Developing your voice is an ideal exercise for your future. In our5-Day Discovery Public Speaking Course, we spend time exploring this issue.
For a trainer, (for that matter, any speaker) - a good voice is vital.
However, is it essential to have a 'nice' voice? - Probably 'No'.
Is it essential to have an interesting voice? - Definitely 'Yes'.
Not all of us will be born with a beautiful, rich and sonorous voice. However, we can all learn to make our voices more interesting.
Having spent many years as a professional cellist, I am very aware of the importance of sound. Our voice is our instrument and we need to work hard to keep it interesting.
In fact, a beautiful voice can actually be a disadvantage, if the listener becomes so mesmerized by the beauty of the sound that they start to miss the words, which of course for a trainer is never ideal.
For a bedtime story, a sonorous voice may be wonderful.
However, a trainer's first job is to keep people awake!
And that will be achieved through varying the voice.
And varying the voice is usually a conscious decision.
There is no point in having valuable, stimulating content if everyone has fallen asleep listening to you.
Many is the musician who has to say to a colleague or pupil:
'I know you think you are 'doing' the expression marks, but I can't hear them!'
This is why speakers talk about the 3 'P's:
Pitch, Pace, and Power.
I think of them very visually.
(Without wishing to get too mathematical on you,)
I have an image of an X, Y, Z-axis graph.
My neutral voice floats nicely in the middle, but if it does no more than that, it will become monotonous and increasingly hard to listen to. (And we have all heard that flat colourless voice, that lacks variation, that regardless of how interesting the subject matter may be, sends you into a trance.)
So in my graph, the Z-axis represents 'Pitch'.
My voice can go up and it can go down.
The Y-axis represents 'Power'.
I can speak louder and I can speak quieter.
The X-axis represents 'Pace'.
I can slow down and even stop. And I can speed up and build to a climax.
So when I am standing in front of people I imagine my voice floating next to me.
Is it moving or has it got stuck?
I consciously make sure it is going up, going down; going forward, going backward; and side to side.
It is important to remember that what may sound interesting and varied in your own head, may not project so well, and the larger the group, or the larger space, the more you need to inject extra variety into your voice.
So the key elements of an effective voice are not necessarily tone and beauty, it is more likely to be contrast and variety. And that is a conscious decision.
If you're looking to enhance your professional skill set or want to help an employee on the road to success, enrol on our 2-day train the trainer courses. The course is ideal for new trainers coming into the industry as well as experienced trainers looking for opportunities to improve their CV and career prospects. Book a place on this 2-day course for just £795 + VAT
