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0226 - Tone In the News TONE IN THE NEWS In the UK and many other countries, broadcast news is different from the printed press in that news has to be fair, balanced and impartial. That even-handedness is not just what you say, but how you say it.   Suggesting a personal view on what you are reading, by your tone of voice could be called editorialising.   We will touch on this later when...

0225 - Auditory Disconnections We’ll look at the amount of tone and emotion a little later, but for now let’s examine a bit more, the claim that the words you say and the tone in which they are said, have to be congruent.   Think of the phrase “ I’m happy ” and you’d expect it to be said in a happy tone, bright, light, smiling, laughing.   If it’s said slowly, in a flat dull tone, it may...

0224 – Tone And Emotion “We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.” Friedrich Nietzsche - German philosopher   The right words alone won’t necessarily persuade. The tone of your voice matters too if your listeners are to believe what it is you are telling them.   Some people use the term ‘tone’ when they mean...

223 - Pitch and Politicians That having been said, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that political leaders with lower voices were perceived as more dominant and attractive. Conversely, those who spoke with higher frequencies were viewed as submissive and benevolent. [1]   Participants rated politicians’ voices with 67 adjectives such as dishonest, sca...

0222 – Pitch And Perception Pitch and perception In the past, society has judged people according to the pitch of their voice. Hopefully the days are gone, but even in the recent past, women with a high pitch may have been perceived by some as an ‘airhead’, a man with a lighter voice perhaps as effeminate. Conversely, a woman with a low voice was often seen as sexy, or indeed overly ‘masculine’. &...

0221 – Pitch Variety Try and use a wide vocal range when speaking to make what you say more interesting. Some broadcasters compress their range (say, 4,5 and 6 in our example above), thinking that that gives them more authority. It actually makes them sound flat, boring, monotonous and without feeling, reducing their ability to convey a message appropriately.   Using natural pitch diversity (...

0220 – What A Carry On! Kenneth Williams On How His Comic Voice Caused Serious Injury Forcing your voice to do anything unusual is not good, as the British comic actor Kenneth Williams recounted about the over-the-top ‘cowboy drawl’ voice he adopted, together with a misaligned jaw, when he played the part of Judge Burke in ‘Carry On Cowboy’ (1965): (AUDIO)   “…and I was doing all this on the...

0219 – What Accents Are The Most Sexy? Interested in this? Watch this video to find out more on what accents are considered sexy: https://www.bbc.co.uk/reel/playlist/the-laws-of-attraction?vpid=p09f7crq    Audio recording script and show notes (c) 2021 Peter Stewart Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, infl...

0218 – Research: Men With Deeper Voices Are More Attractive – But Cheat More In October 2020, Chinese researchers [1] claimed that although men with deep voices are more likely to attract a partner, they are also more likely to cheat on them   The team said that women are often attracted to men with low, rich voices because they are associated with high testosterone levels which, in evolution...

0217 – How Imperfect Pitch Got Jamal Into A Jam  Forcing your voice into a ‘false pitch’, can literally cramp your style.   A voice that is deliberately pushed low can sound unnaturally strained and can cause physical harm to the speaker. Additionally, if you start speaking at an enforced low pitch you will restrict your ability for natural nuance when it is necessary for selected words,...

0216 – Margaret Thatcher’s Pitch Profile   “From tape recordings of speeches made before and after receiving tuition a marked difference can be very hear. When there are played through an electronic pitch analyser, it emerges that she achieved a reduction in pitch of 46 Hz, a figure which is almost half the average difference in pitch between male and female voices.” [1]   But forcing yo...

0215 – Lowering Your Pitch Lowering your pitch Your register is not only dictated by the speed your vocal folds vibrate, but also how taught they are. So, it stands to reason that to lower it, your folds need to be less-taught. They cannot be relaxed by themselves, but only with the rest of the body. So, less stress, better posture and breathing, will all contribute to a more relaxed state overall...

0214 Politicians’ Different Pitches For Different People And Different Policies A study at UCLA [1] found that the best speakers, usually politicians, varied their voice within a single speech to appeal to listeners of different ages, genders and backgrounds, and depending on the topic being talked about.   A savvy politician may sound authoritarian when discussing foreign policy, for example...

0213 - The ‘Higher And Louder’ Pitfall We look at the volume of a voice a little later, but for now let’s take a glance its relationship with pitch, because there is a potential pitfall of using volume for emphasis, instead of pitch. Doing this might cause people to perceive your voice as shrill, and you as hysterical (something that Hillary Clinton was accused of [1] ).   Both in a studio an...

0212 - Your Pitch Range If you use a wide pitch range when speaking will help engage your audience. That’s not to say it should be super-wide: swooping up and down from sentence to sentence will make you sound very odd indeed, at best patronising at worse, manic.   No, the range needs to be appropriately engagingly expressive.   Now that you have found your natural pitch, you will realis...

0211 - Your Actual Natural Voice Pitch Now you are stress-free, and belly-breathing, simply say your name, as though you have been asked it by as new acquaintance. The pitch you use when you say that in a stress-free state is your natural pitch.   Another technique is to agree with me, yes? “ Uh-huh ” you reply and the pitch at which you say that is likely your home note. Another is to sigh....

0210 – Michael Caine on How Your Voice Pitch Can Be Affected By Nerves Nerves and Pitch When you are nervous and your body is tense it has little breath support, and you will tend to start a sentence in the upper half of your natural pitch range, which restricts your ‘intonational ability’: you simply have less ‘vocal head room’ in which you can give words and phrases their due inflection.  ...

0209 – Stressful Sally’s Story   Sally worked as a TV presenter out of a small and busy newsroom where everyone was expected to do everything. She loved her job but was concerned about the pitch of her voice, and wanted to know ways to lower it because she thought it too shrill. Would smoking help, she wondered, or maybe more late nights with friends? On visiting Sally in her office, the caus...

0208 – Your Resting Pitch Your resting pitch Your pitch will have a centre note, a ‘home’ from which you will be able to inflect words and sentences up and down within a range. It’s where your natural speaking voice mostly sits, in the centre of your vocal range, that gives you optimal resonance, the sound that you will produce without force or strain, and will make you feel and sound confident an...

0207 – Why You Sound Different To You The reason your voice sounds different to you rather than how everyone else hears it, is because of acoustics. Everyone else hears exactly the same ‘end result’ of sound from your mouth as it is heard within the situation that you are speaking – a sound-conditioned studio, the reflective surfaces of a bathroom or whatever. (At least we presume everyone hears t...

0206 - So what is ‘pitch’? Whether a voice is high or low in tone is determined by: ·        the rate of vibration of the vocal cords as air passes over them - the more vibrations per second, the higher the pitch.   And as we saw earlier, the rate of vibration is to do with: ·        the length, thickness and degr...

0205 – An Introduction to Pitch “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning” Maya Angelou - Poet and civil rights activist Definitions I try to be very careful when using language around voice, because of how terms have been used over time and the effects that’s had on people’s perceptions of explanations.   Pitch, tone and into...

0204 – Don’t Be Too Much 1.           Too much punch – you will be running short of breath 2.           Too extreme use of upward inflection – you will sound like a child 3.           Too slow on long phrases – you will sound patronisi...

0203 – Reading Out Loud Of course on radio and podcasts, when you aren’t seen, sound is all that you have to create visuals. That may be music or sound effects, and also the words that you utter, but it is your disembodied voice that creates much of the ‘picture’ on the kind of the listener. Let’s be honest, reading is an unnatural process. We have evolved over millions of years communicating via...

0202 – The Story So Far “The tongue can paint what the eyes can’t see.” Chinese proverb   You can see how our ‘voyage of the voice’ continues; let’s chart the progress we have made so far: ·        We started off talking about the basics of how to sit and breath to give the voice support ·        Then we tracked t...