Magpie0001

Hello again TFPers.
Magpie needs your help.

I just got a new job & im using the phone alot. The problem is that i have a soft voice & its effecting my performance. I need to deepen my voice & add volume without screaming. Ive read about breathing from the diaphram & warming up my voice. I also read that gargling with vinegar can strengthen your vocal cords.
Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks a million.

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lurkette

Maleficent posted somewhere that she took a class on voice and was taught how to alter the pitch - Mal, can you weigh in on this?

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assilem

Start smoking. I sound like a burly truck driver.

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DelayedReaction

Sounds like you need to project more than anything else. Theater and singing classes can help you with that; they'll teach you how to produce more sound out of your throat without hurting your vocal cords. I have a normally loud voice, but when I project I can fill a theater. It's all a question of opening up your throat and using the most of your lungs.

Just how soft are we talking about?

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maleficent

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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n0nsensical

Get a good microphone and speak very close to it; this will increase your low-frequency response.

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Joe H.

Sit up straight, as noted above. Be sure to speak from your diaphragm--most people speak from their chest or even throat, and you can tell. It'll take practice but you'll eventually get used to it. Don't confuse volume with projection--they're related, but totally different at the same time.


<---ex radio guy

Magpie0001

Thanks alot to you all for replying,
Ive began breathing exercises & exercising my vocal cords a few times a day. Ive began gargling balsamic vinegar too which is disgusting but seems to help. I couldnt find malt vinegar because I live in Madrid & I dont even know if they have it here. Posture - I stand up when I speak on the phone. All this seems to be working but I wont know for sure untill ive used the phone for a while.
Again, thanks alot for your advice & keep em coming.

Mags.

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Music is my first love & It will be my last.

Destrox

Its hard for me to describe how to lower the voice, but I sort of tighten the muscles in the neck a lil and it gives me a "scratchy deep" voice I guess you can call it.

But I rarely do it, since my voice is allready super deep for the size of person I am. It really throws peoples off since I work retail.

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Munku

Oh man Maleficent, I'm trying to imagine everyone putting their hands on their face and singing happy birthday. )

JumpinJesus

I'm big enough to admit that I did it. And I enjoyed it immensely.

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Alkutari

speak in your normal voice and say ding-dong, bing-bong, king-kong and hold the ng sound for 7 seconds
repeat the same process again but make your voice a little deeper
repeat step 2 but again make your voice slightly deeper, you're done for the day. After doing that for a week (seriously wait a week) tilt your head up so you are facing the ceiling and repeat the process only twice, this should deepen your voice after a little while

BadNick

If you end up feeling that changing your voice just for this job is not "you" maybe consider an electronic voice changer, e.g.: Telephone Voice Changers - Phone Security

mrklixx

You can decide for yourself whether this is a joke or not:

A Deeper Voice, Right Away! Mike London&copy

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little_tippler

uhm this question is from 2004...ooold!

funny link though mrklixx

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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

mrklixx

Whoops! Sorry, didn't look at the OP date. What a bizarre thing for someone to make their first post a reply to a question from 5 years ago.

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