Voice
During
the speech you need to pay attention to your voice:
If your
voice is monotonous, unfriendly, not very loud, etc the audience
will disconnect.
Normally
people don't know their own voices, therefore you will be surprised
when you hear yourself in a recording.
Hearing
yourself in a recording is very useful as it allows you to familiarize
yourself with your voice, hear it as other people hear you. It is
the way to know what you sound like, the defects you have to correct.
Dominating
your voice comes with practice:
Recording
the speech and hearing it, allows you to detect your mistakes (if
you speak too fast, don't vocalize sufficiently, speak too quietly,
join words together, etc) and help you to correct them.
It
is also a good idea to ask someone for their opinion.
Once you
have detected your mistakes you can work on them with the aim of improving
the quality of your voice.
Although
your voice is difficult to change, if you can improve some defects
which make the understanding difficult or which make it a little
unattractive (a nasal voice, a fine voice or hoarse voice, etc).
You
need to know how to modulate your voice: increase and decrease the
volume, change the rhythm, accentuate words; all this will help
to capture the public's attention.
You
need to play with your voice to emphasize the important points,
outline ideas, introduce new arguments, tell anecdotes, enhance
a conclusion, etc.
For
example, if you are making a statement you need to speak with determination
(firm voice, high, without hesitation); in other parts of the speech
(an explanation, an anecdote, etc) you can use a more relaxed tone.
You
need to speak clearly, force yourself to vocalize more than you
do normally, pronounce the ends of the words, etc.
One aspect
that you need to especially look after is volume:
In everyday
life you usually speak to people which are near to you, which means
you are used to speaking quietly.
When
you speak in public you need to make an effort to speak louder (something
that you will have to look out for in the rehearsals).
You
need to ensure that your voice fills the whole room and is clear.
One
mistake which is usually made is that people start a sentence loudly
then as they continue they reduce the volume of their voice, this
gives the impression that the phrase lacks importance.
When
you rehearse you need to look out for this problem and try to correct
it.
It is also
common for people to speak too quickly, something that tends to happen
when people speak in public (probably due to nerves).
This
makes understanding more difficult and gives off an image of nervousness.
When
you are rehearsing try to look out for this aspect. Speaking slowly
helps understanding, it projects an image of security and it helps
calm the nerves.
You
need to be on the ball at the start of the speech: if you begin
speaking with certain hesitation it is possible that you you will
speak like this during the whole speech.
When you
have a fairly large audience (more than 50 people) it is a good idea
to use a microphone, if you do this then you will need to practice
with it:
You have
to always keep the microphone at the same distance from the mouth
(if you get nearer or further away the volume will vary).
You need
to make sure that the microphone volume is right and that your voice
fills the whole room (you should ask the audience at the beginning
of the speech if they hear you clearly).
If you
naturally speak quietly, you should not increase the microphone
volume, you should force yourself to speak louder.
A golden
rule when you talk in public is naturalness:
The audience
will thank naturalness and hate affectation.
If
you have an accept you shouldn't hide it (spontaneity), and don't
exaggerate it (as this will make understanding difficult).