The Persuasive quality of voice
Can your voice inspire? The psychology of making an impact with your voice is far more important and subtle than most of us recognise. I find this quote profoundly powerful. “Speak clearly, if you speak at all; carve every word before you let it fall.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes (American physician, poet and legal scholar)
As a speaker, presenter, leader, or an aspiring one, strive to create a strong professional presence. If you are serious, becoming an effective communicator is pivotal to personal branding. Effective communication is not only about linguistic proficiency and subject expertise, it is also about expressing it in a persuasive voice. One-on-one communication or a formal presentation, a speaker’s message is powerful only when it motivates and energizes the audience. A true speaker knows that a persuasive voice is pivotal in creating that impact. The sound of your voice creates the vocal presence and your vocal sound energy aids perception management, relationship building and overcomes most communication challenges.
The connecting or the missing link
Undoubtedly, there is no sound as alive as the human voice? You may have watched videos that have only the background music, visuals and some text. And you also watched the ones that have all these, along with a human narrative. Which of them captivates you and why?
Human voice is the differentiating factor. A good narrative backed by a great voice touches hearts and evokes an emotional response. An interesting fact is that our voice lies between the heart and the head. Understanding the link between voice and emotion connects intellectual awareness and heart awareness.
We are vibrating entities with a whole energetic world inside us. Our voice is the vibration and emotion fuels it. Emotion changes the frequency of the sound we produce. To enhance the inner world of energy, we must understand the technicalities of vocal production.
Today, the scenario has changed dynamically in the virtual world, with social media platforms shrinking distances and allowing professionals to network rapidly. The pandemic also opened up new avenues for aspiring speakers. Professionals are now waking up to understanding the need to sound better. The flip side is that despite introspection, they seem to be happy being ostriches than paying heed to their intuition, poking them to take necessary action in training their voice. Lack of awareness of training or the absence of understanding probable benefits, confuses them in making an investment in self-development.
Although the human voice is unfathomable, it is still much ignored and has received little attention. We all know that to be heard and noticed, to project the leadership qualities, we must be excellent at public speaking. But are we? And who is going to tell us how to master it when public speaking is perceivably just about facing an audience, speaking into the mic or to the walls and ceilings? Yes, we have public speaking coaches, some of who emphasize on being well-dressed, exuding confidence, delivering great content and exhibiting linguistic prowess. While another lot doesn’t believe in perfecting those aspects at all in the name of asserting and accepting their imperfection. No one directs you to train your voice.
Ask yourself what qualities in a speaker affect you, and pinpointing them can lead to confusion as a layman. More often than not, you would end up saying he or she spoke well and appeared confident. While in an instance when you are unimpressed by a speaker, you would say that he or she was boring; he or she put me to sleep. All motherhood statements! Have you ever wondered what is missing here? What is the missing or the connecting link?
The Science and Psychology
Now take a deep breath and run down memory lane. There must be a speaker/voice who/that impressed you to the core and had your full attention. It might not be necessarily a formal setup. Just close your eyes and remember the speaker, the speech, and visualize yourself with rapt attention. It’s the sound waves from the speaker’s voice that are traveling towards you; and you see yourself emotionally responding to the sound of their voice. The energy, emotion, passion and the melody of their voice is affecting your senses. You find yourself enthralled by the vocal performance of the speaker.
“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.”–Maya Angelou.
Intelligence and consciousness differentiate humans from other beings on this planet. It’s the human voice that sets us apart in the world of sounds.
Author Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had said, “The human voice is the organ of the soul.”
It is intriguing that we have a deep association with sound! Since matter resulted from the Big Bang explosion, our existence began with sound. We all know that we are nothing but matter. Our physical body comprises trillions of cells made of atoms. The atomic particles (protons, electrons and neutrons) in all matter vibrate at a speed of about 100 trillion times per second, creating a ‘tone’, 20 octaves above the range of our hearing. So our body is constantly producing rhythmic sounds that we cannot hear.
Now close your eyes once more and imagine your body is a glass jar filled with water and the trillions of cells you comprise. The fundamental unit of life, each cell, is a living thing constantly in motion. So how much sound do you think the trillions of cells inside our body are producing? Alas, we cannot hear those sounds as they are ultrasonic. We can infer that our body is continuously in a natural rhythm set by the cosmos. In fact, every matter, living or non-living, is vibrating at its own rhythm.
We are naturally inclined towards rhythm and melody in the human voice.
Sound and the human voice
We often talk about vibes. Have you wondered what are they, actually? Our body has an electromagnetic field usually called the ‘aura’. It exists because of the body’s natural vibrations and our thoughts that define our personality. So we speak in terms of not matching up with someone’s vibes or wavelength. I am sure you are getting the point. Sound is the way nature asserts it’s presence. Here and there, the sound is everywhere! The pouring rain, the waterfall, the ocean waves, the storm, the thunder, the wind, all the living beings and even the man-made things produce sound. The more you observe yourself deliberately, the more you will understand. We respond to each sound emotionally.
So if the human voice is the organ of the soul, wouldn’t it be right to say that the voice reveals a great deal of personality that others pick and process involuntarily? The conscious mind might miss some details, but the subconscious is smart and understands. The incessant fight between the conscious and the subconscious makes us negate the latter most of the times.
Now let’s go back to the metaphor of our body as the glass jar containing water with all our cells inside. Science has proven that every entity in this cosmos constantly tries to tune itself with the surrounding frequencies. What would happen to your cells if they heard a humiliating voice vis-à-vis a warm one? Which one would they want to tune with? I am sure you would choose the latter by default, because the former would cause an unpleasant experience resulting in stress.
Let’s infer:
• Frequencies affect us.
• We respond to sounds emotionally.
• We connect or disconnect with human voices because of the above two.
Voice is the pivotal tool for expression and communication in the human world. We are born with our own unique musical instrument–The Human Vocal Apparatus. We will see limitless possibilities when we learn to play it. We have the power to produce unique sounds that can influence people and surroundings around us. You can unleash the potential of your voice by tapping into your vocal sound energy.
Voices impact us. However, no one teaches us this aspect of oral communication. It’s only when we are deep into our respective careers, we intuitively start introspecting how we sound as we realise the significance of the sound of various voices around us. We naturally have a penchant for positive frequencies, melody and rhythm. That is the fundamental reason we appreciate voices that sound energetic, warm, wise, composed, and melodious. Unfortunately, no one taught us to treat our vocal apparatus as a musical instrument. We never consciously pushed to explore our vocal range unless we learnt to sing professionally. We are also oblivious to the fact that there’s an enormous difference between the singing and the speaking voice as far as verbal performance matters. One thing that is common between the two is the ability to connect with the listeners emotionally. And that should be the purpose of a verbal performance – emotional connection.
Say YES to culturing your voice
Culturing your voice is the step to moving towards mastering your vocal instrument. German composer Richard Strauss’s words represent the real challenge that might either persuade or dissuade you in exploring your voice. He said, “The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.” Knowing that all the musical instruments imitate the human voice and not otherwise might just give you some solace.
To master our own voice, it is primarily important to understand the elements and qualities of a voice that affect us. Why they do so and how? Once we have a fair understanding, we can kick-start the process by assessing our own voice. This assessment is the first step towards building that empowering vocal presence. Are you aware of the flaws or do you think there isn’t any need to sound better? Training your voice is an integral aspect of oral communication, the stark truth, but mostly ignored. Mouthing words that are not supported by the right sound of the speaker’s voice makes the process of communication ineffective and uninteresting - a futile effort. Most speakers just deliver content, which almost never reaches an emotional plane. If you’re in the business of verbal performances, you’re in the business of delivering emotions. Tap your reservoir of emotions and play with your ‘vocal instrument’ to produce the right sounds. God connected your soul and mind to your ‘vocal instrument’ with a limitless potential to influence. Emotions persuade us, and persuasive speaking is essential to projecting an empowering vocal presence.
If the thought of assessing your voice has occurred to you and you have been secretly nurturing the desire to sound empowering, persuasive to have your listeners eat out of your palms, or simply sound better for professional success, then go for it–train your voice. It’s your inner voice guiding you to invest in this niche skill and it’s in your best interest to not ignore the inner calling.
Possessing a magnificent voice is a gift, but it is not the sole criteria to excel in speaking, singing, or narrating. A person with even a mediocre voice can make the best use of it by training to modulate it and learning to tune it like a musical instrument.
To empower your voice, you need to train it!
Our body is an instrument of communication
Your whole body is an instrument of communication. It encases your vocal instrument too. So how can you isolate your voice or body? Getting quirky with your voice is the first step to culturing voice and discovering the authentic leadership voice. If you decide to culture your voice by experimenting with some quirkiness, then you ought to be quirky with your body, too. You might hesitate in the beginning, and find it a stupid exercise, but there’s no other way to free your voice of all internal restrictions and external influences.
You need an artist’s perspective to train your voice. Vocal lessons from a voice coach help a great deal when you want to improve your speaking voice and work on your vocal presence. A voice coach changes your perspective about your voice and trains you to view it as a creative tool for discovering your authentic projection. You will start working with your voice artistically and start acknowledging that your vocal instrument has a profound purpose of connecting with other beings. When you achieve this, you would be breaking some internal barriers and shifting your mind to be comfortable with your body while facing an audience. Remember Jim Carrey contorting his face to form unique expressions. Facial expressions inevitably add to the sound of your voice.
No one wants to listen to a mundane sounding voice repeatedly. If you want to connect with others and engage them in listening to you actively, you must learn to add expressions, colours, and variety to your voice by working on the vocal dynamics artistically.
There are many instances where leaders, speakers and professionals have sought help to improve their vocal ability, delivery style, create an impactful presence and speak persuasively.
Are you willing to make the effort?