SpeechCoach
New York, NY
Male, 40
Speech Coaching is training that involves improving the tone, resonance, expressiveness, volume, and clarity of one's voice. People seek speech coaching for many reasons, including changing the tone of the voice, public speaking, interview skills, accent reduction, media appearances, and acting work, among others.
Many people don't like the sound of their speaking voice, and we're here to help them change it! We help our clients achieve the sound they've always dreamed of.
As with any skill, people will see various levels of success at the skill of impersonation based on practice and their affinity for it. It is a skill like any other - just as one can learn to play basketball but not all can be Michael Jordan, anyone can learn how to do basic impersonations but not all can be on Saturday Night Live.
You can think about each person's speaking voice as a recipe. The "ingredients" are the facets of the vocal anatomy (tongue, soft palate, vocal cords, larynx, etc.). By manipulating these ingredients, we get a different sound. If you have good aural recognition and solid control over these elements, you will likely be able to impersonate most speaking voices within your gender. If you don't, you can still learn almost any impression you like by being shown that particular recipe.
The best way to get started is with a tape recorder. Record the individual you are trying to mimic, then record yourself saying the same phrase. Play them back to back. Experiment with your voice and get it as close as you can. If you are unsure of how to make the modifications necessary, a speech coach can show you what you're missing (e.g. hold the back of your tongue higher, tighten your vocal cords, etc.)
Impersonating is a fun skill to work on! And it leads to considerably more control in your own voice.
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The most common speech characteristic I encounter is from those who do not like the sound of their speaking voice and would like to modify or change it.
By modifying the sound of one’s voice, we don’t lose touch with their “normal” voice – we simply enhance it. Just like you practice stretching and improving your posture in yoga class, you can learn how to stretch and improve your vocal flexibility. When you have added flexibility, you will have the vocal ability to suit any occasion. Depending on the situation, you will also be able to use a different facet of your voice. You dress differently for lounging around the house than you would for The Academy Awards.
Similarly, you will employ different vocal traits if you are chatting with your best friend versus giving the State of the Union address. Simply by manipulating various facets of the vocal anatomy, you can color your voice dramatically. If you don’t like the way your voice sounds on recordings or video, you can change it! I help people find a speaking voice they love.
Simply by learning how to manipulate various facets of the vocal anatomy, one can modify the tone of their voice. Common areas of voice enhancement include understanding to healthfully project the voice, strengthening the voice, learning how to sound more mature, and understanding how to sound less feminine, among others.
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Many people get hoarse after a long day of using their voice. Often this happens when the requirements of vocal production are greater than normal; talking at a loud bar, for example, or giving a 40-minute presentation.
There are a number of reasons this can happen - if you have a cold, allergies, lack of sleep, acid reflux, or are dehydrated, this will make your voice succeptible to fatigue.
The "hoarse" sound reflects the inability of your vocal cords to get a clean "zip." There is a little "leak" of air, which causes a raspy sound.
Vocal misuse, though, is often the primary reason people feel hoarse after they've been using their voice for a protracted period.
We ultimately want air to be the fuel for the zip of the cords. We want the exhale to facilitate the cord closure. Most people do not breathe efficiently for vocal production. They are unaware of how to achieve this coordination. Therefore, the onus of speaking falls to the cords themselves. Without sufficient air to the cords, they will become tired, not close all the way, and start to leak.
Many people's bodies erroneously seek to correct the problem by using outer musculature to get a better zip. This creates a vicious cycle of vocal misuse.
At New York Speech Coaching, we show people how to relax the outer muscles and breathe in a way that gets your cords closing healthily. This allows you to talk as long as you like at whatever volume you like (for all practical purposes) without getting hoarse or feeling excessive fatigue.
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Surprisingly, one could argue it’s as much of a physiological reason as a sociological one.
Though the feeling towards the sound of one's recorded voice can vary for different people, there is almost always a discrepancy between how a person thinks they sound, and how he or she actually sounds to outsiders. Voice is amplified through vibrations as they re-sound throughout the open spaces in the throat, mouth, and sometimes through the nasal passages. Voice reverberates. These vibrations then move through the air outside the body and we hear voices.
However, these vibrations do even more! They can set off more vibrations through the surrounding bodily structures in the person who is voicing - vibrations can travel to the cheekbones, jaw bone, skull, the spine, etc.
Arthur Lessac, a voice teacher and coach with a career spanning decades, called this vibration of surrounding areas in the body, "bone conduction." He created an exercise in which a student can perceive this difference of inner and outer hearing through the use of a tuning fork. Pluck the fork and hold it near your ear - you hear these small sounds through "air conduction." Then pluck the fork again and place it between your teeth - there is a much stronger sound, because you hear the sound through "air conduction" and "bone conduction." You literally FEEL as well as HEAR your voice when you are listening to yourself during speech.
Lessac says, "Hearing, therefore, can arise from vibrations initiated within the body as well as vibrations transmitted by air conduction through the outer ear" (The Use and Training of the Human Voice, 3rd ed, page 17-18). He continues to explain, "...when you listen to [a recording of] your own voice, your brain interprets it far differently than when you HEAR WHAT YOU FEEL during your vocal production." Meaning - when you listen to a recording of yourself, you only HEAR your voice, you don't also FEEL it like you normally do while speaking. This makes your recorded voice sound higher, tinny, and perhaps disembodied in your perception.
This can be extremely off-putting, because you associate your HEARD/FELT sound with your own identity. When you listen to this recorded sound, it's as if it isn't the real you. Of course, the recording equipment makes a difference, but no matter how good the recording, it will never sound just like 'your voice.'
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Great question! Vocal coaches who practice healthy vocal production generally have versatile and pleasant voices as a result.
Just as film critics may not be the best directors and basketball coaches may not be able to compete on the court, some vocal coaches understand the physiological concepts on an intellectual level but lack the ability to summon certain coordinations themselves. These individuals may prove to be competent instructors. However, in an optimal scenario the coach would be able to demonstrate exactly how you need to sound, rather than exclusively explaining. When choosing a coach, it's a great idea to work with a coach whose voice you admire!
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Computer voice recognition is not my area of expertise, so this is a hypothesis! Voice and language, even in just one person, have extraordinary amounts of variety. For example, the sound we think of as "t" isn't always the same sound. We pronounce it differently according to where it is in the word (beginning, middle, end), and we also pronounce it differently depending on what other sounds surround it (S, L, R, etc). Words like Struggle, Kettle, Quilt, and Table all use slightly different "t" sounds.
The processing abilities of human beings are extraordinary, and because of the tie between sound and meaning, we can easily decipher many more speech sounds than we consider belonging to the alphabet, often without realizing. However, a computer doesn't have the same ability to make the sound/meaning connections. It recognizes programming and patterns. Therefore we need to give the computer more to recognize. In order to improve voice recognition, there probably needs to be a larger speech sample, developed by someone with the awareness of all the different variations of the patterns of speech sounds. Then the computer can be programmed to recognize more patterns with greater accuracy.
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Yes – I have worked with clients who stutter!
Experts are not sure exactly what causes stuttering. According to the Stuttering Foundation there are four factors that may be involved to varying degrees that can cause a stutter: Genetics, child development, neurophysiology, and family dynamics. The Stuttering Foundations says, "Stuttering may occur when a combination of factors come together and may have different causes in different people. It is probable that what causes stuttering differs from what makes it continue or get worse."
Everyone's voices differ for most of the same reasons: Genetics - we're all born with our own unique vocal apparatus, child development - how we learn to use our body and voice as we grow, neurophysiology - the way the brain and body (in this case voice) operate together, and family dynamics - how we learn and respond depending on our home situation. Since each person is different, and each person's stutter may have different causes and then develops differently over the course of life, voice work can be highly beneficial for some stutterers.
When working with clients who stutter, we focus on breathing and continuity. Whatever the reason may be for the stutter, my clients have found great success by focusing on continuity, which is the ability to join words together on a single unbroken exhale. This means speaking within punctuation without disrupting the air.
However, the psychological implications should not be neglected. Once the physical techniques have been learned and understood, psychological factors can exacerbate the situation. At that point, it becomes a matter of developing psychological tools to overcome anxiety. What ultimately allows the training to work is a combination of voice understanding and therapy.
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