Page 326 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 11 Delivery: Engaging Your Audience 293

in advance of the day you are scheduled to speak. Until the correct pronuncia-
tion becomes a habit, you cannot be sure that you will be able to speak terms
as they are intended to be spoken. That requires repetition and lots of practice
using the terms in the body of your speech.
In the fi nal analysis, judgments about the relationship between the qualities
of your voice and the quality of your delivery will depend on the preceding
characteristics operating in concert. Important as pitch or tempo may be on
their own, it is their collective impact with range and rhythm that most counts.

Speaking in Your Own Voice

With these qualities of voice in mind, let’s now turn to your voice specifi cally. Are
you pleased with the way it sounds and complements your overall delivery? No
matter how you answer this question, it is just as important for you to fi nd your own
voice as a speaker as it is for authors to fi nd their own voice when they write. We
mention this need to fi nd your own voice with good reason. When public speak-
ing students are advised to make better use of their voice in their delivery, all too
often they take this to mean they must change their voice to some ideal. The ideal,
moreover, is usually thought to be the voice of a television or radio personality.
We don’t encourage you to imitate the vocal delivery of someone who hosts a
game show, reads the news, or introduces music videos. Instead, we encourage you
to experiment with your voice; for example, record your attempts to convey vary-
ing emotions in your voice, listen to yourself, and then repeat the process. This
kind of exercise will let you hear what your vocal strengths and weaknesses are.
In the process, be realistic but not unfairly harsh about how you think you sound.
Chances are, what you think you hear is much different from what others hear.
Finally, recognize that important as it is, your voice is but a single component
of your overall delivery. Not all good speakers have tremendous “pipes.” For
example, the Today Show’s Matt Lauer and Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts
are both engaging, but their voices would hardly be described as rich in timbre.
Further, if you were to listen to a number of paid speakers, you would see that
this is the case with them as well. All of us tend to underutilize the full potential
of our voices. What ultimately counts, then, is whether we’re willing to do the
hard work necessary to rectify this fact.
Tips and Tactics
Improving Your Voice

Like it or not, people will make judgments about you based on the way you
sound. Although we want you to be comfortable with your voice, the following
tips may help you if you think something about your voice needs to be changed.
• Relaxation: More than one problem with voice can be solved by monitoring
tension in your vocal apparatus. Nasality, shrillness, or screeching, and
excessive rate of speech are often a consequence of tension/stress. The same
relaxation techniques discussed in Chapter 3 can be used to alleviate the
impact of tension/stress on your voice.
• Vocal variation: Audio-record yourself or have someone record you when you
speak. If you fi nd as a result of monitoring your audiotape that greater vocal
variation is needed, pick out someone whose vocal characteristics you admire