Your Voice Is Your Image In Sound
Are you “happy” with your speaking voice? Do people “hear” you in the way you want to be heard? Do your messages provoke an emotional response in your audience?
These were some of the questions answered at a recent workshop I attended in London, lead by Stewart Pearce, Master of Voice at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Over a most amazing day, Stewart helped us find our “Signature Note” and to start to use our voices in new and powerful ways. I have been interested in the effects that voice tone can have on our ability to communicate and influence.
One of the many things I got from this workshop was the huge impact that our voice has both in face to face and telephone communication. If we look at the Latin roots of the word personality for example, we see that it comes from per-sona (through sound). If we can find our own unique sound, and communicate from that note, we connect with our audiences much more authentically and effectively.
In Stewart’s experience, many people “live in their heads” and project their sounds from that space, resulting in a “dis-integrated” and strident message. He demonstrated most effectively how bringing that note down into our bodies, so that we speak from the centre of our chest,leads to a “fully integrated” message which radically enhances our ability to communicate.
Stewart gave us some simple yet powerful tools to help us discover our “note” and I look forward to sharing these with my own clients in the near future.
