Find Your Best Sound: How to Improve Voice Resonance for a Clearer Accent - Vocal Training Series

Let's continue with our voice series today and talk about resonance. Resonance is where in your body your voice starts and that gives a certain quality and depth and sound to your voice. All languages have a different vocal resonance and I'm going to describe generally some of those different types of resonance today and then we are going to talk about English, American English resonance and how do you do that if you so choose to adopt that resonance. A lot of my students ask questions about this because this is sort of that final piece to sounding more natural and as clear as you can be. Resonance in English begins a lot lower than in many different languages. It really begins in the chest. It starts low and it moves through the vocal cords and many of my students describe it as sounding very continuous because we tend to project the voice and the airflow really continues really creating a resonance that is fuller and longer and has some of my students say a little more depth in their minds than in what they are used to using. What resonance might you be using? I hear many students who speak French and it is a little more forward and it's a little more nasal. I am not a French speaker and so I'm doing my best to sort of describe that to you but it has this sort of vibrant, sort of bright, buzzy quality that I particularly enjoy but again it is more nasal, it is a little more forward, it's a little more rounded and it just sounds different. You can hear that quality even if you don't understand the words when you hear a native French speaker. That resonance just sounds a little bit different and then that carries over into English if you were speaking English with a French resonance and that's why some people sound like they have an accent even when their sounds are perfect. Okay, so again this resonance is a little more forward and a little more nasal. I also hear many of my Japanese and Korean students using a different resonance. It's a little bit lighter, it is a little bit higher in pitch and it sounds very quiet perhaps compared to English or a little bit of a smaller quality and so it's often throat based and so it may sound a little more reserved and a little more tight as opposed to the fuller resonance of English. Also many of my students tend to keep the air back here instead of continuing to project that air out of the mouth. Many of my Mandarin speakers have a resonance that is very head focused, very nasal. It almost sounds as if they're speaking out of their head like this. That is very indicative of many of my Mandarin speakers. Of course with all of these there are variations. I'm just giving you broad generalities. My Italian and Spanish speakers, they tend to have a little more forward projection. They tend to feel like they're maybe hitting me with their voice a little bit more. Things sound a little more forward when I hear people speaking with that type of resonance. Some of this I think comes from the phonetic patterns that are used and in those languages it is very so we have these sort of breaks in between sounds and that we hear continued in English. And then last we have languages like maybe German which you do get a little bit of the chest resonance. More similar I think in many ways to an American English resonance but it's also a little more in the throat and you have a little bit more of the back sound. It sounds a little bit heavier and there's a little bit of a deeper quality to that. All of these resonances are great. It makes our languages different and unique but again if you are trying to sound more natural when speaking American English changing your resonance will make a big difference. So for today let's just learn how to do that. This is difficult but it's also easy at the same time. It is changing the location of your airflow and how you continue that airflow out of your mouth. Last week we talked about projection and breath support and this kind of goes hand in hand. You're going to start with breath support breathing in deeply filling up those lungs and starting the sound and your words from deep in your lungs and you are going to keep this lower resonance by keeping that air coming from the lungs while you are speaking. If you've worked on your projection since last week you have probably been able to tell that your resonance has changed as well. So this week we're going to add on force breath support of course projection but then making sure that you are keeping your air from originating in the chest. I tell a lot of my students put your hand here make sure you can feel the vibration from your chest. If you tend to have vibration from here you want to push this air down and again feel the vibration coming from your chest. Okay so keep it from the chest if you tend to have the air up here you can't really feel the air coming from the chest bring it back down to the chest. It is great to practice with your hand here have a conversation with someone or talk to yourself and keep the air in the chest as where it is originating. Okay let's try this take a deep breath and we are going to count to three keeping the resonance here. Resonance means where the vibration starts just as a reminder you ready one two three four. Okay now let's try count to five keeping it all from the chest one two three four five. Okay awesome job everyone that is your homework for the week. Practice your resonance if you are looking to change the quality of your speaking and if you are missing something this is probably what you are missing. This is going to help you sound clearer to native speakers and you'll have a very different quality to your voice. So again to kind of summarize last week we had the breath support and projection adding on resonance these all tie so closely together. Air comes from the lungs deep where the diaphragm is it continues out of the mouth touching everyone that you are speaking with and the vibration starts in your chest. So give it a try I can't wait to hear how you are applying this how it's going if you like it or if you don't let me know all of your thoughts in the comments below. Join me next week we are going to keep going with our voice series. Thanks so much everyone.