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Although the teeth, lips and tongue work hard in synchronicity to convert sound in to words, the part played by the tongue is generally unsung. The mouth’s multi-function muscle is an Inspector Gadget of the human body: ·        Saliva production ·        Sucking ·        Eating...

The final articulator is right under your nose! The lips – mainly channel sound in its final moments before being heard by the world, whether it’s the soft breeze of a ‘fooo’, ‘wooo’, the caress of an ‘mmmm’, the buzz of a ‘vvveee’ … or holding a ‘p’ back for a split-second before it explodes.  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST A...

Altering the shape and position of the tongue allows us to create sounds which we form in to words. We will see later in this chapter how the tongue twists and curls, arches and relaxes, and teases the teeth – tucking behind them and slipping between them – to create pronunciation. Even the basic exercise of saying the name of the AA Milne donkey character ‘Eeyore’, you will feel what your tongue...

The strongest muscle in the human body based on its weight, are the jaw muscles (‘masseters’). They can close the teeth with a force as great as 55 pounds (25 kilograms) on the incisors or 200 pounds (90.7 kilograms) on the molars.   So relax the jaw when you can, let it drop to a slightly-open rest position (you can keep your mouth closed so you don’t look gormless!) and reduce the tension t...

You can of course, alter the shape of your oral cavity and its furniture (tongue and lips), and every alteration will change the kind of sound that you make. In fact, even a slight, temporary cosmetic change (such as dental work) will alter how you the sound.  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to...

The shape of your mouth and the position of the tongue in relation to the teeth and lips, determine each sound that we translate into recognisable language. Sounds from the larynx will just remain unintelligible mumbles and mutters unless they are formed into words.   Words, and therefore ‘meaning’, are comprised of an often-complicated combination of individual sounds (phonemes), which are s...

Speaking requires a complicated combination of ‘articulatory gymnastics’ to create what, on screen or paper, seems a simple sentence.   After our brain processes the hieroglyphic word-forms, we instantaneously and sub-consciously order our diaphragm to send a supply of air across the vocal folds, which are tilted and turned to produce pockets of sounded-air which are sent up the vocal tract....

Scrunch your shoulders, stretch and yawn. The latter warms up the throat, particularly important for breakfast newsreaders whose first words uttered that day may be on air! Do not let that be the case with you - sing in the car on the way in to work. Give your larynx a ‘wake-up workout’: gently see how high and low you can go.   One of the greatest ‘resonance helpers’ is basic relaxation. Bei...

·        Here’s how to check if you are a ‘nasal whiner’. Lightly pinch your nose at the bridge (the top bony part) and say “ Sing a song of sixpence ”. When you pronounce the ‘ ng ’ sounds you should feel a slight buzz on your fingertips. That’s just what should happen when you say this sound. Now say “ Ba ba black sheep ”. If you can still feel the vibrati...

To reduce tension in your neck, carefully drop your head to your left shoulder and hold it there for a few seconds, then bring it back carefully to its normal, central position and hold it, before dropping to the right shoulder, and back. Then drop your chin to your chest and then tip your head back. As with any of these exercises stop if anything feels uncomfortable. Repeat this left, right, back...

Society seems to usually want a tone that is of a lower rather than a higher register. It is claimed that they are “easier to listen to” and “carry more authority” but there seems little scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that we are programmed to prefer such a tone. However, it seems to be true that men and women with a slightly lower tone are often called upon as presenters and voice-...

Your pitch, or register, is your ‘vocal frequency’, basically how high or low your voice is.   This is affected mainly by the body you inhabit, mainly your vocal folds but also links with your frame and yes, your breathing and resonance cavities too. Nervousness contracts and tightens muscles throughout your body, including the throat, and that will cause the average pitch of the voice to ris...

Hypernasal speech is the classic ‘ nasal voice ’ when more air is expelled through your nose as you speak, causing additional resonance. The similarly named hyponasal speech or ‘ denasality ’ is when there’s little air getting through your nose while you speak, which reduces the amount of resonance in your voice.  From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BRO...

Most people have no idea that much of their sound is affected by their nasal cavity.   If you want to check out the effect it has on your tone, close your mouth, say a long ‘ nnnnnnn ’ sound and gently hold a finger over each nostril.   Here’s another ‘trick’ to discover how much nasality your voice has: say ‘ ahhhh ’ and hold your nose, and your voice should continue almost unaltered. I...

Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. You feel the movement that happens at the back of your throat? That’s the velum swishing open and closed to divert air in through one hole (OK, two!) and out through the other.  Now imagine that happening with sound leaving the body. Most of the time the curtain is closed, so the majority of the sound is diverted to the mouth , but occa...

If you put your tongue-tip just behind your top teeth and trace it back along the roof of your mouth for an inch or two, you will feel your hard palate the ‘roof of your mouth’.   A little bit further back (be careful you don’t gag or choke!) and you will feel the texture change. Where it does is the start of the soft palate. It moves and helps you say sounds like ‘k’ as in ‘kick’ (or better,...

We can help the ‘resonator areas’ (the nasal cavity and oral cavity) to work to their full potential as the sound waves enter (or try to enter) them. And today we'll run a few experiments to hear the different effects that the cavities or resonators have on the sound you make. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short,...

One of my favourite Bolognese recipes [1] includes garlic, rosemary, basil and bay leaves. Each one of them adds to the overall flavour. In an orchestra, each instrument adds a quality to the complete sound. In the human body each of the elements I mentioned a few days ago, and especially the mouth and nose resonators – and the amount of ‘sounded air’ going through them – adds to the timbre. [1] h...

The vocal tract produces lubricatory mucus - 97% water and 3% mucins, non-mucin proteins, salts, lipids, and cellular debris.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4048736/   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, podcas...

THE VOCAL LIST Your physique plays a large part in shaping our voice. These include: ·        Your overall frame – often larger people have more resonant voices ·        Your hormones – we know how puberty affects the male voice, but so too can menstruation and menopause ·       &nbsp...

If ‘voice’ is the sound we make, then ‘speech’ is manipulation of those sounds by our mouth, tongue and lips to create understandable words. If a listener has to work hard to ‘decode’ your message and understand what it is you are saying, they have less headspace to process the actual content. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO...

At this point in the process, you have sound but no actual voice .  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, both focusing e...

It’s interesting to note that you don’t need a lot of breath for a good voice, just to use it well.  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...

The folds collide harder when you make a louder sound such as projecting, shouting or singing, and they collide more often the higher your pitch whether speaking or singing. 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, voiceove...

You’ll get an idea of what’s happening in your larynx as you speak if you imagine holding the neck of a blown-up party balloon and letting the air out bit by bit: different sounds are made as you release your pinch. 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...