your voice. Once at Wrigley Field-on a rare day when the Cubs were winning-I discovered I could outshout others with a resonant, breath-supported voice: “Yeah Cubs! Way to go!” Fans turned to see who was making all the noise. My voice carried over the shouts around me, but I didn’t have to strain or force my voice to do it. As we left at the end of the game, however, I heard other people complaining, “I’ve lost my voice.”

Drink lots of liquids, preferably not too hot or too cold. Many speakers request ice water, but tepid water would be better. Cold contracts muscles- and vocal cords are muscles. They’d do better to be kept warm and flexible.

Avoid clearing your throat. Often this is simply a nervous habit, but it irritates your vocal cords. A good warm-up of your voice will relax the muscles and clear out the phlegm, reducing the need to clear your throat.

Avoid medicated lozenges, mint, or menthol. These dry the throat and tend to create more phlegm. Drink warm tea or water instead.

Avoid extended time in a loud environment, such as basketball games. When I attend a Portland Trail Blazers basketball game, I wear ear plugs. This protects both my hearing and my voice. Ear plugs automatically cause me to cut down the volume of my voice. Because I hear it louder inside my head, I’m not so apt to push my voice to be heard above the noise.

If there seems to be a chronic voice problem, consult a throat specialist.

Exercising your voice

Vocal exercises will help develop your voice. They should be done consistently, even on days when you have no sermon to preach or solo to sing. Most of us talk for hours each day and can abuse our voices almost as easily in conversation as in formal speaking.

After some general stretching and loosening exercises, spend five to ten minutes doing the following exercises before speaking or singing:

Loosen your jaw: Take your jaw between your thumb and index finger and shake it up and down rapidly without moving your head. Repeat, “Yah, yah, yah” vigorously. Move your jaw from side to side.

Massage your face from the hinge of the jaw to the temples. Place a finger at the jaw hinge on each side, move your fingers in a circular motion from there, up to the side of the forehead. This will relax the area and helps alleviate a tight jaw (TMJ syndrome).

Move your head slowly to one side as far as possible and then back to the opposite side. Drop your head slowly back to the shoulders and then on to the chest. This isometric exercise should be done often. I do this in the car when I stop for red lights or at my desk.

Maintaining good posture, inhale slowly. Then let out a slow, breathy sigh, starting in a high voice and going down, much like a descending fire siren.

Do the same descending breath exercises as a short sentence: “How are you? I am fine.” If you produce these sounds freely, you should have the sensation that your vocal cords are doing nothing at all. Your breath should move your voice, and the resonators should reinforce the sounds. Learn to trust these sensations, and guard against forcing your voice. When you can visualize the correct technique, the sound will take care of itself.

Practice humming a scale (from high to low) maintaining a relaxed jaw and tongue, keeping an “Ahh” space inside your mouth. Keep your lips together, but not tightly. If your breath freely moves your voice, your lips will vibrate noticeably. My husband, a preacher, always hums during a hymn before his sermon to make sure his lips tingle. This assures him he has the correct room for the breath to bring his voice forward in the mouth.

Read aloud when practicing a sermon or speech. This helps make the procedures a natural part of your speaking process. Try underscoring syllables to be stressed for better comprehension and expressiveness .

With daily practice on these techniques, your voice can be strengthened and revitalized. You might wish to evaluate your progress by recording your voice.

Rick, a pastoral student, listened carefully to his voice on tape. As a result, he gained new appreciation for the value of good vocal technique. His voice felt more relaxed the next time he preached, and his wife noticed a marked difference in its sound.

If possible, studying with a voice teacher can provide another set of ears to listen for things you cannot hear. Because the techniques for singing are so similar to those for speaking, singing instructors can often help speakers.

-Emily E. Shine

speech and voice instructor Western Seminary

Portland, Oregon