17. Do you do this? At the end of every sentence?

The bloody rising inflection on complete statements! Typical voice coach whinge. In this episode I explain when to go up, when to go down and why it's key to achieving dynamic, confident speech.

Check out the Adam Hills Video here.

Transcript

Do you do this? At the end of every sentence? And don't know how to stop? When to go up and when to go down. Inflection can be a minefield, but hopefully I'll clear things up for you in the next 10 minutes.

I'm Sally Prosser and you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters. And unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

In this episode, I'd love to chat to you all about inflection. Now, I don't want this to turn into some kind of boring speech and drama lecture, so I'll do my best to make it fun and relatable for you. But first of all, we need to clear up a couple of definitions. So what is inflection? It's often mixed up with pitch. So what is pitch? Well, if you think of pitch like the elevator or the lift in the building, you can go up and you can go down and you might remember one of my earlier episodes pitch perfect. I talked about using the head voice and the chest voice, the stratosphere and down on earth. Right so it's that one vertical of movement up and down. Inflection is a little bit different. Inflection is the movement of the pitch.

So if pitch is the elevator, then inflection's kind of like the skate ramp, whether it's rising or falling. This is an area I work on a lot with clients because you really need to train that muscle to get it right. You don't have to go up to level 10 to have a rising inflection. You can have a rising inflection on level one, so nailing your pitch and inflection can be a bit challenging in the beginning. The combination of these things is called intonation, so if you've heard about the intonation of people's voice, it's kind of like the music of speaking, the musicality of speaking, and you can mark all of these things on words with dots and lines and arrows and all sorts of business. It's the musicality of speaking. People who speak on a monotone and never change their pitch, they're not going to have much action with pitch or inflection, not a good thing. So we want to use pitch and inflection. Not only does it make the meaning of what we're saying clear, but it makes our voice sound more dynamic and more engaging. The issue is some things are used out of place and the most common one, which you may have seen online, I've also got a video about it - using the rising inflection at the end of complete statements.

We don't want to do this. One of the rules with inflection is we go up when we're not finished and down when we are, so if we've got something else to say, we go up. If we're finished, we go down. It's very common for people, especially in Australia, to go up when they're supposed to be finished and so we don't know whether they're or not and we feel like they're really doubting themselves. Adam Hills has a great little comedy spiel on this and I often play it in my workshops. I'll give you a little snippet of it now.

Adam Hills Recording: I'm aware that as Australians, we do have the most annoying accent on the planet. I'm sure you're aware of what we all do. I'm sure you're aware, we all go up at the end of every sentence because we're all too insecure to actually make a statement. So we have to make it sound like it's a question because we secretly need your approval even when it's something serious. Susie got eaten by a shark. I'm afraid there are going to be high court judges in 30 years’ time handing down verdicts, just going, I find you're guilty of murder?

And I will link to that whole video in the show notes at thatvoicepodcast.com.au. Hopefully my website will be up and running by the time this episode goes to air. So Adam Hills talks about us wanting approval. We're too insecure to make a statement because we secretly wants your approval, and that's what it really is. I call it the give me validation inflection. And why is that? You might say, Oh, it's because it sounds like you're asking a question and you're half right. You kind of right. Here's where it gets pretty interesting. We do use a rising inflection on a question, but only questions that can be answered by yes or no. We use a rising inflection, but only on questions that can be answered by yes or no. If the question can be answered by something else other than yes or no. So an open question, then we actually use a falling inflection. Try it for yourself now. I would say, are you well today rising inflection? Yes, no answer. But I would say, how are you today?

I wouldn't say, how are you today? Interesting, right? So we only use a rising inflection if the question can be answered by yes or no. So what this means is when we're using the rising inflection on a complete statement, not only does it sound like we're not really sure what we're talking about, we are asking the audience to give us a yes, no answer, thumbs up, thumbs down. It's directly seeking that validation. So how do you get rid of it? Well, it's completely linked to your mindset. Every single one of you can do rising inflection, falling inflection. It's very easy, especially if you hear someone do it before you. The reason we use the rising inflection on complete statements is that inner voice playing havoc with us. We're not really sure. We don't want to come across too overbearing. We want to have a delicate entrance.

Hi, I'm Sally. How are you? Can I sit with you guys? It's a really weak vocal position to come into. Now I'm not saying we need to do strong falling inflections all the time. Hi, I'm Sally. I'm a voice coach. Can I talk to you? I mean, that's not gonna work either, is it? We do need a balance in the inflections, but just watch that use of the rising inflection on complete statements, especially in scenarios where you want to come across confidence. So networking events, job interviews is a very important one. If you answer a question by saying, I have 20 years experience, the panellists are going to look at you like, well, I don't know, do you? And you can really shoot yourself in the foot at interview stage by doing this. Also, phone calls. There's lots of different scenarios where we don't want to be using this rising inflection out of place.

Now I've given the rising inflection a bit of a hard time, but I think it is almost just as bad to use a falling inflection when you're not finished as it is to use a rising inflection when you are, and this often happens when people are listing things, so when you're listing things, you should go up, up, up and down. Today I'd love to talk to you about my family, my job, and how I love wine and cheese. See how you go up, not finished up, not finished down I am now. If I were to fall on all of those things, it would sound like this. I'm going to talk to you about my family, my job, and how I like wine and cheese, so using that falling inflection when I'm not finished, it's like each little word is dying a painful death.

Now I don't know if anyone remembers that game Lemmings. I might be showing my age here, but it was this old computer game where if you didn't put up the barrier in front of the cliff, then all the little lemmings would just drop off one by one off the edge. And this is what I think of when people are using the falling inflection instead of the rising in the middle of a sentence or the middle of a phrase. It's that little death makes it very boring, doesn't hold any engagement. Now, this sort of speaking might sound familiar. It's used a lot in corporate at meetings. Kill me now. I hate this. Boring topic. Very hard to listen to, isn't it? So the two main takeaways from today, make sure you rise when you're not finished and fall when you are. If you can just obey that rule rising when you're not finished and falling when you are, then your speech will sound really dynamic. It will hold people's interest and it will also sound like you're confident in your content.

Now I do realize pitch and inflection can be a tricky one. You might not even know what you're doing, which is why it's important to record yourself. It's also one of those areas I work on a lot with private clients, so if this is something that you think is holding you back, then get in touch with me and would be worth having a session so I can really listen and help you fix those inflections. Just get in touch with me on Instagram @SallyProsserVoice or on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you.

Next week I chat to Michael Bromley. Now Michael is also a podcaster.

His podcast Beyond Billables is a lot bigger than mine and he chats to a lot of people in the legal profession, so when people ask who I work with, they say, Oh, do you work with actors, singers, journalists, and then lawyers is probably the one that comes next. When people think of professions that need to speak, they think oh lawyers. So I'm keen to understand the relationship lawyers have with their voice, the challenges they have, and I will definitely be throwing in a few Suits and Boston Legal references. Don't worry. I will see you next Monday.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. To get in touch, head to sallyprosser.com.au.