Triple Take #17: Humming, being more memorable, and how to use eye contact

Voice Confident's Triple Take - your fortnightly trio of tips!

Voice: humming for the vocal folds

Did you know that humming along to music is a brilliant way to warm up your vocal folds?

Your vocal folds vibrate to produce sound. They stretch for higher pitches and relax for lower pitches. When we make sounds such as humming with closed lips, we create a barrier, so not all the air can get out at once. Because of this there is more of a balance in pressure between the air coming up and the back pressure, which reduces strain on the folds.

This is why singers and speakers often use semi-occluded vocal tract (SOVT) exercises (eg. lip trills, straw work) to warm up and rehabilitate their voices.

My favourite - the ‘ng’ sound, like at the end of the word ‘thing’.

This connects the soft palate and the tongue at the back of your mouth, so it doesn’t matter whether your mouth is opened or closed, you get that back pressure effect.

Start somewhere in the middle of your range at a comfortable pitch, and then slide the pitch like a siren, above it and below it, going a bit further either side each time.

This is a lovely gentle warm up for your vocal folds, allowing them to stretch and relax without strain.

Humming or using an ‘ng’ sound along to your favourite music is an easy way to warm up your voice before a day of using it.

Presence - enhance your words with non-verbal communication

What you say - your message and the words you choose - are really important.

But numerous studies show that when language is spoken, the impact of those words and that message can be made up to 4 times as effective, depending on voice tone, posture, gesture, facial expressions and eye contact.

This is due to the incredible complexity of our brains. The neocortex largely deals with logic, language and abstract thought, while other areas, such as the limbic system, are concerned with emotions, memory and connection.

When we speak we want to get as much of the audience’s brain involved as possible.

There is necessarily more ‘brain involvement’ when listening/watching a person speaking words than in reading those same words on a piece of paper or a screen. And if we add expressive gesture and voice tone and movement and eye contact to those words we can get lots of areas of the brain firing at once.

This makes our message more easily understood, more engaging and more memorable.

Confidence - how to make eye contact with an audience

When presenting to a large room or audience, try to direct one thought to one person.

Make eye contact with one person and deliver your thought - perhaps a phrase or sentence - and then make eye contact directly with someone else.

Our evolutionary brain doesn’t like to be outnumbered!

Our brain likes to connect with one other person.

‘One thought, one person’ tricks your brain into thinking you are connecting with one person, rather than looking out at a sea of faces, so it helps to keep that stress response at bay.

(A bonus effect is that we look intentional and controlled in our delivery - rather than scanning round the room all the time or looking over people’s heads!)