Public Speaking Tips - Making Your Voice Sound Lower

Would you like a deeper speaking voice? Perhaps you are over 21 and think your voice sounds too young. Maybe you feel that your voice is wimpy, strident, harsh, whispery, or nasal. The good news is that you actually have a deeper or lower voice inside of you. It is there just waiting to be discovered. Remember the Ted Knight character on the Mary Tyler Moore Show? As a news anchor, he would drop his chin to his neck in order to speak in a lower or deeper voice whenever it was time for him to go on the air. What he was trying to do was speak at the very bottom of his range. And that is wrong. In order to speak in a lower pitch, your chin should never drop down to your chest because you are then trying to force a sound that is not natural and can result in vocal abuse over time. Yes, the optimum pitch of your speaking voice is definitely located in your lower register, but that does not mean you should be ‘rumbling around’ at your lowest point. (Pitch refers to the highness or lowness of sound and should not be confused with volume which is the loudness or softness of sound.) 99% of the population powers their voice primarily from the cavities of the throat and voice box which means that the pitch of their ‘habitual’ speaking voice is higher than it should be. When I was in graduate school, my singing professor told me that the pitch of my habitual speaking voice was several steps higher than that of my real or resonant speaking voice. So I practiced using that deeper, richer sound when I was at work. Because much of my business was on the phone, I was able to make my ‘real’ voice a habit in just a few short weeks. If you want to discover your deeper voice, you will need to break a few bad habits and instill a few good ones. By learning to use your chest cavity, the largest of your 5 vocal resonators, as your primary sounding board, you will discover a voice which is not only lower in pitch but one that is richer, warmer, more mature-sounding, and resonant. In addition, you will be able to increase your volume without shouting. This is referred to as projection and is only possible if your chest is your amplifying your sound. Anything else is shouting. You have a better voice inside of you. Everyone does; however, most people are unaware that they can improve their vocal image. Keep in mind, the sound of your voice accounts for 37% of the image you project. And that sound is what you hear on your answering machine or voicemail and not what you hear in your head.