Your free guide to how to improve your

voice and communication skills from

Voiceover Masterclass
 Welcome to Voiceover Masterclass!

How do you rate the sound of your own voice? When you meet new people and
you want to impress them, are you almost ashamed of it? In a conversation with a
group of people, do your comments cut through, or does it seem that you get
ignored? It could be that the others are not being deliberately rude to you, but
maybe your voice is not commanding or clear enough to be heard.

The human voice is the main way we communicate with each other, and it's amazing
how subconsciously it can affect the way people feel about others. For example, do
you work somewhere where you’re surrounded by many different co-workers? Are
there some people that you really don't like for some strange reason, and you can't
quite put your finger on why? These folk seem OK but maybe the way they speak
comes over subconsciously as a little bit annoying? That could be the impression YOU
are making on others.

So what can be done about it?

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Plenty! In fact, at Voiceover Masterclass, we have been researching how to train and improve
the human voice for years, not just for voiceover artists and actors, but for everyone!
We've even created a FREE Voice Training Course: Essential Voice Exercises and Training
Tips to Transform Your Voice and Work from Home as a Voice Over or Voice Actor.
Click Here to take this Free Course

So if you feel that your voice is pulling you back in gaining new relationships in work situations
or when you’re out and about, there are plenty of things you can do about it. Maybe you have
bad habits ingrained from when you were growing up. It could be that you lacked a lot of
confidence as a child, as you were always being put down by grownups and told to be seen
and not heard, and now as an adult, you still have that lack of confidence that is preventing
you projecting your voice more.

First, we assume that you do your best to stay healthy.A good voice is so dependent on
keeping fit. As well as exercise and eating good food, not smoking and being easy on the
alcohol, drinking water regularly is so important to keep the vocal folds hydrated. Plus it’s
essential to get regular quality sleep. Sleep is the body’s regular natural reset program.

It’s so important, we’ve even created a complete course on getting better sleep.

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What about breathing? Many people are lazy in the breathing and have got shallow breathing
habits, and that means there is less air to power the vocal apparatus. Regular breathing
exercises are very important to ensure that these bad habits are broken. Deep breathing,
using the diaphragm, means filling the lungs completely. Don’t forget to breathe in through
the nose, not through the mouth, it’s far healthier. The nose has many clever filters to get rid
of impurities and air can be warmed or cooled to ensure the lungs get the optimum input!

Let’s do a basic breathing exercise now. First, it’s best to stand for this and check your
posture. You don’t want to be slumped down for any breathing exercise. Imagine you are a
puppet being suspended from a string from the top of your head. Relax your shoulders –
move them back and down. When we do this exercise, you need to breathe in deep to the
base of the lungs.Most people breathe shallowly and that’s not good for many reasons.
You need to imagine the air going down deep and actually physically expanding the ribcage
sideways as well as the belly, as it will do if you are breathing properly.

When you breathe in deep, you must remember not to raise your shoulders or create any
tensions in the upper body. What I’d like you to do is breathe in through the nose, and take
six seconds to do it. Then you need to hold this breath in for another 6 seconds, then release
the air, taking another 6 seconds to do it. This is an ancient breathing exercise that has
benefited people over many generations. You should be able to do that exercise 3 times in a
row, and do it daily, but stop at any time if you feel lightheaded.

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 HOW TO GAIN VOCAL RESONANCE
Resonance is a very important aspect of the
human voice, and in fact having a resonant voice
– with depth and authority - creates resonance of
another kind, the greater understanding of your
listeners! Now, an acoustic guitar string pulled
taught out of its packet doesn’t sound like a
guitar, but when it RESONATES against the hollow
body of the guitar itself, it sounds louder with
much more depth and is much more interesting.
Learning how to create resonance in the human
voice will also make your voice richer and sound
much more authoritative and interesting too.

First of all, you need to banish tensions, and this means around the shoulders and neck areas.
Physical tensions around the muscles where the voice is produced can create a nasty and
strained output which is not nice on the listener’s ear. Do some shoulder rolls, massage each
shoulder with the opposite hand, and mentally try to forget any hassles in your life and try and
go to your “happy place”.

Now, a very easy way to improve your vocal resonance is by low humming exercises. Low
humming is something that you can do even when travelling, or walking along, and it helps get
the vocal cords looser and in doing so helps to achieve vocal resonance.Try to aim for at least
10 minutes of low humming per day. It won’t harm your vocal cords and has therapeutic
effects on top of the soothing sounds you can hear.

Put one hand on the upper chest and when you’re

deep humming, feel your hand getting any of the
vibrations coming through. Hum at progressively lower
notes and see at what note gives the best vibrations
coming through to your hand. The most intense
vibrations would be when your voice is humming at
the right resonant frequency with your own body
cavities that amplify your voice.

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As you keep lowering the note, you’ll no doubt find that you will lose some power, and that’s
natural, but try to take nice big deep diaphragmatic breaths and discover the musical note of
the hum that gives the biggest vibrations to your hand on your upper chest. Once you’ve found
this, if you’re musical, write down the actual note you’ve found is your resonant value.

This is the note you can try to reach daily or even exceed with your low humming exercises,
and you can even try speaking at the note as well unless it’s so low it’s impossible. But don’t
worry, you are relaxing the body with this humming exercise. It will become easier to hit this
resonance situation, and your normal speaking voice will start to include this resonant note as
a harmonic naturally if you do this exercise regularly. Doing this is almost like turning up the
volume on your stereo’s “sub-woofer” bass loudspeaker!

HOW TO SPEAK MORE CLEARLY

You may have wonderful vocal resonance and also have the confidence to give your voice the
volume to be heard, but that’s no good in communication, if your voice is not CLEAR enough.
Words need to be precisely pronounced with endings not cut off, and this is so important
especially if English is not your first language. Don’t worry though, we have some easy-to-
remember exercises for you!

A lot of people are pretty lazy when it comes to speaking so make sure you aren’t one of them!
One way to make your voice clearer is to in a way “oil up” your mouth so it makes it easier to
get every syllable out, no matter what speed you are talking at.Professional voice actors and
speakers do exercises like the ones we are showing you, so they give the best performances.
The following are great vocal “warm up” moves for everyone!

First, get your fists and push them into your cheeks and make small rotary motions. Don’t
tense up your face, just relax and enjoy a good ten to 15 seconds worth of this cheek massage!
Don’t worry about looking silly!

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Next, imagine that you have a huge piece of chewing gum in your mouth, give it a really good
chew around and not just up and down, but really chew this imaginary lump of gum from side
to side too. Again, 10 - 15 seconds will be enough as a warmup to get the jaw nice and “oiled”.

Next, this is one many singers do before they perform, it’s called “The Silent Laugh”. This
needs you to relax your shoulders and neck areas, and have a good laugh about anything, and
really open that mouth wide for another 10 seconds. Again, keep relaxed and let yourself go.
Now, shake it all out! Loll your head from side to side and shake your floppy arms around for
another 10 seconds. Mix this with a few shoulder rolls too.

Finally, really give your mouth a workout by saying these 4 letters - in order - very clearly and
precisely . We want you to say Q, then E, then Q, and then R. When you say “Q”, your mouth is
tiny and squashed up for the Q sound to come out. For “E”, you stretch your mouth very wide
like a letter box….EEEEEE!!Then repeat the Q sound again like a tight little, tiny mouth, and
finally open very wide like you’re at the dentist, “R”. So now, all together, Q – E – Q- R!!

How does your mouth feel now? Tingling?

I bet some of your mouth muscles haven’t
been stretched like that for ages! These
clarity exercises are absolute dynamite
and are easy to remember and to do,
especially before an important speech or
presentation, or before you’re out meeting
new friends or people you want to
impress. Clarity is very important for
speech, especially if you’re talking to new
people unfamiliar with your speech
patterns or your accent.

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 HOW TO MAKE YOUR VOICE DEEPER
How to make your voice deeper. Is that possible? Absolutely, and many people who have
taken our 7-DAY video-based course on Voiceover Masterclass have found the training most
effective. There are 28 separate exercises in the full course, but we’ll highlight a few here for
you today.

Remember in our video on resonance, we invited you to find your body’s natural resonant note
by the low humming exercise we explained to you. This is boosting your resonance, but if wish
to actually DEEPEN your voice as well, this will need a combination of further relaxing and
humming exercises, gentle tongue stretches, lung expansion work and an understanding of the
soft palate and the function of the larynx. The soft palate is responsible for nasality in a voice,
as it can shoot the voice up and out the NOSE rather than out the MOUTH. For example if I go,
“AAAAR” and hold my nose, nothing really happens. Try it now…”AAARR”! But if I say the word
“HANGGGG” the sound goes all nasal, and I can silence the sound by pinching the nose! That’s
because my soft palate has moved up. As for the larynx, getting to understand how to lower
the larynx, can help the voice sound much mellower and deeper.

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 HOW TO IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING

When you're communicating to somebody else, it’s important to get continuous feedback from
the person you're talking to, so you can get at least some inkling of if you're being understood
or not. We all know the types of bad bosses at work who march out of their office and just bark
orders at a group of people and then walk away, without even knowing if the detail of what
they've said has been taken in, but I hope you're not like that!

When you're in a conversation with anyone, whether at work or whether you're just trying to
make new friends, keep some eye contact with them and make sure that what you say HAS
been understood. This feedback from them may manifest with a subtle nod or a smile. If
there's a slight quizzical look that suddenly appears on the other persons face, or they look
away, it could be that they haven't understood something. Maybe you haven't explained
something well enough, or….most probably, it could be that you're simply speaking a little TOO
FAST for the other person.

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Speaking too fast is something which is a common problem, especially with people who
haven’t much confidence. These folk are worried that the people they are talking to are going
to butt in with something before they have finished speaking or get bored and change the
subject or walk away. But often that’s not the case.

There's no point speaking fast if you're not being understood. Funnily enough, as well as
people with a lack of confidence, people with TOO MUCH confidence often ALSO speak fast,
as they excitedly tell you about some great new thing they’ve discovered or whatever!
Actually, when it comes to speech speed, it’s usually best to vary the pace, for example,
going slowly over new or important things that you’re discussing, and going faster over the
rest of any content that people may know more about, but you must try to get some feedback
that the other people are understanding you as you speak!

If you know that you are talking too fast, there’s no point saying to yourself “I must slow
down”, because I bet that will only last a few minutes and you’ll be back up to your full
gabbling speed again! If you force yourself to speak slowly, often you’ll find all the passion
and energy will be taken out of what you’re saying once you’ve reluctantly put the brakes on.
But here’s the important point. Take that passion and energy - and take it OUT of the speed
and pace of your speech and INTO emphasising the key parts of what you’re talking about.
There’s nothing wrong with emphasizing key words, as this will help understanding, and if you
get into this good habit, it will also naturally help you slow your speech, but keeping the
excitement and energy!

Here’s the next important point. You also need to have the confidence to leave small but
important PAUSES between sentences. Tell yourself that nobody is going to butt in the gaps!
If you record yourself in this “fast talking mode”, you may well find that you blend one
sentence into the next with no gap at all! Pausing in between sentences when you are maybe
very excited, may seem horrendous to you, but a pause to the other people you’re in
conversation with or presenting to, will never seem as long as it might to you, and it will help a
lot in them understanding you more. That pause will ALSO help your brain to reset and catch
up and will prepare what you’re about to say next better. A win-win situation!
Yes, you need to actively remember to pause, and here is where you can take a decent
diaphragmatic breath! When you’re excited and your speech is getting faster, you may well
take shallow breaths that will give you less air to work with, so you then speed up even more
to fit the words in before your next shallow breath! So breathe deeply, and this will also help
you relax more. Shallow breathing feeds anxiety, because you’re not getting enough Carbon
Dioxide in. So by taking decent breaths while trying not to get physically tense, as well as
tuning in to the other person’s feedback - and the effectiveness of your speech will improve
massively.

Other ways you can adapt your speech to slow down and to increase understanding, is to
slightly “over articulate” – as we learnt in the clarity section - and to really emphasize words
that are important, rather than just blurting out a stream of consciousness. Get that mouth
working with the tongue, keep eye contact with the person you’re speaking to and get
feedback from them that gives you confidence they have an understanding of what you’re
talking about.

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One exercise you can do on your own to try to slow your speaking down, is to use the
“syllable pen” technique, and this is where you hold a pen, and then pick up a magazine or a
newspaper and start reading. The rule of the game is that you have to beat with your pen like
a musical orchestral conductor, for every syllable of every word. You will find it is so
physically hard to do this fast, you will just have to slow down your speaking. Once you've
learned to slow down, you can put the pen down and then start reading again- keeping that
same slow speed.

If you know you have a problem with speed, and your partner or best friend know that this is
an issue for you as well, and you are concerned about it, ask them to nudge you when you're
in conversation with others when you are going a little bit too fast. Then you can remember
the techniques of putting gaps in, breathing more and emphasizing words.

We hope you’ve found our tips useful. Please check out our full courses at
VoiceoverMasterclass.com!

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 Voice Training and Voice Over
Essentials to Work from Home
Essential Voice Exercises and Training
Tips to Transform Your Voice and Work
from Home as a Voice Over or Voice Actor

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 Voice Training – 30-Days to a More
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 Voice-Over Training: Record And Edit
Voice Overs Like A Pro
Record Professional Presentations and
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 Voice Acting For Audiobooks Games &
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 Get More Voice Over Jobs in Less Time!
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 Adobe Audition - Audio Editing For Voice
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 Your Own Green Screen Videos And
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 PODCAST MASTERCLASS: The Essentials
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