Your voice is pretty unique to you, and its something that will stay with you, if looked after. Not so fickle or prone to the ravages of time as your face, your voice stays pretty constant throughout your life, unless you consciously change your accent. Even then, many vocal attributes, inflections and other aspects of the way you talk will remain pretty constant. People often recognise others by voice only, while appearances change hugely, one's voice does not.

 

Practice scales and other vocal training every spare moment you have, but at least on a daily basis.  An athlete would not let muscles waste or wane - so you should ALWAYS exercise YOUR voice. 

 

There are many organisations offering speech training; some are good and some are awful.  Its a tricky skill, marrying up a good knowledge of how the voice operates and the abaility to motivate and train others in the skills.

 

Among those offering services are

 

    UK Speech Academy

    London Speech Workships

    Royal Col' of Speech & Language

 

Voice training is for anyone who needs to be a successful communicator but who feels that one or more aspects of their speech prevent them fully achieving this. People from a wide range of professions have taken voice training, including executives, politicians, lawyers, sales personnel, consultants, doctors, academics and call centre staff.

The voice is made up of muscles, cavities, tissues, nerves, fluids, etc., just like the rest of the human body..  It can produce at least 325 different pitches. There are more nerves in the muscles of the larynx than any other muscles in your body, with the exception of your eyes. In addition, you use three quarters of your body when you speak a word, and even a stubbed toe can affect the sound of your voice.  So it’s not surprising that your voice can be adversely affected by excitement and stress.

 

Just as with the rest of your body, some people naturally have more vocal strength, while others need to pump up theirs just to keep up with their daily vocal requirements.  I cannot know the exact cause of the reader’s quivers without speaking with them, but it is likely that the cause of their quivering voice is either nerves, or lack of vocal strength, or both.  Regardless of the case, voice training using proper vocal exercises can make a world of difference in both control and endurance in the voice.

 

Unless you are a voice practitioner, or have studied with a voice professional (which I highly recommend!) you may not know what proper vocal exercises are. So here is a mini-workout that you can use every day to get your voice in shape and get control of those tremors, quivers, and flips when you speak.

 

Can YOU really speak

 

Standard English is the accent of James Bond and numerous film and documentary narrators!

 

International Received Pronunciation is often considered the most 'unaccented' and beautiful way to speak English. In the BBC its known as RP (Received pronounciation) but is often called "the Queen's English".

 

'Estuary English' is the dialects spoken around the London area, especially those counties east of the city: Essex and Kent.

 

Gordon Luck's hardback book of 144 pages is very useful for developing  skills as a drama teacher or a speech coach or even for developing your own skills as an actor or orator.

 

ORDER HERE