Verbal Communication Element #3 Inflection

By Fred E. Miller

Did you ever hear a presenter speak in Mon-O-Tone?

Did I hear some say, R2D2 of Star Wars fame? If you did, you probably couldnt wait for the talk to end, and its doubtful you remember anything from the speech. Inflection, or Voice Modulation, is change in the pitch or tone of the voice. Varying your tone throughout the speech raising your voice slightly to indicate a question, lowering it to end a declarative sentence, speaking louder to indicate excitement or softer to express sadness will help keep your audience awake and alert! There are several kinds of inflection: Upward Downward Level and Circumflex. Lets look at each of them: Upward Inflection

This is when there is a change in pitch going from a lower to a higher note within the vowel o Most often, this change in pitch indicates questioning, insincerity, surprise or suspense. Examples: Raise the pitch at the end of these words, keeping in mind what they convey with a downward inflection. No! Wow! Really

Downward Inflection

This is when there is a change in pitch going from a higher to a lower note within the vowel.

Most ofter, this change in pitch indicates confidence, finality, power and certainty. Examples: Lower the pitch at the end of these words. keeping in mind what they convey with a downward inflection. Done No Go

Level Inflection

This is when there is no change in pitch within the vowel. o Most often, this indicates disinterest and indecision. Examples: Dont vary the pitch in these words. OK Maybe Fine

Double or Circumflex Inflection

This is when there is a rising and falling, or a falling and rising of pitch within the vowel. o Most often, this change in pitch indicates confidence, finality, power, and certainty. Examples: Lower the pitch at the end of these words. keeping in mind what they convey with a downward inflection. Done No Amazing

Lowering your inflection at the end of a sentence makes it more powerful and gives the audience the impression you believe your own message. Use upward inflections in the middle of a sentence to make the sentence more interesting and bring some attention to your point. Its important to vary the pitch. It will help keep your audience in tune (no pun intended!) with your message and understand its substance. Try the following exercise to demonstrate the importance this can have in your delivery. Say slowly, and out loud, this sentence: I did not say he lost the keys. Each time you say it, put the Inflection on the underlined word. Exercise:

I did not say he lost the keys. I did not say he lost the keys. I did not say he lost the keys. I did not say he lost the keys.

(If not you, who said it?) (Maybe you wrote it?) (I guess someone else lost the keys.) (Perhaps he gave them away?)

I did not say he lost the keys.

(Gee! I hope he didnt lose the car!)

Amazing, isnt it, how the entire meaning of a sentence can change by inflecting one of its words? Use this tool in delivering your speech and youll see fewer yawning faces in the audience! One excellent way to get the attention of the audience is to lower your voice. Its a pattern interrupt that sends out the message, Listen This is important! This technique is particularly effective if youre speaking with excitement and passion, and suddenly pause . . . lower your voice, and say, . . . The quieter your voice gets, the more important the message is perceived to be. The concept is analogous to telling secrets. We lower our voice, and the recipient must listen more intently. This has to be done naturally and sparingly or the effect will be minimal. Done correctly and you can create a WOW moment for your audience!

How SEXY is your voice? How to make your voice deeper Voice Coaching
One of my friends is really good looking and very fashion savvy. He knows how to match the colors of his trousers with the colors of his shirt, his shoes are 'trendy' and his haircut is so well prepared that makes every woman's head in the venue spin when he walks around: they clearly consider him a visual candy. Me and John went out the other day and sat at a bar to have a beer or two. Not very far away from us, two pretty blond girls were having some cocktails. This meant that something had to be done. The blondes started to throw quick glances at my friend and the taller one gave him a good, loooong eye contact which every child, mother and elder in the audience knows what it means. At some point, maybe because of the beer, maybe because he was pushed to, he decided to go and speak to them. If two would go, it would not be a pick up but more something like a cavalry attack. Instead, I decided to sit back and watch the whole interaction take place while pretending to be talking to the barman, who was pretending to be listening. Upon his arrival to target, the girls were looking at him with big eyes. He leaned over them and said something that I did not hear.

Then to his fans surprise, something broke. As from that point on, everything went wrong. The girls looked at each other with bewilderment. One smirked a bit and looked down at her drink, which for some reason started to seem much more interesting than my buddy. Soon after that, they both started turning their body language away from him, in what the whole bar would call a clearly dramatic moment. Because this happened while poor John was talking to them. Boom. It was over before it even had started. With a clear deception in his eyes, he picked his pride from the floor and returned back to base. You see ... my friend has a very particular speech pattern. Equipped already with a high pitched tone voice, he pushes that even higher when he is stressed. Even if that was not enough... he speaks FAST. And when I say fast, I do not mean, I just-had-a-coffee fast; I mean I just-had-a-speed fast. Seriously John... you sound dreadful. Vocal training Voice. One uses it and becomes a politician; another misuses it and cant order a pizza over the telephone properly. But as for most human tools, your voice is also OPEN to improvement and development. Diaphragm Most people think that it is just the vocals that produce the sound. Others believe that the more hard you push the air out of your lungs, the better your voice sounds. Hell, no. Your voice is produced by a combination of organs. Your lungs and your diaphragm push the air, which meets the vocal chords, and they all together start a series of vibrations. These vibrations expand through your lungs and mouth cavity. The key word here is resonance. They way you move your mouth, the way you expand your throat and more important, how deeply you breath, is what makes the resonance sound high or low.

With the same air speed, you can resonate high, or you can resonate low. You might want to try an experiment. Say yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh long enough. Now try bringing your voice down from the higher pitch to the lowest tone you can. Keep your air speed steady. You will be able to notice that your voice will resonate in three different places as you go from high up the frequency scale to deep down low. First you will resonate at the nose, then you will resonate at your throat, and last and more important you will resonate down at your chest. There is where the bass lies. Pavarotti, the tenore, used to sing well because of talent and because he trained for years his diaphragm to bring it at a master's level. By doing some vocal training, you may learn to move your resonant point further down your body. That is a good thing. People will pay attention to you more often because of that. There was a test once, and it was found that people that have a deep bass voice, people that know how to make plenty of pauses, and people that take their time when they speak, are way more attractive than all the rest. Notice also that what you do here, is that you control a whole series of organs to bring out an end result: Keep the point of your resonance down to your chest and away from your head. This is done, by trying to breathe deeply from your diaphragm and not shallow from your upper lungs. You see, all babies and animals breath using the diaphragm. As we stress and move on in life, we make the error and start breathing shallower. There is a misunderstanding in western society. For some bizarre reason, the image of a fit man is one with a strong chest. So, many people when asked to take a deep breath, they start by expanding the upper part of the lungs. My friend, if you want to have a big chest, go to the gym. Breathing high, will not only make you less calm, but will also make you seem more defensive. Normally, a high pitched voice reminds us of being less calm. Remember the first time you spoke in public, or the last time you were defending your self about something. Your voice was a pitch higher than normal. If you want to stay calm: keep your breathing deep and your voice as bass as it can go. This will stop any unwanted positive stress feedback phenomena. Exercises. In order to be de-programmed of this bad way of breathing, you will need up to several months. But it can be done. There are some exercises that do exactly that. You should not to overdo with them and should perform them only after you have talked to a doctor or a voice expert. Strengthen your diaphragm awareness exercises.

1) Inhale from your diaphragm. Push your stomach up like a balloon. Count silently 1-2-3-4 while inhaling. Count 4-3-2-1 silently while exhaling. This should not be done more than 6 times per day. 2) Inhale from the diaphragm deeply. Exhale slowly. So slowly that, if there was a candle in front of you, you wouldnt blow it. 3) Keep a body language where you head stands still but you chest doesn't stick out. Resonance 1) Inhale deeply again. Exhale slowly while resonating from you chest. You should feel the resonance down to your belly. Avoid the nose or the throat. Your exhale should be stable with no tone changes and with no added effort. 2) Perform the same, but this time start visualising that the resonance point looks like an elevator going up and down, as it travels from your nose to your chest. 3) Perform the same, but this time say all the different vocals in the alphabet, until all of them sound with the same tone. You may spot some that are less bass than others. Work them. Speech rhythm 4) Try and find something to read. Read it out loud, while you are able to read at about 160 words per minute. 5) Give feelings to your words. Hit at least two tones. A monotone is *not* an EXCITING voice, to listen to. EXTRA): To learn to articulate well you can do a series of exercises where you say every consonant with every vocal while speaking from your diaphragm and while you articulate slowly:ba bo bi bo bu, ca co ci co cu, da do di do du, ...., za zo zi zo zu. Then make sure when you speak to someone that you speak slowly. Here is a very emotional and inspirational speech. Listen to all the above in action.