5 Your Voice

Your voice is your most important tool in public speaking, and utilizing it effectively is paramount. Many people are uncomfortable when listening to their own recorded voice. They tend to be hypercritical when listening to themselves and often have an imagined expectation of what they should sound like. However, to be successful at public speaking, it is essential for you to accept your voice’s unique qualities and to utilize your voice to its fullest potential. Here are some areas to center on that may help refine your vocal technique.

A. Pitch

When discussing pitch, I refer to the modulation in your voice as you speak. Perhaps the most common issue related to this is a lack of pitch, also known as monotone. If you have had the experience of listening to someone speak in monotone, you know how difficult it is to pay attention (remember that one boring professor you had at 8:00 a.m. whose voice always put you back to sleep?). Allow your voice to rise and fall as it would in everyday conversation. Just because you are saying “something important” does not mean you have to flatten out your natural cadence. If your voice exhibits a range of nuances, it will create a more engaging listening experience and reduce listener fatigue.

Pay attention to your vocal pitch tendencies. For example, many speakers unconsciously practice upspeak, which is a tendency to end sentences at a higher pitch, as if asking a question or seeking approval rather than making a statement. This conveys a lack of confidence and authority and should not be used regularly. A slightly lowered voice pitch at the end of sentences conveys greater assurance to your audience.

B. The Dreaded “Um”

As hard as you try, catching vocal fillers like “um” and “you know” before they come tumbling out of your mouth is challenging. It is like they are automatic and unconscious (which they are), and it may seem impossible to stop yourself from using them.

There is only one way to battle this vocal filler problem: Put something else in its place. This magic something is silence. It is best to insert pauses between thoughts and sentences to eliminate vocal fillers. Think about where fillers happen—not usually in the middle of sentences, but between sentences when we transition from the end of one thought to the beginning of another. This is where you want to focus on inserting silent pauses. You will find that when you actively work on this method, you’ll use fewer vocal fillers.

Do not be concerned that your audience will become restless or bored when you pause. They will appreciate the opportunity to process what you are saying. If you analyze the great speakers of the past, you will find that speakers used pauses as a powerful tool. Just as you would not want to listen to music without rests between notes, an audience will tire of a speaker’s delivery if there are not an adequate number of pauses.

C. Final Notes About Your Voice

Conversational

Public speaking should be in the form of a heightened conversation. It should be a bit more formal than in everyday interactions. You want to talk in a more structured manner, avoiding incomplete sentences while focusing on good enunciation.

Speed

We tend to speed up our word delivery when we are giving a speech. The reason for this is quite understandable. When we become nervous and our heartbeat quickens, we speak more quickly. If this has happened to you, you may have found yourself stumbling over your words. To counteract this effect, take a deep breath and remind yourself to slow down. If you are concerned about fitting everything you want to say into the amount of time you have to speak, resist the temptation to rush. Instead, trim some of your information. A relaxed, conversational, and deliberate style of delivery is best.

Volume

Another area to examine is voice volume. Will your voice be comfortably heard by the person sitting furthest away from you in the room? This is a good test for appropriate vocal volume. In most cases, you must project your voice slightly more than usual. If you use a microphone, recruit an assistant to help you test your volume ahead of your speech.

It would be a boring world if we all had the same vocal qualities and sounded like TV news anchors. Your vocal uniqueness is an asset, not a flaw to be corrected. Embrace your accent, tone, and any other nuances of your voice. Learn to appreciate it. Many of the great speakers of the past, such as Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy, emphasized their vocal differences and made them their trademarks.