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0101 – Two More Reasons Our Mouth Clicks And Pops Mouth-shape pops and clicks We are of course all made slightly differently, and there’s a million varieties in the shape, size and position of all our ‘bits to help us broadcast’ – it’s why we all sound a bit different from each other. So some people will inevitably suffer more from ‘mouth noises’ than others. That may be a click in the jaw (as we...

0100 – Clicks From Your Jaw Tension clicks So far, we have talked about the mouth and throat, but there may also be clicks from tension caused in your jaw. Inevitably, physical and psychological relaxation techniques work well to dissipate this tension, but if you often hear your jaw popping or clicking, it can be a sign of TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder. This is to do with the your ‘jaw j...

0099 – The ‘Glottal Choke’ Mouth Noise Nervous glottal choke This is nervous tension at the back of the throat which stops you speaking naturally and you can simply stop mid-way through a word, often on a glottal ‘k-sound’, and it’s almost like a small choke.   It’s something I have experienced a few times when presenting on stage, and as I say, have put it down to tension. A sip of water can...

0098 – Sidebar on Saliva: What Actually Is It?   The mouth has saliva – 99 percent water and a variety of electrolytes, including sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, and phosphates. We make about three pints of it a day. [1]   Saliva helps you taste, makes it easier to chew and swallow and washes away food particles. Its enzymes aids digestion and helps prevent tooth deca...

0097 – ‘Wet Mouth’ Sounds: Causes and Solutions   ‘Too much hydration’ related mouth smacks – caused by over-salivating It’s odd that our old ‘foe’ tension can cause too little or too much saliva to be produced.   As well as helping to lubricate our tongue for its speaking role, we also produce saliva to help chew and swallow food. So, if you eat soon before you speak on air, your saliva...

0096 – Why You Should Take ‘Dry Mouth’ Super Seriously   A dry mouth may actually be caused by xerostomia, when the glands in your mouth simply don't make enough saliva.   This could be because of: Medications Aging Cancer therapy Legal and illegal drugs And – diabetes and stroke and of course snoring and breathing with your mouth open! Signs to spot: Dryness or stickiness in your mouth...

0095 – Stopping Hydration-Related Mouth Clicks In The Studio During the recording: ·        Don’t guzzle lots of water ·        Wash the water around the mouth before swallowing it ·        Eat green apple slices or sip fresh pineapple juice ·      &...

0094 – How To Stop Hydration-Related Mouth Clicks From Happening Reducing hydration-related mouth clicks and smacks Leave the scary mouth noises to the monsters you may be animating, by doing as many of these as you can before you go into a live or recording studio: ·        Being well hydrated – as ‘horse’ goes with ‘cart’, ‘air’ goes with ‘water’! Yes, H20...

0093 – Hydration-related Mouth Clicks 1.      Hydration-related mouth clicks We’ve all been in a situation in a studio, where we’ve needed some water for vocal lubrication. Indeed, it’s literally called ‘drying up’, when your mouth is as dry as the Sahara, your cheeks are like sandpaper and you’ve a tongue like a Ryvita crispbread.   Pops, clicks and smacks are t...

0092 – The Seven Kinds Of Extra Weird Mouth Noises MOUTH NOISES These are the pops, clicks and smacks that can be heard as someone speaks.   They may be amplified by a microphone and audio processing [1] to such a degree it can sound as though you’ve been eating Rice Krispies, or gargling with space dust. [2]   The seven kinds of extraneous oral noises: 1.     &n...

0091 – Relaxing Your Mouth For your articulators to work properly you must have a relaxed mouth to allow your tongue and soft palate to move freely. Try saying some of the words above through clenched-teeth! Now go to pronounce the word “ go ” (!) and feel how the back of your tongue and soft palate move? An issue that I have noticed when people come to me wanting better articulation or resonance,...

0090 - Relaxing Your Tongue Of course, there’s more to your tongue than meets the eye – literally. It is longer and has a deeper root than you may imagine and indirectly connects (via the hyoid bone) to your larynx. Therefore a ‘tense tongue’ will affect your voice. So, it’s another reminder to de-stress to sound your best: relax all the tension from your shoulders and neck. And try and monit...

Bilabial sounds are made with both lips W ood M an B a b y S p y     From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name,...

Labiodentals  are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth. E V ery F all     From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It'...

Interdental consonants are produced by placing the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth Brea th e Th ought     From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars....

Alveolar consonants are made with the tip of tongue T op D a d S ad Z ebra Bu tt er N ope L ight From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the sa...

Post-alveolar sounds are articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the throat. R ead Sh ould A s ia  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio v...

Palatal is the name given to sounds that come when the body of the tongue is raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth).  Y es  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voi...

Velar sounds are created with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum). C at G o Si ng  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podca...

I am fascinated by this area of phonetics!, so let’s take a look how different English-language word-sounds are formed and by what (sometimes very small) change in what articulators: Glottal sounds are made by obstructing the airflow in the vocal tract, the glottis. U h- o h From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, d...

Not every language makes use of all the potential articulators. You may know people personally or maybe a celebrity whose first language is not English and who perhaps has difficulty pronouncing the letter ‘L’. As an English speaker you will no doubt have trouble with some of the more back-of-throat sounds that our French, Spanish and German friends pronounce like natives (!). Even within a langua...

So, different sounds of speech are formed in different ways as the articulators do verbal gymnastics inside your mouth.   Now say the phrase “My to-do list: quickly send that dog a letter”.   And now say it really s-l-o-w-l-y, and concentrate on all the work that is going on in your mouth as you say this series of vowels and sounds. The lips purse, the tongue curls like a wave, tucks in...

The muscle with the longest name of any in the human body is right here connecting with the lips. It’s the levator labii superiosis alaeque nasai and its main job is to open the nostrils and move the upper lip into a ‘snarl-like’ expression, and so it’s sometimes called 'The Elvis Muscle’. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO...

Say the word “crisp”. Easily huh? But it’s actually made up five letters, and five distinct sounds, which are each formed in a distinct way. So, now say “crisp” really slowly and deliberately, sounding out each individual part, and realise how various articulators move to create them. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is...

The tongue is not one muscle but eight. They run in all three directions: from front to back, from the sides to the middle and from top to bottom.   Parrots’ thick tongues help them imitate human language (they mimic whatever is in their surroundings so they can show off their skills to a potential mate). Their other speech organs are very basic but they can make similar sounds to us by movin...