The shape of your mouth and the position of the tongue in relation to the teeth and lips, determine each sound that we translate into recognisable language. Sounds from the larynx will just remain unintelligible mumbles and mutters unless they are formed into words. Words, and therefore ‘meaning’, are comprised of an often-complicated combination of individual sounds (phonemes), which are shaped by our oral ‘articulators’: Tongue Teeth Lips Jaw Hard palate (the roof of your mouth) Soft palate (t...
Mar 12, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 71
Speaking requires a complicated combination of ‘articulatory gymnastics’ to create what, on screen or paper, seems a simple sentence. After our brain processes the hieroglyphic word-forms, we instantaneously and sub-consciously order our diaphragm to send a supply of air across the vocal folds, which are tilted and turned to produce pockets of sounded-air which are sent up the vocal tract. Some of that air is diverted through the nasal cavity depending on what’s needed to create just a fraction ...
Mar 11, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Scrunch your shoulders, stretch and yawn. The latter warms up the throat, particularly important for breakfast newsreaders whose first words uttered that day may be on air! Do not let that be the case with you - sing in the car on the way in to work. Give your larynx a ‘wake-up workout’: gently see how high and low you can go. One of the greatest ‘resonance helpers’ is basic relaxation. Being in this state mentally as well as physically, will enhance your sound by diverting it to the resonance c...
Mar 10, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 69
· Here’s how to check if you are a ‘nasal whiner’. Lightly pinch your nose at the bridge (the top bony part) and say “ Sing a song of sixpence ”. When you pronounce the ‘ ng ’ sounds you should feel a slight buzz on your fingertips. That’s just what should happen when you say this sound. Now say “ Ba ba black sheep ”. If you can still feel the vibration on the ‘ ba ’ sounds, then you may potentially have a nasal problem. · Say “ Ahhh, London’s stunning onion dungeon ” a couple of times really s-...
Mar 09, 2021•8 min•Season 1Ep. 68
To reduce tension in your neck, carefully drop your head to your left shoulder and hold it there for a few seconds, then bring it back carefully to its normal, central position and hold it, before dropping to the right shoulder, and back. Then drop your chin to your chest and then tip your head back. As with any of these exercises stop if anything feels uncomfortable. Repeat this left, right, back, front routine a few times. Now, drop your head forward and roll it to each position (right shoulde...
Mar 08, 2021•5 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Society seems to usually want a tone that is of a lower rather than a higher register. It is claimed that they are “easier to listen to” and “carry more authority” but there seems little scientific evidence supporting the hypothesis that we are programmed to prefer such a tone. However, it seems to be true that men and women with a slightly lower tone are often called upon as presenters and voice-over artists, in a way that those with higher pitches are not. No longer deep booming voices, but ro...
Mar 07, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Your pitch, or register, is your ‘vocal frequency’, basically how high or low your voice is. This is affected mainly by the body you inhabit, mainly your vocal folds but also links with your frame and yes, your breathing and resonance cavities too. Nervousness contracts and tightens muscles throughout your body, including the throat, and that will cause the average pitch of the voice to rise, maybe leading to a strangled sound… As we keep seeing, everything is intertwined! There are some tweaks ...
Mar 06, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Hypernasal speech is the classic ‘ nasal voice ’ when more air is expelled through your nose as you speak, causing additional resonance. The similarly named hyponasal speech or ‘ denasality ’ is when there’s little air getting through your nose while you speak, which reduces the amount of resonance in your voice. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator o...
Mar 05, 2021•5 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Most people have no idea that much of their sound is affected by their nasal cavity. If you want to check out the effect it has on your tone, close your mouth, say a long ‘ nnnnnnn ’ sound and gently hold a finger over each nostril. Here’s another ‘trick’ to discover how much nasality your voice has: say ‘ ahhhh ’ and hold your nose, and your voice should continue almost unaltered. If it does change then you may have excess sound going through your nasal cavity. That may not be a problem at all,...
Mar 04, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. You feel the movement that happens at the back of your throat? That’s the velum swishing open and closed to divert air in through one hole (OK, two!) and out through the other. Now imagine that happening with sound leaving the body. Most of the time the curtain is closed, so the majority of the sound is diverted to the mouth , but occasionally it swishes open so we can make the sounds ‘ m ’, ‘ n ’, and ‘ ng ’. Say “ my new song ”, and you ...
Mar 03, 2021•6 min•Season 1Ep. 62
If you put your tongue-tip just behind your top teeth and trace it back along the roof of your mouth for an inch or two, you will feel your hard palate the ‘roof of your mouth’. A little bit further back (be careful you don’t gag or choke!) and you will feel the texture change. Where it does is the start of the soft palate. It moves and helps you say sounds like ‘k’ as in ‘kick’ (or better, ‘king’) and ‘ng’ as in ‘sing’, and ‘g’ as in ‘gas’ so say “ kicking the can along to the gas station ”. Th...
Mar 02, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 61
We can help the ‘resonator areas’ (the nasal cavity and oral cavity) to work to their full potential as the sound waves enter (or try to enter) them. And today we'll run a few experiments to hear the different effects that the cavities or resonators have on the sound you make. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voic...
Mar 01, 2021•5 min•Season 1Ep. 60
One of my favourite Bolognese recipes [1] includes garlic, rosemary, basil and bay leaves. Each one of them adds to the overall flavour. In an orchestra, each instrument adds a quality to the complete sound. In the human body each of the elements I mentioned a few days ago, and especially the mouth and nose resonators – and the amount of ‘sounded air’ going through them – adds to the timbre. [1] https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/best-spaghetti-bolognese-recipe From BBC presentation trainer Pet...
Feb 28, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 59
The vocal tract produces lubricatory mucus - 97% water and 3% mucins, non-mucin proteins, salts, lipids, and cellular debris. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4048736/ From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both foc...
Feb 27, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 58
THE VOCAL LIST Your physique plays a large part in shaping our voice. These include: · Your overall frame – often larger people have more resonant voices · Your hormones – we know how puberty affects the male voice, but so too can menstruation and menopause · Lung capacity – which gives us confidence to get to the end of a sentence, which in turn relaxes us · Size, strength and health of the vocal folds – partly to do with your sex · The shape and size of resonators in the chest, throat (larynx ...
Feb 26, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 57
If ‘voice’ is the sound we make, then ‘speech’ is manipulation of those sounds by our mouth, tongue and lips to create understandable words. If a listener has to work hard to ‘decode’ your message and understand what it is you are saying, they have less headspace to process the actual content. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podc...
Feb 25, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 56
At this point in the process, you have sound but no actual voice . From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusively on your vocal image on audio and video channels with two main aims: · To get you a better voice...
Feb 24, 2021•4 min•Season 1Ep. 55
It’s interesting to note that you don’t need a lot of breath for a good voice, just to use it well. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusively on your vocal image on audio and video channels with two main ...
Feb 23, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 54
The folds collide harder when you make a louder sound such as projecting, shouting or singing, and they collide more often the higher your pitch whether speaking or singing. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing ...
Feb 22, 2021•5 min•Season 1Ep. 53
You’ll get an idea of what’s happening in your larynx as you speak if you imagine holding the neck of a blown-up party balloon and letting the air out bit by bit: different sounds are made as you release your pinch. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter'...
Feb 21, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 52
More on these stories here: https://ftw.usatoday.com/lists/lions-frank-ragnow-fractured-throat-injury and https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/profootballdoc/sd-sp-pfd-henry-anderson-throat-surgery-colts-1109-story.html From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the ...
Feb 20, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Some of the cartilage of the larynx creates the bump on the front of the throat, commonly known as the ‘Adam’s Apple’, behind which are, stretched across the trachea, membranes or tissues known commonly as the ‘vocal cords’ (or more accurately ‘folds’), just the size of a thumbnail. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video...
Feb 19, 2021•5 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Humans used to be able to smell and swallow at the same time… and even though we lost that ability, we kept another very useful one, which is centred on our throats. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusiv...
Feb 18, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 49
You may have used the phrase “ it’s gone down the wrong way ” when you choke while eating, probably as a result of talking with your mouth full! It’s the epiglottis , a flap in the throat that normally diverts air or food/drink down the right tube, closing to stop food from entering the windpipe and the lungs, and opening during breathing, allowing air to flow to and from the lungs. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is ...
Feb 17, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Breathing in and out through a paper straw in your mouth will force you to concentrate on your breathing. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusively on your vocal image on audio and video channels with two...
Feb 16, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Inhale until you are comfortably full, then slowly exhale with a long ‘ssssss’. Then repeat, increasing the time you’re inhaling and hissing, aiming to go longer with each hiss until you find yourself beginning to run out of breath. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version o...
Feb 15, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 46
Do you run out of breath or feel your voice doesn’t have enough support? These exercises will help you get air in, extend your breath for a consistent, confident sound and so support your voice to the end of sentences. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Pet...
Feb 14, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 45
When we exhale, we are not exhaling all of what we have just in haled: some stays in the lungs. So some people believe it’s a good idea to cleanse lungs of that ‘stale’ air and in so doing, energise the body. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writi...
Feb 13, 2021•2 min•Season 1Ep. 44
As we have seen you have to be comfortable in letting sufficient air drop in to your lungs after one sentence, so it can power the next. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusively on your vocal image on au...
Feb 12, 2021•58 sec•Season 1Ep. 43
Breath control will… give the ability to breath less often, and less noticeably, so you can time your breaths to coincide with the natural breaks in your speech. From BBC presentation trainer Peter Stewart (@TweeterStewart), GET A BETTER BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE is a short, daily guide to help you become a stronger voice communicator on radio and TV, podcasts, video, voiceovers and webinars. It's the audio version of the book Peter's writing of the same name, both focusing exclusively ...
Feb 11, 2021•3 min•Season 1Ep. 42
