{"id":235795,"date":"2012-09-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/full-speech-ahead-vocal-variety-part-2\/"},"modified":"2012-09-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T07:00:00","slug":"full-speech-ahead-vocal-variety-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/full-speech-ahead-vocal-variety-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Full Speech Ahead: Vocal variety, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milo Shapiro | Guest Columnist<\/strong><\/p>\n

In our last column, we began looking at how speakers can utilize my coaching technique called the Seven Variants of Vocal Variety. The first three we covered were Volume, Pitch, and Speed.\u00a0 Let\u2019s continue.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Breakpoints.<\/strong>\u00a0 One of the classic moments in The Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em> is when the doctor says, \u201cI see you shiver with antici …\u201d and all his guests stand still, almost breathless, waiting several seconds for him to finally say \u201c… pation.\u201d\u00a0 While I wouldn\u2019t normally recommend five-second pauses in the middle of words, there\u2019s something to be said for the power of wisely<\/em>used pauses.<\/p>\n

\"Full<\/a>
Milo Shapiro (Photo courtesy M. Shapiro)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because any silence from the platform is cause for a bit of dynamic tension, create it on purpose.\u00a0 Say the following sentence first completely ignoring the ^ characters and then again putting a 1-second pause in each spot that I’ve placed them:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou kids go into that house and I don\u2019t want one ^ single ^ word ^ of complaint.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Mom or Dad said it in the way that had the pauses, I’m betting that it got a lot more attention.<\/p>\n

5) \u00a0Holdings.<\/strong>\u00a0 Holdings are almost the opposite of breakpoints.\u00a0 They let a message of a word sink in, too, but from the use of sound<\/em> rather than the use of silence<\/em>.\u00a0 Holdings involve the stretching of a sound ? usually a vowel, but some consonants work, too (Tony the Tiger trademarked a career out of holding a consonant).\u00a0 Holdings give you a chance to stress a word without having to change volume or pitch, although you could do that, too.\u00a0 In our example, say it as written and with a holding on the two underlined letters.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet this be the yo<\/span><\/strong>ast thing you say if you rmi<\/span><\/strong>ally want to make an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

The \u201cL\u201d might feel weird but it\u2019s doable \u2026 just not the best choice.\u00a0 Now try the \u201ca\u201d instead.\u00a0 Better? I’d bet that the long \u201ce\u201d in \u201creally\u201d probably felt even more natural. That\u2019s why we rehearse these things: to know in advance what we\u2019re going to do because we liked it earlier.<\/p>\n

6) \u00a0Emotion.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 While no one should look like they are going through a traumatic therapy session while on the platform, your audience wants to connect with you.\u00a0 It\u2019s really okay ? and powerful ? to show a little humanity.<\/p>\n

Let a serious moment show in your voice.\u00a0 Give an almost-laugh to your tone when something is a source of good news.\u00a0 Put a hint of a fearful tonality to a sentence on something of concern.\u00a0 Let your pride tone show when the message deserves it.\u00a0 This might feel vulnerable at first, but audiences appreciate your willingness to open yourself a bit.<\/p>\n

7) \u00a0Intonation.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 This is a catch-all for all those fun things we can do with our voices.\u00a0 We can sound more nasal, breathy, gruff, childish, mournful, and so much more.\u00a0 When I quote people, I’ll sometimes even give them an accent that the original person didn\u2019t have, but it\u2019s just a nice break from listening to my standard base tone y<\/em> it sets that character apart in my story.\u00a0 It also keeps me from having to say, \u201cHe said\u201d over and over, because it\u2019s clear when \u201che\u201d (or she!) sounds different from me.<\/p>\n

You needn\u2019t go overboard with your use of these seven considerations, but peppering your presentation with some of them can make a great difference.\u00a0 Ho<\/span><\/strong>nestly!<\/p>\n

Milo Shapiro is a San Diego-based<\/em> interactive motivational speaker and speaking coach, and is the author of<\/em> \u201cPublic Speaking: Get A\u2019s, Not Zzzzzz\u2019s!\u201d<\/em> Learn more <\/em>on his coaching & training at <\/em>www.PublicDynamics.com<\/em><\/a> ?and as a speaker\/teambuilder at <\/em>www.IMPROVentures.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milo Shapiro | Guest Columnist In our last column, we began looking at how speakers can utilize my coaching technique called the Seven Variants of Vocal Variety. The first three we covered were Volume, Pitch, and Speed.\u00a0 Let\u2019s continue. 4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Breakpoints.\u00a0 One of the classic moments in The Rocky Horror Picture Show is when the doctor […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":235668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Full Speech Ahead: Vocal variety, Part 2","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11600],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-sdnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}