The Importance
of Voice
Introduction to the
Art of Speaking
1
Benefits of diction exercises
The specific benefits of diction/articulation exercises are:
• strengthening and stretching the muscles involved in speech
• bringing to your attention to speech patterns you have that
may be less than perfect
2
Tips for Tongue Twister Diction
Exercises:
• Always start slowly and carefully.
• Make sure the beginning and end of each
word is crisp and avoid running the words
together.
• Repeat the phrase, getting faster and faster
while maintaining clarity. If you trip over
words, stop and start again.
3
Loosening the Tongue:
• Mrs. Tongue lives in her house, the mouth.
Every morning she mops it from ceiling to
floor. First she sweeps her mop from right to
left.
• Run your tongue in a full circle around
your cheek walls across the front of your
top and bottom teeth. Repeat 3 times.
4
Loosening the Tongue:
• Next she sweeps her mop from left to right.
• Reverse the direction of the circle. Repeat
3 times.
5
Loosening the Tongue:
• Now she dusts the furniture.
• Sweep your tongue as rapidly as you can
from side to side across the upper teeth.
Repeat at least 10 times.
6
Loosening the Tongue:
• Lastly she sweeps away the cobwebs from
around the front door.
• Stick the tongue out as far as you can and
sweep it from right to left around the
outside of your lips. Repeat 3 times, then
reverse the direction and repeat 3 times.
7
Try these Tongue Twisters:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Literally literary.
Jack the jailbird jacked a jeep.
My cutlery cuts keenly and cleanly.
The shrewd shrew sold Sarah seven silver fish slices.
Sister Susie sat on the sea shore sewing shirts for sailors.
Four furious friends fought for the phone.
Five flippant Freshmen fly from France for Fashions.
8
Try these Tongue Twisters:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lucy lingered, looking longingly for her lost lap-dog.
Reading and Writing are richly rewarding.
Ten tame tadpoles tucked tightly in a thin tall tin.
Two toads, totally tired, trying to trot to Tewkesbury.
Red leather, yellow leather, red lorry, yellow lorry
You know New York, You need New York, You know you
need unique New York.
9
Try these Tongue Twisters:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If
Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter
Piper picked?
10
Try these Tongue Twisters:
Betty bought a bit of butter, but she found
the butter bitter, so Betty bought a bit of
better butter to make the bitter butter
better.
11
Try these Tongue Twisters:
Moses supposes his toses are roses,
but Moses supposes erroneously,
for nobody’s toeses are posies of roses
as Moses supposes his toses to be.
12
Try these Tongue Twisters:
From Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (the equivalent of a triathalon!):
I am the very model of a modern Major-General; I’ve
information vegetable, animal, and mineral; I know the
Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, from
Marathan to Waterloo, in order categorical; I’m very well
acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand
equations, both simple and quadratical, about binomial
theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news, with many cheerful
facts about the square of the hypotenuse. I’m very good at
integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific
names of being animalculous, In short, in matters vegetable,
animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern
Major-General.
13
Vocal Variety
14
Vocal Variety
The fastest way to bore your audience
is to speak in a monotone with a lack
of vocal variety. If you don’t deliver
your speech in an interesting way,
then it doesn’t matter how good your
content is or how well-prepared you
are. The speech will be a failure!
15
Vocal Variety
Vocal variety is achieved through
combining pitch, tone, volume, and
rate.
16
Pitch:
The high and low range of your
voice.
17
Tone:
Emotional content carried by our
voices.
18
Volume:
How loudly or quietly you speak
19
Rate:
Speaking pace
20
Vocal Variety Practice
Are you speaking to me?
Are you speaking to me?
Are you speaking to me?
Are you speaking to me?
Are you speaking to me?
21
To Practice Pitch:
• Practice swinging between your upper and lower range.
Using the text provided below, read aloud. The first
sentence is up; the second sentence is down. Continue seesawing for at least a minute.
• “Laptops are not teachers. New technology in the
classroom—what could be wrong with that? In Idaho’s
case, almost everything. Superintendent Tom Luna’s plan
isn’t really about integrating new learning tools into the
curriculum. He’s using what he calls the “miracle of
technology” to cut teachers’ jobs or salaries, and increase
class size. Give every high school student a laptop by 2015
and take away the educators—they won’t notice any
difference!” (NEA Today, Summer 2011)
22
•
Now make the see-saw work faster. Read the same passage
but this time it is three words up and three words down.
Play with variations!
•
“Laptops are not teachers. New technology in the
classroom—what could be wrong with that? In Idaho’s
case, almost everything. Superintendent Tom Luna’s plan
isn’t really about integrating new learning tools into the
curriculum. He’s using what he calls the “miracle of
technology” to cut teachers’ jobs or salaries, and increase
class size. Give every high school student a laptop by 2015
and take away the educators—they won’t notice any
difference!” (NEA Today, Summer 2011)
23
Say the sentences below in your high, middle, and low pitch
range. Note what happens to the intensity and the way you
perceive the emotional content of the sentences. There will
be a distinct variation between each.
Her grandmother died yesterday.
I want a new car.
This dinner is delicious.
People should love their neighbors as themselves.
24
To Practice Tone:
Repeat the words “ham sandwich” in as many varying ways as you can. For
example, say it angrily, happily, sadly, lovingly, despairingly, laughingly,
importantly, slyly, snidely, shyly...
Take two opposite emotions, for example: happy-sad or angry-contented. Still
using the words “ham sandwich”, start with one emotion and gradually switch
to the other. Make sure you grade the switch. Unless we’re very, very excitable
emotionally, we seldom alter suddenly from one to another.
Take a page from the telephone book and select a style or emotion and read
aloud whatever is there. Sustain a feeling for a minute. This gives you time to
get into it. Listen to yourself to make sure you are filling those words with the
appropriate emotion.
25
To Practice Volume:
•
•
•
Practice breathing to use your diaphragm. Stand in front of a mirror.
Make sure your feet are a comfortable shoulder width apart. Pull
yourself up straight and place one hand on your stomach. Breathe in.
You should feel your stomach rising and then breathe out. This time
your stomach falls. Watch your shoulders. If they rise and fall
noticeably, you are most likely breathing off the top of your lungs. Try
until you can feel a definite rise and fall of your stomach.
Maintain the breathing technique outlined above while adding voice.
Practice greeting yourself at ever increasing distances from the mirror.
“Hello, Laurie” is right up close. Take two steps back and repeat. Now
take more steps back and so on.
Stand in front of your mirror breathing easily. On your out breath begin
a series of Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha’s until all your breath is used. Take an in
breath and start again. Vary your laughter. Make it louder, make it
quiet, and then build it up again. Repeat until you are laughing loudly
26
and easily without any strain.