The Greek word for “one tone” is monotonia, which is the root for both monotone and the closely-related word monotonous, which means “dull and tedious.” A continuous sound, especially someone’s voice, that doesn’t rise and fall in pitch, is a monotone.
Know someone in your office that sounds that way? Could it be you?
Wouldn’t it be exciting if people we encountered on a daily basis had interesting, compelling voices, the sort of sound we really enjoyed listening to?
Our voices can go into ‘auto-pilot’ and information can be trotted out routinely, with very little alteration to the pitch throughout the entire sentence. You think you sound boring, other people think you sound boring, and valuable information can be buried in a deep, dull, voice.
This needn’t be the case!
To wake up your voice a little, just try the following steps:
- Hum up the scale of ‘Doh, ray, me, far, so, lah, tea, doh’ (as Julie Andrews in ‘The Sound of Music’!)
- Repeat going back down the scale.
- Now substitute the words, “This is how my voice can sound good” for each of the notes up and then down the scale.
- Next, ‘say’ the words instead of using a ‘singing voice’, to normalise the sound.
- Finally, choose a word you wish to emphasise and use a higher note for that word.
It takes practise to use your voice to highlight words using the pitch of your voice but you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be. Listen to BBC radio broadcasters and notice how they use their voices to emphasise words using pitch. Practise making your voice start on a higher pitch and gradually getting lower until you ‘land’ on the final ‘note’. Practise starting low, going higher and finishing low again.
Most importantly, enjoy what you are saying. Your enthusiasm should help to release your voice to be more expressive and convey your ideas, giving them life and sparking interest…
For more information on using pitch, tone and intonation, get in touch.