Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [37]
You really can do any or all of these things with your voice. This chapter will show you how.
THE STRUCTURE OF YOUR VOICE
In the early 1960s when I was the director of radio and television for George Washington University in Washington, D.C., I was asked by the chairman of the speech department to help him coach famous individuals on how to appear on television and use the voice properly. His death several years later left me the sole coach of our pupils, and I was then forced to become more of an expert on the subject of the human voice in order to carry on our work.
To supplement what I already knew, I read every textbook I could find and consulted with several outstanding voice teachers about the use of the voice.
Through this research I began to realize that the voice doesn’t just come out of the front of the face. There is more to it than that—much more. When you use your voice correctly, you involve your whole body, from the top of your head to your heels. Your entire body is a voice-making box.
Let’s start with your brain. It has to have its constant supply of oxygen, and it has to mastermind the whole speaking process.
Moving downward, each of those four little sinus cavities just above and below your eyes hold about a teaspoon of air. They relate to the highest range of your speaking voice and might be compared in size to a high-pitched piccolo in an orchestra. Combined with the nasal cavity, they form a very important part of your speaking process.
Press your fingers over the bridge of your nose, say “ninety-nine,” and you will feel a vibration. Nasal sounds made through this “mask” can be unpleasant to the ear. They may come out harsh and strident compared to the deep resonance of the chest tone. The sound made by the top string on a violin has the same characteristic, since only a small amount of air is set in motion.
Next in line are your articulators, which enable you to pronounce your words. Animals can make sounds, but they cannot speak a true language. These articulators make it possible for you to enunciate the elements of speech. Inside your mouth, you will move your tongue along the gum ridges and teeth. You will use the hard palate in the roof of your mouth and the soft palate in the back. You open and close your lips to form the consonants and the vowels.
Then there is that funny little thing called the uvula, which moves when you open the back of your throat. Its other function is to close over the back of your nostrils while you are eating.
You need space between your upper and lower sets of teeth so you can move your articulators freely. You cannot talk with your teeth clenched. Notice how singers in a choir often keep their mouths open, with enough room to place a couple of fingers between their teeth. They articulate all of the words with clarity so that you can easily understand them. Speakers must do the same thing.
The larynx is in the back of your throat. Your vocal cords are actually two pairs of folds of membrane near the larynx. They vibrate when air comes up through your windpipe, producing amplified sound. Put your fingers under your chin as you talk, and you will feel the resonance. These vocal cords open and close when you talk and become tired and inflamed with strain and overuse.
You have to breathe through your lungs in order to power this vocal apparatus. For normal conversation with your friends, you need only a small amount of air in the top of your lungs—so you can use a shallow breath. But to achieve a pleasant chest tone with carrying power, you must breathe with your diaphragmatic muscle. That muscle is very important, since it supplies the air your lungs must send up over the back of your tongue and through your lips.
Think of a bagpipe, which is filled full of air that is used as it is needed. Think of a bellows, which, when squeezed, is capable of focusing a solid stream of air. Consider all that air in your lungs as enough