Seminar for a Vital Voice

Who will benefit:

Voice coach and speech pathologist, Barbie Scott, conducts When Your Voice Means Business: How To Have a Vital Voice for Your Voice-Dependent Work for groups of people who are in the same kind of vocally demanding work, for example:

• Executives, managers who frequently conduct meetings
• Sales personnel
• Marketing representatives
• Training professionsals
• Computer voice recognition users
• College faculty
• Trial lawyers
• Singers and choral groups
• Theater groups

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Seminar Highlights:

The seminar is customized to the group and their particular vocal challenges. In the seminar you will learn some of the basics of voice anatomy and physiology—fundamental information for using voice healthfully and effectively. You will learn:

• How exhaling breath makes your vocal cords vibrate.
• That the amount of exhaling breath determines how loud your voice will be.
• That exerting the voice box—what many people do when trying to be loud—is abusive to the voice.
• How the space between your lips and your voice box colors the sound of your voice.
• That if you restrict that space by tightening your throat as you speak (or sing)—which some people do—your voice will have a “tightened” quality.
• That if you limitedly open your mouth as you speak (or sing)—which many people do—you lose vocal vibrancy and loudness, and your voice will sound nasal.

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Voice Behaviors: Bad

You will learn to identify voice-abusive behaviors and voice image-killing behaviors by watching examples of speakers (and some singers, too) who use them. You’ll see:

• Real examples from news media and movies, etc. (not hokey, staged examples).
• Marlon Brando mumbling and learn how mumbling—if done habitually—can cause soreness in your voice box.
• Television personality Martha Stewart speaking in a pitch which is artificially low, and you will learn how this common voice pitfall directly injures the vocal cords.

Photo: Marlon Brando, mumbling in the classic film On the Waterfront

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Voice Behaviors: Good

You will also see examples of speakers who use healthy voice behaviors (real examples, too) and learn to recognize these healthy, effective behaviors. You may recognize some of the unhealthy, detracting voice behaviors as your own. Then you‛ll get some “voices-on” experience: you can try some specific voice techniques which will get you started in replacing the unhealthy or detracting behavior with the healthy ones.For example, you will be “walked through”:

• How to be loud without straining the voice box but by using your abdominal muscles.
• How to keep your throat open to avoid a tight quality when your speak (or sing).
• How to pick the physiologically correct pitch range for your voice.
• How to move your jaw generously as you speak (or sing) to achieve richness and loudness.

Photo:Ian McKellen in Gandalf’s iconic moment, “You shall not pass” from Peter Jackon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.Ian McKellen—vocally speaking—is flawless, even when yelling at the balrog.

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Satisfied clients said:

All participants agreed that this was a great class. Many indicated that it exceeded their expectations in terms of value and applicability. They gained new knowledge and tools that would be useful the very next day.

One participant commented, “I needed this even more than I realized.” Several members commented that the training provided them with techniques they would start using right away “to have a healthy voice that endures.”

American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)
Mt. Diablo Chapter

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