Chapter 10: Voice production Meagan B. Sovine

Breathing Powerhouse of production How you control your exhalations; not how much air you take in BREATH CONTROL!!!

Breath control The way you use your abdominal muscles Use of vocal folds We don’t all use the muscles of respiration the exact same ways Does your breath pattern allow you to speak effectively?

Activity Turn to page 280. Do the activity titled, “What’s Your Breathing Type?” Be prepared to share aloud which type of breather you are.

Exercises 1 Abdominal Breathing 2 Breath Control-Duration 3 Breath Control-Breathiness

Loudness How loud you are says a lot about you Soft voices: shy, timid, afraid Loud voices: overbearing, boorish, overconfident Usually caused by person’s inability to produce and sustain the proper loudness or failure to monitor his or her own voice

Controlling loudness Place one hand flat against your abdomen just below your breastbone. Say ahh and hold it. While you’re saying ahh, hit the back of your hand with your other fist (not too hard). You should have heard a sudden increase in loudness. Now try this: Place both hands on your abdomen. At the rate of one number per second, count to 4. Start quietly but make each number louder. You should feel your abdominal muscles contract suddenly for each number.

Exercises 4 Loudness-Force 5 Loudness-Projection 6 Loudness-Control 7 Loudness-Practice

pitch Pitch=the highness or lowness of your voice. Optimum pitch=the pitch that your vocal folds and the size of your resonating cavities are naturally suited to produce. Habitual pitch=the pitch you use all the time.

Exercises 8 Changing Habitual Pitch 9 Progressive Relaxation 10 Fantasy 11 Head Rolling 12 Sighing 13 Yawning

quality The variations you hear, as well as others, are the reflections of changes in what we call voice quality.

resonance The variations in voice quality allow us to assess the meaning over and above what meaning is contained in the context of an utterance. Vocal personality Stridency=combination of a very tense quality and high pitch. Resonance=amplification and modification of sound either by an air-filled chamber, such as the cavities of the vocal tract, or by another object that vibrates sympathetically.

Nasality and resonance The way you alter and select the resonating cavities is very important in determining voice quality and in helping to support a loud tone. Types of nasality: Excessive Too much nasal emission Denasal Not enough nasal emission

Exercises 14 Nasality-Ear Training 15 Nasality-Pulling 16 Nasality-Pushing 17 Denasality

Tense, strident, metallic, and hoarse qualities Hoarseness=a combination of breathiness and harshness resulting in a voice that sounds very rough. Excess tension=excess tension in the area of the larynx. Vocal or Glottal Fry=voice gets rough, bubbly quality, especially at the ends of sentences or thought groups. At these times the pitch lowers considerably and the voice weakens.

Exercises 18 Vocal Fry 19 Vocal Fry-Questions 20 Vocal Fry-Questions and Answers 21 Additional Vocal Fry Reading 22 Hard Glottal Attack

Review for final exams Pull out your reviews. Let’s discuss what to expect. We will also play a Kahoot game 