I had a most interesting phone call recently in which a woman, who I’ll call Sharon, asked me if I teach color and inflection in a workshop. Her voice was just loud enough that I had to move my cell away from me because the sound of her voice was uncomfortable. Yes, I teach speaking with expression but I explained that that aspect of my training is like the icing on the cake. The fundamentals of voice training – the cake – deal with the production of voiced sound.
As she was a training consultant, I asked her 2 questions to subtly move the conversation towards her own voice. One was her age and the other was whether she was experiencing sore throats or hoarseness by the end of the day. She was in her 40’s and had no signs of vocal abuse. Pity.
Then I talked about volume and projection (believe me, she has no trouble being heard!) and showed her the difference between projecting the voice and shouting. All these hints did not make her see the light because she proceeded to tell me that she had just finished a cruise and one of the passengers in her group was so loud she couldn’t stand to listen to her. She then said that that woman could use my help.
When I hear a voice which is too loud, I want to help that person because a loud voice is offensive to the listeners’ ears and, in many cases, damaging to the speaker’s throat and vocal cords.
What Sharon doesn’t know is that she has a beautiful warm resonant voice inside of her and it could be a much more powerful tool than the loud voice I heard. More’s the pity!
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If you have a problem with volume — either too much or too little — voice training will solve the problem. For more information, visit my voice training services page.