The Importance of Voice

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The Importance of Voice

• Introduction to the
• Art of Speaking

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Benefits of diction exercises

• The specific benefits of diction/articulation
  exercises are
• strengthening and stretching the muscles involved
  in speech
• bringing to your attention to speech patterns you
  have that may be less than perfect

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Tips for Tongue Twister Diction Exercises

• Always start slowly and carefully.
• Make sure the beginning and end of each word is
  crisp and avoid running the words together.
• Repeat the phrase, getting faster and faster
  while maintaining clarity. If you trip over
  words, stop and start again.

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Loosening the Tongue

• Mrs. Tongue lives in her house, the mouth.Every
  morning she mops it from ceiling to floor. First
  she sweeps her mop from right to left.
• Run your tongue in a full circle around your
  cheek walls across the front of your top and
  bottom teeth. Repeat 3 times.

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Loosening the Tongue

• Next she sweeps her mop from left to right.
• Reverse the direction of the circle. Repeat 3
  times.

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Loosening the Tongue

• Now she dusts the furniture.
• Sweep your tongue as rapidly as you can from side
  to side across the upper teeth. Repeat at least
  10 times.

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Loosening the Tongue

• Lastly she sweeps away the cobwebs from around
  the front door.
• Stick the tongue out as far as you can and sweep
  it from right to left around the outside of your
  lips. Repeat 3 times, then reverse the direction
  and repeat 3 times.

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• Literally literary.
• Jack the jailbird jacked a jeep.
• My cutlery cuts keenly and cleanly.
• The shrewd shrew sold Sarah seven silver fish
  slices.
• Sister Susie sat on the sea shore sewing shirts
  for sailors.
• Four furious friends fought for the phone.
• Five flippant Freshmen fly from France for
  Fashions.

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• Lucy lingered, looking longingly for her lost
  lap-dog.
• Reading and Writing are richly rewarding.
• Ten tame tadpoles tucked tightly in a thin tall
  tin.
• Two toads, totally tired, trying to trot to
  Tewkesbury.
• Red leather, yellow leather, red lorry, yellow
  lorry
• You know New York, You need New York, You know
  you need unique New York.

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If
  Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers, Wheres
  the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper
  picked?

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• Betty bought a bit of butter, but she found the
  butter bitter, so Betty bought a bit of better
  butter to make the bitter butter better.

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• Moses supposes his toses are roses,
• but Moses supposes erroneously,
• for nobodys toeses are posies of roses
• as Moses supposes his toses to be.

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Try these Tongue Twisters

• From Gilbert and Sullivans The Pirates of
  Penzance (the equivalent of a triathalon!)
• I am the very model of a modern Major-General
  Ive information vegetable, animal, and mineral
  I know the Kings of England, and I quote the
  fights historical, from Marathan to Waterloo, in
  order categorical Im very well acquainted too
  with matters mathematical, I understand
  equations, both simple and quadratical, about
  binomial theorem Im teeming with a lot o news,
  with many cheerful facts about the square of the
  hypotenuse. Im very good at integral and
  differential calculus, I know the scientific
  names of being animalculous, In short, in matters
  vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very
  model of a modern Major-General.

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Vocal Variety
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Vocal Variety

• The fastest way to bore your audience is to speak
  in a monotone with a lack of vocal variety. If
  you dont deliver your speech in an interesting
  way, then it doesnt matter how good your content
  is or how well-prepared you are. The speech will
  be a failure!

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Vocal Variety

• Vocal variety is achieved through combining
  pitch, tone, volume, and rate.

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Pitch

• The high and low range of your voice.

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Tone

• Emotional content carried by our voices.

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Volume

• How loudly or quietly you speak

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Rate

• Speaking pace

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Vocal Variety Practice

• Are you speaking to me?
• Are you speaking to me?
• Are you speaking to me?
• Are you speaking to me?
• Are you speaking to me?

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• To Practice Pitch
• Practice swinging between your upper and lower
  range. Using the text provided below, read aloud.
  The first sentence is up the second sentence is
  down. Continue see-sawing for at least a minute.
• Laptops are not teachers. New technology in the
  classroomwhat could be wrong with that? In
  Idahos case, almost everything. Superintendent
  Tom Lunas plan isnt really about integrating
  new learning tools into the curriculum. Hes
  using what he calls the miracle of technology
  to cut teachers jobs or salaries, and increase
  class size. Give every high school student a
  laptop by 2015 and take away the educatorsthey
  wont notice any difference! (NEA Today, Summer
  2011)

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• Now make the see-saw work faster. Read the same
  passage but this time it is three words up and
  three words down. Play with variations!
• Laptops are not teachers. New technology in the
  classroomwhat could be wrong with that? In
  Idahos case, almost everything. Superintendent
  Tom Lunas plan isnt really about integrating
  new learning tools into the curriculum. Hes
  using what he calls the miracle of technology
  to cut teachers jobs or salaries, and increase
  class size. Give every high school student a
  laptop by 2015 and take away the educatorsthey
  wont notice any difference! (NEA Today, Summer
  2011)

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Say the sentences below in your high, middle, and
low pitch range. Note what happens to the
intensity and the way you perceive the emotional
content of the sentences. There will be a
distinct variation between each. Her grandmother
died yesterday. I want a new car. This dinner
is delicious. People should love their neighbors
as themselves.
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To Practice Tone Repeat the words ham
sandwich in as many varying ways as you can. For
example, say it angrily, happily, sadly,
lovingly, despairingly, laughingly, importantly,
slyly, snidely, shyly... Take two opposite
emotions, for example happy-sad or
angry-contented. Still using the words ham
sandwich, start with one emotion and gradually
switch to the other. Make sure you grade the
switch. Unless were very, very excitable
emotionally, we seldom alter suddenly from one to
another. Take a page from the telephone book and
select a style or emotion and read aloud whatever
is there. Sustain a feeling for a minute. This
gives you time to get into it. Listen to yourself
to make sure you are filling those words with the
appropriate emotion.
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• To Practice Volume
• Practice breathing to use your diaphragm. Stand
  in front of a mirror. Make sure your feet are a
  comfortable shoulder width apart. Pull yourself
  up straight and place one hand on your stomach.
  Breathe in. You should feel your stomach rising
  and then breathe out. This time your stomach
  falls. Watch your shoulders. If they rise and
  fall noticeably, you are most likely breathing
  off the top of your lungs. Try until you can feel
  a definite rise and fall of your stomach.
• Maintain the breathing technique outlined above
  while adding voice. Practice greeting yourself at
  ever increasing distances from the mirror.
  Hello, Laurie is right up close. Take two steps
  back and repeat. Now take more steps back and so
  on.
• Stand in front of your mirror breathing easily.
  On your out breath begin a series of
  Ha-Ha-Ha-Has until all your breath is used. Take
  an in breath and start again. Vary your laughter.
  Make it louder, make it quiet, and then build it
  up again. Repeat until you are laughing loudly
  and easily without any strain.

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