Singing

Your voice is a personal calling card. People listen to the quality of your tone and often make quick judgments about whether you’re strong or weak, assertive or compliant, respectable or negligible. Your social acceptability and professional promo ability are determined in part by the charismatic (or lack thereof) quality of your voice. The sound of your voice influences whether others treat you as superior, equal or inferior every day of your life.

An important aspect of public speaking is a natural, powerful and confident voice. Whether you are an executive called upon to make a presentation, a teacher who needs to get across a new concept to your students or just simply someone who regularly uses their voice in their profession, a powerful speaking voice can prove to be a valuable asset. But unfortunately, not many of us are naturally blessed with a ‘public speaker’s voice’ – a voice that not only makes a significant impression on the audience but also effectively gets the message across.

Four common voice levels

Most of us have heard someone with a nasal voice. It has that high pitched, almost whiny quality that can turn people off in a hurry. This is not the type of voice that helps one's professional or social life.

Some people use the mouth voice. The mouth voice makes sounds but is not very powerful. Let’s not go into the cultural, gender, social, and/or psychological factors which may contribute to this type of voice. It suffices to say that people who use the mouth voice can sometimes feel invisible: they're overworked, under-appreciated, neglected of their needs, and passed over for recognition. The person with the mouth voice cries out to be heard, but more often than not no one is really paying attention.

Many women and men use the chest voice. This is the type of voice that sounds pleasant enough, and can generally maintain listener interest. There's nothing negative about the chest voice, except that it is not the best possible voice.

For all of us, our best, strongest, most attractive and most natural voice comes from the diaphragm. A person who uses the diaphragm voice commands attention, "sounds" more attractive socially, and is more likely to be perceived as a promotable leader. The diaphragm voice is the best sounding voice for both women and men.

Speaking VS Singing

The same muscles that control your singing voice also control your speaking voice. So while we may not be hitting high notes or singing vibrato, you’d be surprised how much your speaking improves if you treat your voice as an instrument. And like singing, there are some secret techniques that can help anyone have a great voice.

Whether you’re a karaoke hero or just sing secretly in the shower, singing is a great way to improve your language skills. Here’s why:

It’s great for pronunciation. It is not suggested that you should sing all the time when you speak, that may seem a little odd. It really is good for your pronunciation, however. To pronounce words clearly in English, you need to exercise the muscles used to make each sound. We can do this through speaking but when we sing, we need to make each sound a lot clearer and louder. This gives the muscles in your mouth a real workout, just like going to the gym does for your body, and makes it easier to speak in real life.

Singing builds your confidence. For most people, singing in front of people makes them really nervous, much more so than speaking to people. So, if you can sing in front of people, speaking is nothing to be nervous about, right?

Singing helps you remember words. If you hear a new piece of vocabulary in a song, you learn it in a context; and that makes it easier to remember. Learning songs for children is a great way to remember things like colours, numbers, and parts of the body. Pop songs can be a fun way to learn idioms, expressions and phrasal verbs too.

It’s fun! OK, so this is truer for some people than others; but singing, especially in a relaxed social place, can be great fun. Having fun with a new language is important for motivation.

It helps you to breathe properly. Breathing is really important for your pronunciation and confidence, and you can’t sing unless your lungs are full of air. Singing highlights where it’s best to take a breath in sentences so that they sound most natural.

So, that’s how singing helps create a powerful speaking voice.