Let me ask you something. How do you feel about the sound of your voice
when you're speaking English? If you're like most people, you probably have
some concerns about your voice. Maybe you feel like your pitches too high
or too low. Maybe you have trouble changing your pitch
or you feel like your voice sounds a little monotone. Maybe you think your voice sounds too nasally
or too high in your head, or perhaps you'd like your voice to sound a little bit deeper
and a little more confident. It could be that your voice sounds a little
breathy or weak, or maybe you just want to feel more confident about how you sound. In this video, I'm going to help you find
your voice in American English. The key is finding your voice, finding the
voice that makes you feel more confident about how you sound when speaking. Using a number of vocal exercises, we're going
to explore the possibilities in your voice. And let me tell you in advance, you may feel
a little awkward or uncomfortable practicing some of these exercises, but they're going
to help you get to know what's available to you in your own voice. As we work through all these exercises, I
want you to keep in mind that it's about your voice, not my voice, not someone else's voice,
not somebody you'd like to sound like. We're trying to discover what's possible for
you in your own voice. The goal is not to change your voice entirely. It's to discover where your voice is most
powerful, where it sounds the most vibrant and the most interesting, and what feels the
most natural for you. My hope is that feeling more confident and
comfortable with how you sound will help you speak up more. Your voice matters and that's why I want to
help you find it today. Let's get started. The most important thing to keep in mind as
we start playing around with these exercises is that you want to have fun exploring and
experimenting. You may feel a little awkward or silly or
uncomfortable. I encourage you to push through these feelings. Learning to use different parts of your body
in order to express yourself through your voice is so essential. Have fun exploring and experimenting until
you find what feels right for your voice. If you truly want to sound more natural in
English, you're going to have to notice things about how you breathe, how you use different
parts of your body when speaking, how you tense and relax different muscles in order
to produce sound. You'll start to notice how you use your tongue
and your lips, your jaw, your mouth, your head, your neck, your shoulders, even your
belly or your diaphragm, so that you notice how you breathe. You also need to notice where sounds are produced,
where they vibrate or where they resonate. There isn't a specific goal to achieve here. You're trying to learn more about how you
sound in order to feel more comfortable with your voice in English. Let's start off by getting a little more relaxed. Take a few deep breaths and notice where the
breath goes. Your belly should expand out when you breathe
in and should contract when you breathe out. [deep breath] Try breathing in through your
nose and out through your mouth. [deep breaths]
Take as many breaths as you need to feel more relaxed and get into your body. The reason we start with breathing exercises
is that breath is a really big part of how we use our voice. Besides that, paying attention to your breath
gets you back into your body and out of your mind. In order to think about the different ways
we use our voice, you need to be in your body rather than worrying about how you sound. Now I want you to take a moment and relax
your shoulders and neck. You can do a couple of shoulder rolls forward
and back, maybe one and then the other. Shrug your shoulders and release. Whatever feels comfortable to you. You may notice that when you feel stressed,
your voice sounds a little strained. Taking a few moments to release any tension
from your shoulders and your neck will help you speak a little bit better. Now we're going to spend some time moving
your mouth and your jaw. We're going to work through some vowel sounds. It's important to understand that if you feel
like your voice is very nasally or it feels a little restricted or strained, you're probably
not opening your mouth enough. When I work with clients, I almost always
have to tell them to drop their jaw more. A lot of people hold a lot of tension in their
jaw. This happens for a number of reasons. It could come from how you produce sounds
in your native language, feeling a little nervous about speaking English, or just not
being comfortable using your mouth so much. In order to find your more natural sound in
English, you want to open your mouth more, give your voice some space to leave your mouth. Let's start off by really opening our mouths
and saying the sound "ah." Think about when you're going to the doctor
and they're inspecting the back of your throat. You really want to open your mouth in order
to produce this sound. Ah, ah, ah, ah. Repeat it a few more times on your own. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. Maybe your mouth and your jaw will start to
relax a little bit. If you're not used to opening your mouth so
much into this shape, it may take a little practice. This is a great way to warm up your mouth
before you have to start speaking. Ah, ah, ah. Now I want to transition between some of the
most important vowel sounds in English. In my video on how to sound more American,
I explain how you need to move your mouth more on long vowel sounds and diphthongs. Right now we're going to stretch and exercise
your mouth by moving between sounds that open out and back and sounds that move forward
and out. Let's start with "a" and "o." As you can see, when you say the "a" sound,
your mouth opens out and back, kind of like when you're forcing a smile. When you say the "o" sound, your jaw is dropping
and your mouth is rounding. Think of the shape a fish makes when it opens
its mouth up and down. We're going to transition between the "a"
and the "o" sound a few times. A, o, a, o, a, o, a, o. Now let's move between the "ee" and the "oo"
sound. The "ee" sound also moves up and back, and
the "oo" sound requires you to purse your lips a little bit, like that fish Ee, oo,
ee, oo, ee, oo, ee, oo, ee, oo. Now you're going to move your mouth even more. We're going to move between the "i" sound
and the "ou" sound. Both of these vowel sounds require you to
move your mouth a lot. It's really good exercise for your mouth. I, ou, i, ou, i, ou, i, ou, i, ou. Now that you've spent a few moments doing
these exercises, you're probably a little more aware of the different muscles in your
lips, your mouth, and your jaw. They may be speaking to you. You may be feeling a little bit tired or you
may feel a little soreness from using these muscles if you're not used to moving them
so much. I know I can feel it. This is helping you pay attention to different
parts of your mouth, which will help you as we start working on different aspects of your
voice. Next, we're going to have some fun. I want you to flutter through your lips, kind
of like you're making a horse sound. This is definitely going to look and feel
a little bit silly, so have some fun with it. [flutter sound] Now let's add some sound to
this exercise. This is a great way to start exploring what's
available to you with your pitch. We'll talk more about pitch in just a moment,
but I just want you to start exploring your range. Add some sound to this fluttering of your
lips. Try to imitate an old fashioned phone ringing. [flutter sound]
Try going up and down and all around with the sound leaving through your lips. [flutter sounds]
If you're like me, you're probably noticing your lips a little more and we've started
engaging your voice. Now let's move on to some humming. Once again, we're just trying to see what's
available to you in your own voice. Start out by humming wherever feels comfortable. [humming]
In order to find your natural voice in English, you want to think about where the sound is
vibrating. We're just going to start with humming right
now. [humming]
I notice that the sound is vibrating in my voice box. [humming]
Now I want you to take a moment and see if you can move the sound around. See if you can get it into your chest. You may notice that you have to move your
pitch around in order to feel it vibrating in different parts of your body. [humming] It's really hard for me to get my
pitch that low. Let's move a little higher. [humming] Can you feel it in your lips now? [humming] See if you can move it upwards. Can you feel it in your nose? [humming] What about your head? [humming]
Now I want you to combine humming with changing your pitch. Try humming different melodies, different
sounds. [humming]
Just have fun exploring! You want to see how much you can move your
pitch. This will really help you when you start thinking
about changing your pitch when speaking. Let's move on and play a little more with
your pitch. When you're speaking English, you want to
speak at the optimal pitch for your voice. This is the pitch where your voice is most
comfortable, most natural, and where your voice comes out easiest. As a non-native speaker, you may find that
your optimal pitch in English is different than the pitch you use in your native language. Some languages speak at a higher pitch than
we do in English and some speak at a lower pitch. Besides that, your native language may not
use as much of your pitch range as we do in American English. In American English, we normally speak within
four main pitch levels. At times, our pitch will go even higher and
at times it may go even lower. When you're speaking English, you want to
feel comfortable moving up and down. Within these four pitch levels, your baseline
pitch is where your voice naturally rests. You're going to come down to your baseline
pitch when you're saying words and syllables that don't really matter. These are what we call unstressed words and
syllables. Think about how you may say function words
like of, at, by, to. As you can hear, those words are said at a
slightly lower pitch. This is your baseline pitch. When you're emphasizing key words and syllables,
your pitch is going to rise one step above the baseline pitch. At this pitch level, your voice should have
richness, depth, and fullness. It should sound really nice. It should feel really comfortable and really
natural. When you're emphasizing the most important
words in the sentence, your pitch is going to hit two steps above your baseline. You'll hit the highest pitch level when saying
the most important words in a thought group or sentence, you'll hit the lowest pitch level
at the end of a declarative sentence when using falling intonation. That will be one step below your baseline. If you haven't explored pitch with me, I encourage
you to start out with my video on The Power of Pitch. In this video, I share a pitch exercise where
we go up and down between different pitch levels in your voice in order to see what's
possible. For more practice changing between your baseline
pitch and one step above your baseline. I encourage you to check out my Pitch Exercises
video. For even more explanation about the different
levels of pitch. Check out my video on contrast and it can
help you sound more natural. Right now, instead of working on the steps
between different pitches, we're going to practice gliding or sliding up and down between
pitch levels. The reason we're doing this is that I receive
a lot of feedback from people who don't feel like they can change between different pitch
levels in their voice. By sliding up and down all along your pitch
range, you'll see that you do have a lot of different levels available in your voice. You're probably just not that comfortable
controlling them or changing them when speaking English. Have some fun and play with this. See what's possible for you. It may sound completely different than me,
you may have more range than I do, or it may feel a little more restricted. In that case, you may want to practice this
every day for a couple of weeks or even a month in order to get more comfortable exploring
your pitch range. Let's get started. We'll start with the sound "ah." Ah..... Now let's try it with the sound "a." A..... Move on to "e." E...... Next, let's try "i." I..... Moving on to "o." O..... Oo. Oo..... Oi. Oi.... Ou. Ou..... You can repeat this with those same vowel
sounds or introduce other vowel sounds in order to just practice moving your pitch up
and down. I hope you notice that you do have control
over your pitch and that you are able to glide up and down, up and down. As you continue to play with your pitch, you
just want to see what's possible for you in your voice. Being able to slide up and down between different
pitch levels will definitely help you with your intonation as well. When we're using falling intonation, we often
have to transition from the highest pitch level down to the lowest on one syllable. When we're using rising intonation or showing
more extreme emotions with our intonation, we often glide up from a lower pitch level
to a higher pitch level. Have fun exploring what's available in your
pitch. Finally, let's talk a little bit about placement
or resonance. Placement is a term that's often used by singers
to talk about where you're directing the sound of your voice. In other words, where you're placing your
voice. Personally. I prefer the term resonance because resonance
talks about how the sound vibrates and how it moves inside your body. While your voice can resonate in many parts
of your body, we tend to talk about four main locations: your chest, your mouth, your nasal
passage, or what singers refer to as your mask, if you were wearing a mask on this part
of your face, and your head. For the general American accent, you want
your voice to resonate in the center of your mouth. You may notice that resonance happens in different
parts of the mouth or jaw or nasal passage for other regional accents or dialects. The sound may land in the back of the throat,
in the jaw, in the front of the teeth, in the nasal passage. It really depends. For now, I want you to think about directing
the sound towards the center of your mouth. Think about aiming up and out. You're trying to get the sound to sound full
and rich. You want depth to the sound of your voice. In order to focus on where your voice is resonating,
you're going to need to visualize where you're directing the sound. You may notice that you'll change where your
voice resonates depending on different situations. For example, if you're trying to sound cute
or nice, you may find your voice resonating a little bit higher. If you're trying to sound authoritative or
confident, you may feel that you're directing the sound down towards your chest. It may feel lower. If you feel like you have a very nasal voice,
you may want to work on directing your sound downwards towards your chest to get more power
from your breathing in order to bring the sound out of your nose and into your chest. I find that a lot of non-native speakers tend
to speak from higher up in their nasal passage and this has to do with the native language
and where the sound is produced. So it may not help you at first to focus on
the center of your mouth. You may want to focus instead on directing
your sound down to your chest. The idea is to get the sound out of your head
and nasal passage and get it down lower. Besides that, if you find yourself straining
a lot when speaking because you're trying to project your voice, you may find that your
voice goes a little bit higher into your nasal passage, or it starts to sound a little bit
weak or high and constricted. In this case it can also be helpful to direct
the sound downward. To be honest, when I record YouTube videos,
I often have to remind myself to bring the sound down as well. To start playing with resonance, we're going
to count from one to five and we're going to think about directing the sound to a certain
part of the body. Let's start with the chest. One, two, three, four, five. Do you hear how the quality of my voice is
a little different when it's in my chest? Now let's try the throat. One, two, three, four, five. Can you feel the voice box vibrating under
your hand? Now let's try the jaw. One, two, three, four, five. Even though I can feel it vibrating here,
my voice is starting to feel a little constrained now. Let's try in the center of your mouth. One, two, three, four, five. Do you hear how that sound is a little fuller
as I'm speaking? Let's try that one again. One, two, three, four, five. Now let's try directing the sound to the nasal
passage. One, two, three, four, five. As you can hear, my voice is starting to sound
a little bit nasally. Now let's try directing the sound upward towards
your head. One, two, three, four, five. Can you hear how the quality of my voice changes
when it's resonating in different parts of the body? Let's play around with it. Let's continue counting from one to ten, moving
the voice all around, thinking about different places to direct the sound. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten. Sounds really different, right? Let's try it again. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten. To play around with resonance, you can also
try speaking from different parts of your voice. I'm feeling very low and confident here. Now I'm feeling really nasally. I'm feeling like I'm speaking from the top
of my head. Now I'm speaking in a more comfortable place
for my voice. I'm speaking from the center of my mouth. You can have a lot of fun playing around with
where the sound is resonating. As I mentioned, you may change around the
resonance of your voice depending on what you're trying to achieve when speaking. For example, if you're feeling more annoyed
or frustrated, you might just naturally drop a little bit lower. I don't know what you're talking about. I can't believe we're in this situation. What should we do? Or if you're trying to be really nice, you
may move your voice up a little bit higher towards your nasal passage to sound a little
more likable. To bring it back to my original point, when
you're speaking American English, you want the sound to resonate in the center of your
mouth. This is where it's going to sound richest
and fullest. Resonance is something to play with. You want to just pay attention to where you're
directing your voice. For some people, you may want to direct it
more downward to get it out of your head or out of your nasal passage and down. For other people, you may want to think about
directing the sound to the center of the mouth and then out. Find what feels comfortable and natural for
you. After all, the goal is for you to feel comfortable
with your own voice, to like the way your voice sounds in American English. Play around with these exercises. Have fun with it and find what feels right
for you. Sounding more natural is about feeling more
natural with how you use your voice. If you've never explored these possibilities
in your voice, it may feel a little uncomfortable at first, but then when you find what's right
for you, you're going to feel so much more confident about the way you sound when speaking. Be sure to leave a comment with any questions
you have about how to use your voice in English. And if this video has helped you find your
voice in English, I'd love to hear how. Be sure to check out my other videos on how
to use your voice and breath in English. I've included links to all the videos I've
mentioned in the description. Once again, I'm Kim from englishwithkim.com. I'm your guide to the essential communication
skills you need to sound more natural in English. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs
up and share it with a friend. Be sure to hit subscribe and click that bell
so you don't miss any of my videos. Have a good one. Goodbye.
