Voice Training Exercise | Easy steps to improve the sound of your voice

hello its Peter Baker here from voiceover masterclass comm I've been in the voice-over business for a very long time since the early 70s and one question that comes up again in the game is how does one improve one's voice and the word improve what does that mean usually when people say how could I improve my voice they want to sound more like an announcer with lots of resonance and resonance or depth and voice is a very good aspirational thing too to get basically a resonant deep voice gives a short Authority it gives you the the sound of someone that you want to listen to it makes it easier to listen to as well so resonance is a good thing for men and for women by the way and people who have maybe a thin voice want to know how to make it a little bit deeper well it's kind of difficult on a video where I can hear your voice at the moment to give you any specific tips as to what to do with your own voice I can give some general tips but really you need to see a speech therapist or someone who can help with with drama who could listen to your voice maybe there's something physical if not psychological in your makeup or some little things that you say in the way that you say them or the way that you use your voice but let's err first of all talk about a music shop you go to a music shop and you ask for a new string for your guitar you get it in a little bag you take it out and you pluck it doesn't sound anything like it is on the guitar you suddenly put it on your acoustic guitar and it sounds like a guitar it's the same basically with the human body you have vocal cords they vibrate my vocal cords are vibrating now but I sound like me because those vocal cords are basically reverberating throughout the cavities I have in my body everybody is different and usually though not always usually the larger the body the larger the sound the more in-depth you get the more resonance you get the more assured Authority you get brother says not always and if you notice when you wake up in the morning you're a little bit groggy a little bit tired your voice is always deeper for some reason it's because you're relaxed the problem I find with people is start off with voiceovers they're so worried about how their voice is going to sound what the producer is saying the other side of the glass or you know it's it's the tension basically because you're behind that microphone and that tension then tightens up all the muscles and all the places you don't want them to tighten up and suddenly your voice becomes a little bit thin a little bit forced like that you you simply cannot physically get lower than that note because you're tensed up all the time now imagine you are woken up in the morning morning there how are you like some breakfast you're naturally deep in a romantic candlelit dinner with your partner it's a having a nice meal you know you're relaxed and suddenly you come out all sounding deep so the first thing is relax as much as you possibly can relax force yourself to relax understand in your body what muscles it is that do tense up in fact do an experiment now just pretend you're on stage loads of people are looking at you you're absolutely terrified at your wits just put yourself in that mode just think about what tense is that normally your shoulders go up a bit you're normally staring ahead your head doesn't want to move from side to side now just think of those muscles just identify them that your brain identify the muscles that affect your voice there the end I'm not a doctor I can't tell you the name of the muscles they're the ones at the back of the throat and ones that should be relaxed now you've identified them try to relax them and we do this by humming exercises humming exercises are absolutely brilliant generally for relaxing one and also for help indicate your voice deeper and this is a good general exercise for everyone to do and it's an easy one to do as well because you can low hum on a long car journey on your way to work wherever maybe not doing on a bus because people next to you might think you're a bit crazy but if you're on your own certainly in a car do some low humming and I mean really low humming and you can test how low you're going by putting your hand on top of your chest so I don't touch my microphone you put your hand there and go as low as you can like mmm lower lower find the lowest note you can do without it breaking up for me it's I don't know if the microphone can pick that out but my hand is picking up vibrations that's what you want you want those vibrations now the next thing to do once you've found the lowest note you can possibly hum sorry I hit the microphone is basically to open up those muscles dramatically the ones that you have identified the ones that are causing you to tense up and not get below your current low note and it's the same muscle that you use when you're throwing up after a party oh right hmm when you do that would you do that for me please mmm that is the muscle that you need to relax and it's right there in your throat system I say I'm not a doctor you're a doctor you probably laughing at this right now but is that one so I am now going to relax that muscle you see how lower I can get so this is my low note at the moment now I'm going to open up that muscle and you'll hear it sound much more mellow and deep and because I can't speak and Hammer at the same time my hand is up when it's tense when I relax that muscle it's down just listen to the chain okay subtle I hope you got it on your computer speakers but it basically is a mellower sound now when you start speaking in that mode suddenly become more like the announcer maybe you wish to be now some of you is now thinking well we don't all want to be announcers don't I see audition scripts that says no announcer that's absolutely right and you've got to learn how to switch yourself out of that quite often in fact earlier today I was doing some scripts for a museum in Belgium had to be various historical characters that people pick up on the headphones you know you get things like that you get acting jobs where you don't want to be an announcer you don't want to be on narrator you have to be a real person and they're quite often my voice is too deep for that and sometimes I don't get the jobs you know so deep isn't always good but if you want to go deep humming that low humming where you go right you do that basically and you when you do that in that mode relax that muscle when you're speaking you go from this voice into this voice because you'll really relaxed you've now loosened the muscle of the back of your throat and you're talking nice and relaxed and it's amazing how low you can get and to get lower you continue doing these humming exercises basically you do your low hum as much as you can I'd say ten minutes a day after a week or two weeks certainly you will know a difference suddenly whoa I don't know I can get as low as that and that with your relaxation really helps a lot so humming exercises really really good use as much as you can now there are other resonance exercises but they would need to be specific to your voice that's why you need to see an expert face to face but there's no point having that wonderful resonance if you haven't got the clarity and so I always say QE QR is the best exercise you can possibly do I talked about this in the full voiceover masterclass of lessons and basically you say the letter Q then e then Q then R you'll notice this stretches the mouth from a tiny little Q to e which is like a letter shape that cue again then are you really open now we don't open our mouths enough when we talk in the Western world you know and it really helps you as a voiceover particularly because I can't see you to get that diction correct so you can speak as much as you like however you should not over enunciate like that because that sounds ridiculous but just your qu e qu r please try it for me now who e qu r - e Q R gives our muscles a workout you sent your mouth to the gym and it comes back a happier mouth I hope you found that useful more tips and content on w WV / master course calm I've gotta get there back to my museum characters so are see you soon Bonjour

Channel: Voiceover Masterclass

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Keywords: Voice training exercise, voice training, vocal warm up, voiceover training, voice over, voice exercise, presenting, deeper voice, sound confident, improve voice, best exercises for warming up your voice, diaphragm breathing, easy steps to improve the sound of your voice, easy steps for voice improvement, peter baker, voiceover mastercalss, voiceover masterclass, vocal exercises, how to project, vocal training

Id: aeyn3kLd1Y0

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2015