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Old 07-30-2004, 08:14 AM   #5 (permalink)
maleficent
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Location: Chicago
There's a trick you can do to find out if your voice is too high...

1. Put your middle finger on your nose
2. Your pinkie on the left side of your mouth
3. Your thumb on the right side of your mouth
4. Your other two fingers on your cheeks
Hum, "Happy Birthday to you."
Where do you feel the vibration?
If it's in or around your nose, you may sound nasal and high pitched, hum lower and try to move the buzz to your cheeks or mouth. Next try to speak there.


I will dig out my book on it over the weekend for more info

Exercise to loosen up your mouth and your voice...
1. Yawn and rotate your jaw - make strange faces with your mouth to loosen up your jaw
2. Before answering the phone, drop you head onto you chest and let it hang. That removes tension and makes your voice sound less tight.
3. Good posture is essential, I hear a major difference in my voice when I am slouching as to when I am sitting up straight. P
4. You don't want to strain your voice, the pitch (?) of your voice is dependent on the length of your vocal chords, some people just can't get a lower voice, but experiment with it and see what feels comfortable for you.
5. If you are talking a lot, stay hydrated.
6. Deep breathing exercises (or swimming) will strengthen respitory muscles and help with control of the voice as well (you sound less anxious, and that lowers your voice.)

Practice Practice practice...

And get friends to tell you when you are not talking in the right range, once you are aware of it, correcting it is pretty easy. (in the class I took, we had to answer questions constantly, and anytime someone did something odd, then someone else would raise a bandana.
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