Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [38]
Put your hand on your chest and say “good morning,” feeling the resonance. When you control your voice, you can duplicate the range of musical instruments in an orchestra. The high notes are made on thin, taut strings, and the low notes are made on thick, heavy, relaxed strings. The small piccolo goes “eeee,” and the big bassoon goes “aaaahhh.”
Your diaphragm marks the center of your body and separates the top half from the bottom. It supports and controls your lungs. Breathing from the small of your back helps you understand the function of the diaphragmatic muscle, which forces the air in and out of your lungs. When you run out of air, that muscle makes you breathe. In the first few seconds after birth, the newborn must be induced to use that muscle.
In this chapter, you will read a lot about what proper breathing can do for you, such as sending oxygen to the brain, powering your speech process, relaxing you, and giving you a sense of confidence and well-being that you transmit to your audience.
The backs of your legs are also important in the speech process. They enable you to center your body and support correct erect posture. Those muscles in the backs of the legs help the heart keep the blood flowing through your body with that essential supply of oxygen. This aids the heart action and helps keep the blood from pooling downward with gravity into your feet.
Why does pacing the floor comfort you? Because this activity helps the action of the heart in this way. That’s why people often begin pacing the floor almost without realizing it when they are anxious or uncertain or waiting for a decision about something. To understand this point, you have only to think about the stereotype of the father-to-be in one of those old movies—before the days when men were allowed in the delivery room—pacing the floor of the waiting room, smoking anxiously, awaiting the birth of his baby. Or think of how candidates for some kind of award or prize feel when they are backstage waiting for the winner to be announced—several of them would be pacing the floor.
If you were backstage at a live theatrical event, you might notice actors or singers walking up and down a corridor before going on. They are not only going over their lines or thinking about the performance, they are also helping their circulation. Sometimes they will even pump their arms in an exaggerated manner as they walk. This also serves to loosen and warm up the muscles in the upper arms, shoulders, and neck—all of which can contribute indirectly to a better voice.
Your speaking posture depends on the pressure of your heels on the floor. Brace your weight on your feet and center your body by pulling up to your full height, keeping your chin level with the floor and your head high. This gives you the maximum control over your vocal apparatus. From your heels to the top of your head, your whole body is involved in the production of a beautiful voice.
You own this wonderful vocal mechanism, and you operate it. When you hear your voice on an audio tape, are you happy with it? Or do you say, “That doesn’t sound like me!” Do you know in your heart that there is something you could do better, and you just don’t know what it is or how to do it? Or is it obvious to you what you would like to change about your voice?
Once you understand the fundamental elements involved, you can devise your own approach to making a beautiful sound. That voice is produced low in your anatomy, rather than low in your voice range. The process is powered by breathing from the abdomen or diaphragm: The larynx carries this air through your vibrators and resonating tissues and cavities; and your articulators pronounce the elements of our language.
Ultimately, you will be at ease with the correct placement and use of your voice, and you won’t have to think about it. You will use it naturally every time you speak. You will carry it with you all the time, and it will be a constant