7. How to get pitch perfect

Reckon your voice is too high-pitched? I suspect you're just living in the stratosphere. In this episode I explain how to bring your pitch back down to earth, and regain your vocal power.

Transcript

My voice is so high pitched. I sound like a little mouse. How do I get that nice tone for radio? If you've asked any of these questions and I hear them all the time, then stay tuned because no matter your age, your size or your gender, I'm going to tell you how to be pitch perfect.

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.

The name of this episode as you've probably seen is Pitch Perfect, but sorry, we are not going to have a discussion about the film franchise as much as I'd love to. I mean come on in Pitch Perfect Two when they break out into Flashlight. My God, that gets me every time. If you are interested in that then drop me a message because I'm always up for a good Pitch Perfect discussion, but I'm sure a lot of you do not care about that at all and some of you might not even know that Pitch Perfect is a movie. In which case where have you been living? No, no. I'm not going to do any pop culture reference shaming today. Today we are just going to be talking about pitch because as I mentioned in the intro, it's a really common complaint I guess that I get, especially with women.

I'd say with women it's the number one thing I hear from clients saying I don't like the sound of my voice. I sound too high pitched. Now the pitch of our voice does depend a bit on genetics. I mean we all have a different natural register. Our bodies are instruments and I mean it would be pretty weird if a five-year-old girl came out with the sound of a 50 year old man and vice versa. So we all do have a natural register, but I find that's used as an excuse a lot of the time. I find in my experience it's more where the sound's directed, not the fact that you're just born with that pitch. Now you might be thinking, what do you mean by the sound directed? I just direct the sound out of my mouth. Isn't that the point? And yeah the mouth is one area where that sound vibrates, but we do have control over where the sound waves vibrate. So back to an anatomy lesson a little bit. We have the air in our lungs that travels up, that hits our vocal cords. Uh, Uh, Uh. Not sure why I just did that just seemed appropriate. But that's the vocal cords coming together. Then after that happens, it sets up vibrations in other parts of the body, what I call the caves of the body, the spaces in the body, where the sound waves, vibrate. We're going to start at the very top.

It's the voice up here in the head, the hollows of the cheeks and head. Now, this is what I call the stratosphere because it's way up here in the clouds. Now here's the thing. If our voice sounds like it's up in the clouds, then it sounds like our head is up in the clouds as well. And as you'd appreciate it is just super annoying when people stick in that really, really high register. So the stratosphere is a place that we do not want to live. By all means, we want to visit the stratosphere, you know, for a bit of vocal variation or you know, I might be saying, Oh my gosh, he said, what?! And the kids at the music festivals, they are at the front going, yeah, that's right in the hollows of the cheeks and the head. So it was a good place to visit. But you do not want to live there. You want to bring the sound down.

Now, how far down do you want to bring it? Well, if we go one step down, we get to our nasal cavity. Now we do not want to direct the sound there for obvious reasons. This is bloody annoying. And unless you're doing a impersonation of Kath Day-Knight, which I just did very, very badly, then you do not want your sound in the nose. So moving down, another popular place for people to direct their sound is into the back of their throat. So for the guys listening, this is the, 'I'm trying to sound important' voice. For the women listening. It's the 'trying to sound like a man' voice. You know, you want to sound deep when really you just sound fake and pompous and not genuine at all. A little bit silly. It's also known as the reporter satire voice. You know when somebody is pretending to be a newsreader, they think they have to go back here.

Not a very nice place to direct the sound. So where do we want it? We want to bring it down even further to the walls of our chest. So we wanted to direct the vibrations down and out. The only thing in your life you want to be down and out are your vocal vibrations. So what I want you to do now is I want you to put your palm, the palm of your hand on your chest. Now this is going to be really funny if you're on a bus or something like that. So you probably just want to listen along. But if you're in the comfort of your own home, then put a hand on your chest. And what I want you to do, we're gonna do a little exercise. I want you to just say, ah, now, Oh, hopefully not as croaky as that. Geez, that's not a very good example from the voice coach. Let me try that again. We're going to do a simple, ah, now as you do that, I want you to feel the sensations of the vibrations. It's a bit of incidental rhyming there. The sensations of the vibrations on the back of your hand. Okay? So we want them to be forward in the chest. So one, two, three, we're going to go. Aaaaaah.

Now I know you're thinking, my God. This reminds me of those horrible drama classes we had to do back in school. Or if you've got a drama background, it might be bringing back fond memories. But yeah, I understand it's a little bit out there, but it goes to show that every single one of you, no matter where your natural register sits, has the power to direct those vibrations down to the walls of your chest. Now this is what I call earth. If up here is the stratosphere, then down behind the walls of the chest is earth. Now this is the place that we really want to use a lot of, for want of a more sophisticated phrase. Let's just say that. So when we're starting a conversation, whether it be in an interview or a meeting or starting a presentation, you want to be entering the conversation on earth because that's where all your vocal presence and your vocal power is.

I'll give you a little example. If I come into the office in the morning, which I don't do anymore because my office is my kitchen table, and sometimes I don't get dressed until two in the afternoon, but don't tell anyone that. So when you come into the office, you don't wanna be like, hi everyone, good morning. Try instead entering on earth. Good morning. That might sound a bit serious. Maybe let's use the meeting example rather than saying, okay, so today I'd like to talk about, let's try instead. Okay, so today we'd like to talk about - just enter on earth. Now this works for men and women, but particularly if you're a woman, entering on earth can be a great way to set up and maintain your vocal power because if you enter on earth, then you can jump up to the stratosphere if you want to have a bit of variation.

But if you enter on the stratosphere, it's really hard to get people's attention and it's really hard to go back down. If you'd like to find out more about the different registers and how to direct your tone, then grab my online course. It's module two of the Speak to be Heard program, which is how to release your true voice and genuinely connect. Now at this point, I should be directing you to my website, however it's under construction at the moment, so just get in touch with me through my social channels and I can give you the link to the program. I realize all the digital marketers out there are shaking their head going, Oh my God, Sally, what are you doing? Look, that's just how things are at the moment. Now you might be somebody out there who has a dog or a child or maybe both. Little disclaimer: I don't have either. Don't have any pets, don't have any kids and have no intention to have either, but so I hear that the pitch of your voice is pretty important when talking to both dogs or animals of any kind and kids, you would know firsthand that if you start wailing like a banshee, you're not going to have much effect are you? Now a profession where this really comes to the fore? No, I'm not talking about dog whispering. Although I would love to have a dog whisperer on the podcast. If anyone out there is listening or knows anybody. What I'm talking about is primary school teaching. So in the next episode I'm chatting to one of these fantastic teachers. Her name is miss Annie Farrugia and she's also one of my very first speech and drama students. Can you believe, I think we worked out, it was 18 years ago and it gives you a bit of an idea of how long I've been on this caper, but it was great to catch up with her and Annie talks all about not just how the pit of your voice affects the way the kids respond, but also all the different things that teachers can do and should do with their voices to get the best response out of the kids and also to take care of it for themselves. So tune in next Monday to hear that.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. For more information, don't go to the podcast page because it's under construction. What I would like you to do is head to Apple podcasts, subscribe to the podcast, give me a rating and a nice review. I do read them, and if you haven't got a cryptic name, then I give you a shout out on my Instagram.

Thank you so much, and I will see you next Monday. Notice how I went from earth up to the stratosphere. Okay, bye.