How Diaphragmatic Breathing Is Linked to Your Voice -Blog Series: #5 TONE

​Do you like the sound of your voice?
It’s the tone of voice that will get your listener to pay attention whether it enraptures your audience members or annoys them?

Disruption of sound occurs when it doesn’t match with what your listeners are expecting because they hear a different pitch, pace, inflection, range, or rhythm which creates noise to their ears. This annoyance could be because your tone of sounds hoarse, whiny, breathy, loud, boring, or any other pattern that is out of sync with the natural sound patterns your listeners are familiar with.

However, sometimes a speaker wants to create a noise for a specific reaction in the delivery of a story for a dramatic effect, which would heighten the climax or emotional reaction.

Vocal Tone is the combination of your vocal pitch level and how it is resonated in your chest, nasal, and oral cavities as it passes out of your mouth and heard by the listener.

Two things that will help you to improve your tone:

1. Locate where your best pitch level is to fit your best voice. This is not always where you have been normally speaking all your life.
   • Say the “a” or “o” vowel from your lowest pitch level to your highest by going up the scale.  Then reverse it by going down. Next combine saying your sound scaling up and down. Repeat this routine a few times; then end at the mid tone level of your vocal pitch.
   • Next, drop this mid tone down a notch. Repeat a continual sound at this mid level by adjusting it slightly with any nuance that you find sounds right.

 

1. Recognize the difference between nasal, oral, and full chest resonance so you avoid hearing any excessive nasality where it’s not needed. You can do this by recording yourself and listening, and by feeling the vibration in either your nose, throat, or lower chest.
   • Feel the full vibration of your sound by placing your hand on you lower chest. It helps you concentrate if you close your eyes to feel the sound vibrating.
   • Compare your chest vibration with any nasality by placing one hand on your chest and the other with your fingers touching both sides of your nose.
   
   
   

The link to your voice through Diaphragmatic Breathing is to support your volume and strength of tone with adequate breath power. In addition to the fact that that your breath pressure opens your pharynx in the mouth and through your lips, it provides a fuller resonant tone in your chest cavity. Of course, diaphragmatic breathing regulates the amount of air you can manage better for pace, timing, ongoing inflection and your pitch levels.
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If you’re ready to enhance your vocal presence when you speak immediately then apply the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing. A fuller resonance in your chest instead of your head area will give you the variety of tone, your optimal pitch level, and your flexible range.
 
If you would like some exercises to discover your best tone take a look at Chapter Five on Tune Your Tone in “Breathing…Just Steps to Breathtaking Speeches” by Speech Coach, Brenda C. Smith.
Have you read the previous Blog# 1, 2, 3, and 4 in this Series on How Diaphragmatic Breathing Is Linked to Your Voice?

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