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Improving your Tone of Voice

By Chris Harrison - Posted July 2004

When you improve your tone of voice, you will discover how easy it is to get people to respond to you in a positive and accommodating fashion.

It's one of the most important skills for getting on in life.

Exercise 1: Moving your voice around

Press your hand on your nose and say "nose".

Concentrate on your nose as you repeat the word until you can feel your nose vibrating.

Now do the same exercise with your hand on your throat saying "throat".

And finally on your chest saying "chest".

Keep practicing until you can really feel the vibration in each place.

Notice how different each one sounds.

Starting from a high note say 'ar' (as in the letter r) keeping your mouth open allow the note to drop down until your breath runs out.

Repeat this ten times.

Starting from a low note say 'ou' (As in you without the y), allowing the note to rise until you cannot support the sound.

This sound may remind the British reader of Frankie Howard.

Repeat this ten times.

To use your voice correctly it must resonate in the 'mask'.

This is the facial area surrounding the nose and mouth.

There are two ways to do this:

Hum at whatever pitch is most comfortable for you. Once you have found your pitch then hum 'umm' followed immediately by the word 'ready'. Do this a few times, then try the words 'now', 'one', 'two', 'three'.
Hum and then allow your lips to vibrate. You are attempting to sound like a dove. Allow the pitch to rise and fall. This is very difficult if there is any tension in the jaw or face. Done correctly for a few minutes, your face will start to feel numb.

After a couple of minutes using these methods you should notice that your voice sounds crisper and the sound has better attack.

The best way to improve is to spend about 5 minutes a day going through these exercises.

If you drive to work on your own then there is no excuse not to improve your tone daily!

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