Good voice coaching can diagnose your specific, unhealthy voice behaviors which undercut your voice endurance or your vocal image.

Some of the common, unhealthy voice behaviors are:

• Exerting force from the larynx (voice box) in an attempt to be sufficiently loud for public speaking or stage work. This behavior will cause hoarseness, loss of voice, and could result in serious problems such as polyps or nodules.
  Click to hear an example
• Tightening your throat habitually when speaking, singing, or yelling. This behavior causes vocal tiredness, hoarseness, loss of voice, and presents a poor vocal image—sounding uptight and/or strained—as well.
  Click to hear an example
• Limiting the movement of the jaw when speaking or singing. This behavior presents a poor vocal image, and in many cases, looks silly as well. Oftentimes, people “compensate” for the lack of vibrancy in the voice by exerting pressure from the larynx.
  Click to hear an example
• Speaking in an artificially low pitch range. While the person using this behavior may think that her/his voice sounds “authoritative” and “mature”, in reality the image projected is of a dull, strained, and sometimes “gravelly” sounding voice. Maintaining an artificially low pitch puts a strain on the larynx and could cause nodules and or polyps.
  Click to hear an example

[Note: this is not an exhaustive list of unhealthy voice behaviors, but one that contains some of the more common ones.]

A good voice coach will help you to replace your unhealthy voice behaviors with healthy voice behaviors so that speaking (and singing) are strain-free... so that your vocal image is vibrant, compelling, and a pleasure to listen to.

Vocal image consulting will teach you:

• to support your speaking, singing, or yelling with a strong column of air pushed out by your abdominal muscles—so you can achieve loudness for public speaking and stage work without straining and exerting force on the larynx.
• to keep your throat relaxed in speaking, singing, or yelling—so you can achieve a rich, “open” quality
• to move your jaw generously as you speak or sing—so that your voice is literally louder and richer
• to speak in the pitch range which is appropriate for your voice, i.e., the pitch range which is physiologically friendly to your voice—so that your voice will sound vibrant, alive, and compelling.

[Note: this is not an exhaustive list of healthy voice behaviors, but one that contains the behaviors that many people in vocally demanding work need to master.]

“You've really helped me a lot. Now when I feel like pushing (from the voice box), I back off. I can sing more and more since having voice therapy.”
—Classical Singer

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More benefits of vocal image consulting:

In addition to coaching healthy voice use, a good voice coach also helps people who want to:

• Overcome lisps or other mispronounced sounds (like l, r, ch, or sh)]
• Reduce an accent
• Use a less rapid rate of speech

Mispronounced sounds, unwanted accents, or an excessive rate of speech can interfere with career aspirations for acting, singing, broadcasting, public relations, sales and marketing, and more. It is entirely possible to overcome mispronounced sounds, reduce an accent or slow down rapid speech rate in adulthood, as many former clients of mine have done.

“Thanks for literally helping to save my career.”
— Computer Voice Recognition User

 

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