Three Steps to Delivering a Better Presentation

Tasked with giving a speech and feel the tension setting in? You know the subject matter, but the thought of doing it live in front of an audience makes your throat tighten? Here are a few tips to help you relax, breathe right and articulate clearly.

It’s not just what you say, but how you say it. The pacing, the inflection, the intensity, the attitude—these are just some of the things you need to consider when speaking to an audience of any size. But there is more. You must also be able to support what you are saying with sufficient breath control, effective articulation and a voice free of stress. Problems in these areas could cause your audience to focus on the way you are saying something, rather than what you are saying.

Ever been in a room where the person talking just doesn’t have enough breath control to push the words out. This thin weak voice is not only hard to hear, it requires constant breaths, which slows down the pace, which affects the content. In most cases it is simply poor breath control – a fixable condition.

Or how about the person who sounds as if they are talking with rocks in their mouth. Words are not enunciated clearly and become difficult to understand. Again, simply a matter of sloppy articulation – also generally not a fatal condition.

A final example we will discuss here is the voice affected by tension in the neck and throat. The voice begins to rise in pitch and possibly even squeak on certain words. This is definitely treatable.

(NOTE: If you are reading this article on the subway or in the middle of a crowded waiting room, then you might want to consider the affect unusual body positions and making noises will have on the person next to you. While these exercises help overcome certain voice problems, there is little that can be done when compounded by a fat lip.)

Let’s talk about Breath Control. Singers know breath control, so if you sing, you probably know the basics of proper breathing. It’s all about using the using the diaphragm. A great many people do not use the diaphragm. Instead they take lots of little catch breaths that fill only the upper part of their lungs. They probably get tired easily. Their voices may start to crack or even squeak. An hour in front of an audience would drain the life out of them. You can easily check to see if you are doing this.

In front of a mirror -- large enough so that you can see a profile of your body from about the waist up – stand erect with your back straight. Place one hand on your abdomen (or side of your waist) and one hand on your chest. Lean forward slightly, keeping your back straight. Now -- breathe normally. The hand on your chest should not move. The hand on your abdomen should move.

If your chest hand is moving, you need to develop your basic breathing habits. First, you need to recognize what abdominal breathing is. Lie on the floor.

(NOTE: Again, this is probably not something you would want to do on the commuter train.)

Place a book on your abdomen just below your ribs. Breathe normally and feel the muscle activity. The book should rise and fall gently as you breathe.

So now that you have the concept of abdominal breathing reaffirmed, here’s an exercise to help you develop the feeling that you are pushing sound up from your abdominal area.

· Stand erect (getting your exercise aren’t ya) and place one hand on your abdomen.

· Inhale moderately and emit a series of short staccato “ha” sounds. Vary the force from strong to slight. Feel it in your abdomen -- not your chest.

Once you can recognize where your breathing should start, you can begin to work on breath control. When breath is released too rapidly, you sound “breathy." It lacks resonance and projection and it fades at the end of a phrase.

Inhale again, but this time release your breath with a “sigh." (haaaaahhhh) Note the difference in the feeling of controlling the exhaled breath and a simple release.

As a final breathing and relaxation technique before we move on to articulation, sit in a comfortable straight chair with your head dropped forward and your arms and legs as limp as rag dolls. Tense every muscle and then relax completely. Repeat this process a couple more times, concentrating on relaxing your head and neck muscles.

This old tried and true paragraph is an excellent articulation and pronunciation exercise. It shall have to be credited to Anonymous, because I have no notes on where it came from. Anyway, read it aloud, with feeling. Recording it would be good, so that you can play it back and critique your effort.

Generally speaking the articulation of the population is terribly indistinct, inasmuch as it is hopelessly lacking in clarity and totally indistinguishable. Nevertheless, a veritable metamorphosis indubitably took place during the months of January and February, when several practitioners in the indescribably delicate art of elocution dedicated themselves to the rehabilitation of that characteristically particularly inarticulate percentage of our inhabitants whose inadequacies of self-expression form so wholly redundant and superfluous a stain on our otherwise ineffably immaculate national escutcheon.

Well, OK, you certainly aren’t going to let anyone write that into any speech you have to make, but you get the idea. And even the most practiced speakers would have trouble reading that paragraph without proper warm up of their articulators.

Here are some general limbering up exercises that will help you prepare your articulators for any speaking situation.

(WARNING! If the first series of exercises didn’t clear the area around you, these next just might!)

1. Spread your lips in a smile for “eeeee” and close them for “ooooo." (“eeeee” “oooo” “eeee” “oooo”) Repeat several times.

2. Now say “fud-dud-dud-dah." Follow “fud-dud-dud-dah” with “ira-ira-ira-ira-ira-ira." Over exaggerate the sounds.

Now, doesn’t that feel better. Got the blood moving around in all those articulators.

There are a few special articulation problems that may not be a result of failure to warm up. “Locked Jaw”, “Idle Tongue”, and “Lazy Lips”.

Let’s start with the “Locked Jaw”. If you wish to cultivate a certain affected sound, you might employ “locked jaw”, but most of us don’t want to sound that way. So, here’s some jaw opening exercises.

OK, these next words have diphthongs, which require the jaw to be open at the beginning of the word, shifting to a more closed position at the end.

So now that you have the lock off the old jaw, let’s work on that “Idle Tongue”. Say each of the following words 3 times, trying to keep the tongue forward, just behind the upper front teeth. Listen for a brightness and liveliness to the sound. Don’t let your tongue just lie there flat against the top of your hard palate. It needs to work!

“Lazy Lips” can cause sloppy articulation. Here’s a revealing exercise. Say the words “pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat” over a few times – at a slow to moderate speed. Try to pronounce the “P’s” and “T’s” very clearly. Now pick up the speed. “Pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat.” If what you just said sounded like “pi-pap-pi-pap-pi-pap” , then you have “Lazy Lips” and some sloppy tongue action. Try it again and remember to keep all the “p’s” and “t’s”. “Pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat.” In real life over articulation can make you sound pompus, but under articulation can make you sound uninformed. So you have to find the happy medium.

Voice professionals use all of these exercises at one time or another, and everyone can benefit from their tricks of the trade. And there are lots more. Simply counting slowly from 1 to 25 – exaggerating the pronunciation of each number is a quick way to warm up your lips, tongue, and jaw.

Once you’re breathing properly, warmed up and relaxed, you will be able to deliver that speech, or make that important presentation – and everyone will hear what you want them to hear.

Connie Terwilliger, a San Diego based full-time Voice Over professional working out of her home studio with ISDN, Source-Connect and phone patch, has provided comprehensive critique and coaching for spokespeople, sports commentators, news readers, voice actors and others concerned about their performance or appearance in front of a camera, microphone or audience.

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