An often overlooked reason why your content goes ignored, and tips to keep people watching your video or listening to your podcast, and coming back for more!
Have you been checking your analytics and wondering why some people quickly click away from your promo videos or aren’t returning to engage in your course? I have an often overlooked reason this happens and a way to fix it.
Even if your topic perfectly fits your viewer or listener, something isn’t gelling for them.
Often, it's not the content itself but the quality of sound that puts people off.
Being able to hear what you are saying is not the same as feeling compelled to listen without distraction.
Sometimes the sound quality issues that create the problems can be due to tech issues … a mic that’s not connected properly or in the ideal position etc, but not always.
Vocal quality plays a huge part in your ability to create an affinity or lose people forever!
And if you’re thinking “I can’t change how I talk!” … that’s not what I’m recommending. You can show up authentically, AND ensure you’re voice is at least not part of the problem! The question is, how can you gauge your vocal quality?
What is Vocal Quality?
Without getting too technical, vocal quality is about how your voice sounds and feels when you speak.
It's the impression your voice gives off to others. Think about it as the difference between sounding confident and clear, and shaky or self-conscious.
It's also about being aware of any unintentional sounds your voice might make. Paying attention to these things can help you understand how your voice comes across to others and make adjustments to better connect with your audience.
Vocal fry, is one major turn-off, as are the little salivary sounds or clicks you always make. You may not know that you make these sounds, but the listener is often hyper-aware. These sounds become more obvious and annoying when amplified or listened to in the isolated environment of headphones.
They can be grating to the ear, and triggering to the listener, especially for those with audio sensitivities like misophonia (involuntary decreased tolerance to specific sounds or their associated stimuli), causing listeners to bristle and disengage, when what you most want to do is create engagement, trust, and business growth.
The emotional and physical reaction to the sound of people chewing their food for instance is experienced by many people, and you could be unintentionally be creating a similar reaction with your voice recordings.
With awareness and simple vocal warm-up techniques, you can improve the quality of your spoken voice, eliminate distractions, and create a more enjoyable listening experience for your audience.
You may notice that some speakers sound more at ease, confident, and self-possessed than others. This is evident in their tone, and often their pitch. Tone is related to the richness or sharpness of a sound, and pitch is related to the range of notes, being high or low and deep.
An open slightly deeper sound, for instance,, is more trustworthy than a squeaky tone or baby voice for instance. They may be extreme examples, but tone is a spectrum, so you might be interested to discover where you are on it.
Becoming more aware of your default tone and experimenting with ways to shift it can help you find a sound that feels more authentically you.
Sometimes the tone we habitually use is a subconscious defense mechanism, and “underneath” is the “true” voice waiting to come out. Are you hiding behind an affected voice?
By bringing greater awareness to the sounds and tones you use, why you’re making them, and what to do differently to create greater clarity, You can experiment and develop your communication style, and see what else changes as a result.
If you want to record yourself today, a vocal warm-up is a quick and easy way to help yourself sound great!
What’s a Warm-Up and Why do it?
Whether you're hosting a webinar, recording a video for social media, or engaging in client calls, warming up your voice is highly beneficial. It enhances the quality and clarity of your speech while boosting your confidence and presence.
If you’re neurodivergent, vocal warm-ups can also help regulate sensory input by providing a structured and predictable sensory experience.
These activities can help focus your attention, calm heightened sensory responses, and prepare yourself for tasks that involve sensory processing, such as communication or social interactions.
Essentially, regulating sensory input involves finding ways to manage and adapt to the sensory information we encounter in our environment to promote comfort, focus, and well-being, even when you are the one creating the sound!
How to Warm Up Your Voice
Before you even start, being well hydrated, and drinking water immediately before recording (and between takes) can help cut out a lot of little sounds that the microphone seems to love to pick up!
This helps your saliva to be thin and fluid rather than sticky and reduces incidental noise.
Hydration will help cut out salivary sounds but it won’t prevent vocal fry. That is controlled with a conscious open placement of the throat muscles, and practicing creating smooth tones can help you unlearn this habit and sound more confident and present.
Warm-up exercises are a great way to heighten your awareness of the sounds you might be making other than the words you want to say, while also stimulating the mouth muscles to short-cut many potential problems.
Here are some valuable (and hopefully fun) ways to create more clarity and a warm tone in your voice:
Deep Breathing Exercises: Begin by centering yourself with deep breaths, allowing your body to relax. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale slowly through your mouth, releasing tension. Breathe into your abdomen, not just your chest, and breathe out by engaging your diaphragm and exercising this core breathing muscle.
Humming: Humming massages the vocal cords and creates resonance. It is very difficult to hum with a vocal fry crackle. It tends to naturally sound less constricted. Start at a comfortable pitch and gradually move up and down your vocal range, keeping your jaw and throat relaxed. Unclench your teeth. Relax. Your lips will buzz. You can transition from hum to open-mouth sounds to practice the open-throat position that sounds so warm and easy to listen to.
Lip Trills: Purse your lips and exhale, allowing them to vibrate as you produce a sound. Move up and down your pitch range while maintaining steady airflow. The more you relax your lips the easier it is.
Tongue Twisters: Practice tongue twisters to improve diction and articulator coordination. Emphasise the sounds using all of your mouth. Examples include "She sells seashells by the seashore" and "Unique New York, New York's unique."
Vocalizations: Experiment with vocal sounds and vowel combinations.
Sirens: Mimic the sound of a siren by starting at a low pitch and gradually sliding up to a high pitch, then back down again. This exercise helps to loosen up the vocal cords and explore your full vocal range. Let it out!
Owl Hoots: Make a "hoo" sound like an owl, focusing on resonating in your nasal cavity. This exercise can help to engage your resonators and promote vocal clarity. Don’t hold back.
Lip Bubbles: Gently blow air through loosely closed lips to create a bubbling pop sound. This exercise helps to engage the lips, tongue, and diaphragm, promoting relaxation and airflow control.
Sure, these sounds might feel awkward to make, especially if people are nearby.
However, remember that opera singers and actors do this at home and in their workplace every day.
So, get ready to flash your actor's equity card for anyone likely to wonder if you’ve lost your marbles. You've got this!
Incorporating vocal warm-up techniques into your routine can significantly enhance your online presence.
Take the time to prepare your voice before recording or engaging with clients, and you'll not only improve communication quality but also boost confidence and connection with your audience.
Remember, your voice is a powerful instrument—take care of it and let it shine!
If hearing your own voice is just ONE of the reasons you’re struggling to show up online or on camera, I have a simple step-by-step process to prepare you to be ready to roll on video. You can access my free 10-step gentle roadmap that you can use any day that you want to easily level up your video content and enjoy the process, so you can get more visible - on camera and online - even when (or especially if) you don’t feel like showing up.
If you’re wondering who I am to be talking about this stuff, I have worked for 2 decades in video and multimedia as a producer, director, and writer of corporate videos, museum experiences, and broadcast short documentaries, and now small business brand stories. I’ve worked with professional actors (yes, even famous ones), voice-over artists, models, comedians, CEOs, scientists, university lecturers, artists, and more - people from all walks of life, guiding them with their words, tone, and nuance, helping them to communicate with compelling authenticity to engage, enlighten, and move people.
Showing up as your true best self is the fastest way to genuine connection.
