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What do a presenter, salesman and voice over all have in common? They all have mastered the art of projecting their voice.
Projection of your voice is important for a wide array of purposes, whether you simply want to be a better speaker, or pursue a career where you need more of a voice. Here are some top tips on how to project your voice.
Always warm up
You may not have known this, but your vocal chords that produce your voice as you know it, are muscles too.
Now, do you go to the gym or play sports without warming up? You can, but you won’t get the best possible result out of it, and you can hurt yourself in the process if you’re not careful.
Warming up your voice is the first step to developing a better overall projection of it. A few ways you can do this can be summarised below:
- Humming
- Lip buzzing
- Jaw loosening
- Yawn sighing (deep breaths through nose, sigh from the mouth)
These exercises will help your voice warm up initially, for that extra bit of prep when you need your voice to perform better.
Actively practise speaking louder
What may seem like an obvious tip, can often be overlooked by the quieter speakers. If you have a relatively quiet voice, then try this today.
This can be done by speaking to people with a bit more of a distance between you and them, or just gradually increasing your voice’s volume over time.
Actively speaking louder can help you project your voice in a subconscious way, helping benefit you overall when it comes to needing more projection from your voice in general.
Control your breathing
Breath control is one the most important tips to effectively projecting your voice. If you try to speak a sentence when out of breath, you’d find that it’s harder to do so in a higher volume than if you were resting and had a deep breath beforehand.
Breath control is key for any public speaker, singer or voice over to perform at their best, it’s at the heart (or lungs) of what they do.
A big part of those who struggle with voice projection is that they may sound weak or shaky when speaking out loud, with practice and breathing exercises, you can improve this.
Speak from the diaphragm
Ever heard of belly breathing? In this instance we’re talking about speaking from the diaphragmatic area, as opposed to from your throat or chest.
The diaphragm helps with regulation of the total amount of air in the lungs, allowing you to project a fuller sound overall. Speaking from the diaphragm helps to project your voice as it forces your body to use a forceful breath to project sound.
Putting this technique into active practice can serve as a great initial step to projecting your voice for the long run.
Fix your posture
Never underestimate the power of good posture when projecting your voice. If you record audio with slouched shoulders, you won’t get the same result as a recording with your chest open, back straight and shoulders back.
Simply put, good posture helps your voice resonate through all the cavities, nooks and crannies your body has, bad posture simply blocks some of these pathways, making it more difficult to effectively project your voice.
Tips on voice projection
We hope this post provided you with some actionable tips on how to project your voice better in relatively little time. Be sure to drop a comment if this post helped you today.
