Finding Your Full Vocal Power
From mental to physical, speech exercises can help bring power to your presentations and conversations.
I believe that all vocal work begins with the mindset that your voice is meant to be heard.
Your ideas are worthy of sharing, and people want to hear what you have to say. This belief is the starting point to vocal power. Whenever I begin to feel self-centered or self-conscious thinking about this, I always remind myself the impact of sharing ideas. Using your voice will help others feel comfortable using theirs. Collaboration and connection with others will improve as a result of your decision to speak.
Exercise 1: Singing
Get comfortable with the sound of your voice by singing. Try singing in your shower to enjoy the best acoustics and to take advantage of the warm steam, which relaxes your vocal chords. I also do lip trills and vocal sirens in the shower, if I don't have an actual song I want to sing.
Exercise 2: Yawning
No, you aren't boring me! I yawned to relax my throat muscles and my vocal chords. Morgan Freeman has been reported as explaining, "If you're looking to improve the sound of your voice, yawn a lot."
Exercise 3: Sighs and Lip Trills
As a trained classical and musical theatre vocalist, I have developed a certain comfort with sounding absolutely ridiculous and making obnoxious sounds all in the name of warming up and improving my instrument. For those people who haven't sung before, here is how to think about the exercise:
Imagine you are just coming home from a long day and are finally sitting on the couch or your favorite chair. You feel a tremendous sense of relief and peace. Breathe in deeply and release the air with a big sigh. Repeat, but this time add sound to it. This is the sign of relief. Repeat again, but this time try going higher in your vocal range and continue lower. At the end of the sigh, put your lips together and let them flap. Feel the push of air that has to happen. Once you get the feel for the lip trill, you can repeat going through siren sounds low to high and back to low to get the sound moving.
There. Now you can get over feeling silly, too.
Tell me what you think or what questions you might have.