Posture: Standing and moving in a balanced, centered way, at your full height without tension is key to signaling strength and self-confidence.
Presence: Comes from using your breath, posture and self-awareness to be ‘present’ and alert to the current moment. Presence enables you to bring words to life, connecting what you say and how you say it by engaging your whole self; imagination, emotion and body. Presence is the vehicle with which you connect with others.
Pause: Is something that happens naturally when you are breathing, thinking and speaking with awareness and clarity. It is a powerful device, during which others can ab
sorb what you are saying. During a pause the speaker is preparing to breath, breathing and carrying your thoughts towards the next thing you want to say. If you are pausing mid-sentence then the inflection of your voice needs to tell us that you are not finished. If you pause at the end of a sentence the final word needs a ‘finished’ sound, often a downward inflection.
Pitch: Most of us have 24 notes, 3 musical octaves in our range, and tend to use only 3 or 4 of them! By sliding the voice up and down on an ‘ng’ sound we enable the vocal chords to vibrate at a variety of frequencies. This produces variety of pitch. We all have a home pitch where our voice resonances with ease. If we allow ourselves the freedom to be authentic and express the full range of emotional tones and colours that are behind the words we say, then the listeners are more engaged.
Pace: This is not only about ‘slowing down’, although many people speak fast as a matter of habit, giving a general wash to the words in the process. Variety of pace is born of speaking, or slowing to a speed that you can think at. What you want to communicate at that moment; urgency, finality, excitement, realisation or celebration, for example, will all have their own pace.
Power: Comes from discovering the resonance of the voice, and the way that your body enables you to safely energise and project your voice with greater intensity and perhaps volume. To remind yourself of the power of your voice, use the exercise of holding something (a chair or a briefcase) over your head and practicing your speech.
Pronunciation: Use tongue, lip and articulation exercises to enable your natural clarity of speech. Regardless of accent, muscularity of speech comes from a workout of tongue, lips and mouth shape to ‘wake up’ the ability to be clear.
