Why do we hate the sound of our speaking voices when we hear them on a recorder? How is it that we’re so shocked at what we hear when we listen to ourselves for the first time?
Why do we avoid listening to ourselves whenever possible?
We’ve been listening to that smooth, resonant voice in our heads our whole lives. It’s quite shocking to hear that other person on the recorder. That’s not me!
Here we’ll go over why you hate your speaking voice & how to improve the sound of your speaking voice forever.
You're likely not using your natural speaking voice.
I’m always shocked at how few people know they aren’t using their natural voice.
If you haven’t learned how to use your voice correctly, you’re most likely speaking with a voice that is negatively impacted by physiological tension. It gets worse.
Your speaking voice will start to show signs of aging. But you can stop that too by following these same techniques.
You’ve heard people with gorgeous speaking voices. They learned how to relax their vocal mechanism and use air for speech, and they practiced it. You can too.
You can improve the sound of your speaking voice.
Ok, so you’ve been listening to your beautiful, melodious, resonant voice in your head your whole life, and then suddenly, one day, you heard it on a recorder. You, aghast, thought to yourself, “How in the world do I have any friends?… How can people stand listening to me?!” People hate their voices in this article.
Or did you think, “That recorder is wrong! That’s not at all what I sound like!”?
Well, the recorder wasn’t wrong. That is what you sound like. It’s shocking when you’ve been listening to that gorgeous voice in your head day in & day out. Unfortunately, thin, higher-pitched voices are more challenging for people to hear & process.
People have to work to understand your message. Also, that thin voice doesn’t help people to take you seriously & they’ll likely pass over your fantastic suggestions. Moreover, people can misunderstand your message just because of your voice.
Here’s a video on How to Improve the Sound of Your Voice
How to improve the sound of your speaking voice.
Every person in the world can improve their speaking voice to an incredible degree. Here are the steps you need to know.
- Eliminate the tension in your vocal mechanism.
- Use abdominal breathing.
- Let your voice take a ride on your exhalation.
- Glue the words in your phrases together.
- Pause between the phrases, and take another breath in.
Let’s dive deeper:
Why your voice is different in your head.
Are you shocked that the sound of your voice on a recorder is totally different than the one you hear in your head? Some of my clients suggest that the one on the recorder isn’t their actual speaking voice. I hate to break it to you. The voice on the recorder is your actual speaking voice.
Here’s why: Speech is air molecules that vibrate. Speech is sound and sound travels along a path of molecules, bouncing and vibrating along the way. You hear your voice through bone conduction, which is denser than air conduction. And air conduction is how everyone else hears you. So remember that thick, full, resonant gorgeous voice? It’s only in your head. Welcome to the higher pitch, thin resonance, non-projecting voice that everyone else in the room (barely) hears.
You can fix your speaking voice.
But do not despair! There’s a solution & it takes very little time. I’m going to teach you how to improve the sound of your voice! It takes just a few weeks of training and results in your using your true voice.
After your training, you’ll have use of your true voice permanently! Follow my process to the T (it’s easy!), and you’ll end up with a full, resonant magnetic voice that people will adore listening to!
So if you want to learn to improve the sound of your voice because it sounds tinny or thin or because you’re not heard across the room, the following exercises & links are for you.
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Want to be more influential? We all want to communicate our most important messages in a way that encourages others to take action. Whether that action is voting for our candidate or picking up milk from the store, the words we use and how we speak play a huge role in getting the job done.
Steps to Improve the Sound of Your Voice
The first thing you need to do is to eliminate the tension in your throat. The stress & anxiety of our everyday lives manifest themselves into our musculature. Mostly the musculature of your upper body & that of your vocal mechanism. The tension from high-stakes situations you put yourself into remains in your vocal mechanism.
Remove Tension from your Vocal Mechanism
First, we need to accept that the tension is there. Second, we need to find it. One way to find it is to create it. Try this exercise:
- Take a breath in & tense up the muscles inside of your throat
- Hold it for 3 seconds while focusing on the tension,
- Then let the tension & the air go at the same time.
Try that a few times a day for a few days. What you’ll find as a result is: you’re able to start locating the tension that already exists and eliminate it! If you lose your voice frequently you’ll want to follow the instructions in the link.
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Let that gorgeous voice out!
The next thing you need to do is use abdominal breathing and then use that abdominal breathing for your speech. Let your voice take a ride on the air. Listen to yourself on the recorder, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. 🙂
The smartphones have voice note apps already installed. or you can download one of your choosing. Nothing you’re good at has come without practice, why should improving the sound of your speaking voice be any different?
Don’t be afraid to sound breathy–just make sure you match your voice to your air.
Use back resonance.
Next, you need to use a back resonance. Say, what?!
Back resonance results in that full, magnetic speaking voice we talked about. Here’s how to speak better with a magnetic voice. That article has some infographics & details on how to obtain a back resonance to improve the sound of your voice.
Here’s my video on how to use back resonance to make your voice sound amazing
Your speaking voice will be so amazing that you'll get peoples' attention & hold it!
Alright. People can hear you, and they’re listening, hurray!
Now you have to keep their attention & get them to do what you say. That’s where intonation comes in.
Here’s my 2-minute video on how to maintain people’s attention.
Using excellent rhythm will not only uphold people’s attention, but it gets them to really process your message swimmingly and as a result, follow your call to action with minimum resistance.
An Introduction to Accent Reduction
This brief introduction will get you started on the road to speaking Standard American English.
Most of my clients end up doing voice-overs even when their careers were completely different. Read the story of one of my clients who ended up on national television & doing the voice-overs for the theater.
Your body language also impacts your speaking voice.
Have a closed body? Most likely, you also have a tight voice. Once you open up your body (meaning not crossing your extremities, keeping your arms open, etc.) Try these body language fixes to help you open up your voice and let your awesome out. What’s the result? You getting what you need out of life!
Your speaking voice presents your verbal brand to the world.
What?! You haven’t heard of your verbal brand? It’s your voice that gives people loads of information about you right off the bat. Is your voice making you sound authoritative yet warm? Continue to improve the sound of your voice with the above exercises, and it will.
Your words & your tone determine how you make people feel. Just saying, “Hi, how are you?” with a gorgeous, fully resonant voice makes people really feel good. Pair it with a smile & they just want to spend more time with you! With this article, you can create your verbal brand.
To sum it up: No one was born with a perfect speaking voice & everyone can benefit from improving their voices. You can & must enhance the sound of your voice if you want to continue to get better & better. The results are life-changing.
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I love reading your blog because I always learn something new! I hadn’t heard of “back resonance” before, what an interesting thing, I really like how you explain it in the video. My latest resonance obsession has been the “singer’s formant,” at around 2800-3400Hz and resonantes in the *listener’s* ear canal. I find something magical about that…
You are so sweet, Gwendolyn!
Great tips here. I can implement a few of those that will help me be more effective when I speak. Cheers!
Cheers!
Let me know how it goes 🙂
Great article. Lot of useful techniques.
I appreciate that, Srini!
Thank you!
I’m having a hard time keeping my body open. I feel more comfortable with my arms and legs crossed.
That’s totally normal, Krista. It’s hard for us humans to control our bodies when there’s a lot at stake. Practice in some easier situations. When you get good at it then try keeping your body open in moderately challenging situations. Once you’ve mastered that, then you’ll be able to keep your body open in high-stakes scenarios.
My recommendation would also be to learn to control your body using my relaxation techniques. You can do that using The Voice Spa https://conveyclearly.com/course_cf_page/voice-spa/
Let me know how it goes whatever you do!
This is really an eye-opening piece. It is like a wake-up call for my throat and I guess, not many people realize how important it is.
These are awesome tips and you include a few things most people don’t realize they are doing
Like most people, I absolutely hate the sound of my voice. I am fascinated after reading about why your voice sounds different in your head. I have that voice that no one can ever hear and it has been very frustrating over the years. I am 100% going to start practicing the voice exercises tonight.
“that thin voice doesn’t help people to take you seriously & they’ll likely pass over your fantastic suggestions.”
I love this!
“that thin voice doesn’t help people to take you seriously & they’ll likely pass over your fantastic suggestions.”
I love this!
People will do anything, spend any amount of money to change or improve their appearance, but will do nothing to improve their voice and speech.
Thank you for your kind words.
About people not changing their voice and speech, I don’t know if that’s true for everyone. I know a lot of people who want to improve their speech and voice 😀
But I see what you mean; some people feel like there’s something wrong with them if their communication skills aren’t perfect. But of course, just like anything else we do well, we have to work on our communication skills if we want to be perceived as smart and if we want to be influential. That’s the name of the game.