Despite the fact that we live in a society that is becoming less and less dependent on face to face communications every day, we still do occasionally have to flap our lips at each other, whether it be in business, culture, or sexuality. And seeing as I have already taught you how to enunciate and be eloquent, I can now teach you how to project your voice.
What is projection? Simply put, it is speaking loud and clear and in a way that is capable of being heard over a din of noise. It also naturally makes you more commanding and dominant when you’re in a group of people, and when you get down to it, isn’t that what we all want to achieve?
The Basics
Several articles that I have already written can be used as a good “starting point” for vocal projection. Simply put, you cannot project your voice effectively if you have bad, slumped over, and hunched posture. Stand up straight and tall, but not so straight that you make yourself tight in the chest and “constrict yourself”. You should feel as if you are “opening up” your chest instead. If it helps, try adopting the old “opera singer” pose with your hands. This will cause the muscles of the chest and back to tense and expand, which will provide a somewhat artificial but nonetheless effective way of expanding your voice.
Most importantly, remember to breathe before you speak, and breathe diaphragmatically (in other words, breathe from the belly and feel it expand, rather than breathing from your chest and back as the unlearned person does). Of course, you should just take one big breath before you speak, rather than many shallow breaths—we want to avoid hyperventilation after all, which will certainly not do anything for the sound of your voice, amongst many other problems.
If you are like me and you have any experience playing a wind instrument—whether it be a woodwind or brass—this can be very useful for learning how to breathe properly and diaphragmatically.
Vocal Techniques
When projecting, you want to be speaking slowly and, if anything, overenunciating and elongating your vowels. Try to visualize your mouth as a “horn” that you speak through, if that makes any sense to you. As stupid as what I’m about to say might sound…the best way I can describe this is the famous Seinfeld “belly button talking” scene—at the very least, that helped me sort of conceptualize how to stretch out my vowels.
Do that, but not in a comedically exaggerated fashion, and you’ll be able to project—as I said above, it worked for me personally at least.
Another way you can think about doing this is to make your voice “bigger”—but not louder. The first thing to do with this is to put some energy and enthusiasm into your voice, rather than speaking in monotone. When you do this, you’ll find that people can naturally hear you better, because subconsciously you’ll be standing right and opening up your chest, and thus projecting your voice. Oftentimes you’ll find that this alone will be sufficient for your projection needs.
If not, here’s another way to think about doing this: imagine that your throat, chest and mouth, are filling the room, and you’re going to fill up that space with the sound of your voice. This will automatically make the muscles of your throat relax, and like magic you’ll find that your voice will get bigger.
A quick and dirty way you can determine if you’re doing this right: if you’re attempting to speak loud in the way that most people do (ie: forcing the sound out by constricting the muscles of the throat), you’ll find that your throat hurts. Whereas if you are projecting properly, speaking diaphragmatically and making your voice big rather than loud, you’ll find that your chest and stomach will be hurting after a long period of speaking.
Combine that with the diaphragmatic breathing techniques (As running out of air is the fastest way to kill your voice), and you’ll find that you’re projecting much better than you were before. And with projection comes respect and dominance in social situations, and that’s always a plus.