Real Talking Tips with Elaine A. Clark

Real Talking Tips 42 begins a new 4-part series on the POWER OF PERSUASION. Hi, I'm Elaine A. Clark - actor, author, app creator, podcaster, speech communication coach, and entrepreneur. Listing my background establishes my authority and ethos, which is the focus of this episode. Ethos is one of three powerful rhetorical components and the foundation of writing and speaking. Ethos establishes the speaker's tone, style, status, ethical standards, credibility, and believability. It's the speaker's job to sound authoritative and support the personal 'WHY' belief regardless if it's their own message or someone else's words. When delivering a speech, presentation, or voice-over script written by someone else, many speakers lose their personal connection to the message. The result is a lack of ethos and audience disconnection with the speaker and information. Join me, along with and some wise tips from Aristotle, on how to own your Ethos! For more information, visit my website: https://elaineclarkvo.com/podcast

If you have a monotone voice, get frustrated when people lose focus or tune out when you talk, or are annoyed when people ask you to repeat yourself, this Real Talking Tips 'Shifting Voice Locations' episode is for you. Varying pitch placement helps separate concepts, ideas, information, and list items so the audience can stay focused and more easily absorb the entire message and separate bits of information. Shifting voice placement locations helps grab a listener's attention and take the listener on an informational journey via a musically spoken story arc.

In this 3rd of 4 Voice Placement episodes, we're going to drop the speaking voice down from the middle 'mask voice' and higher 'head voice' to the deeper 'chest voice'. Confidence and authority are usually associated with lower voices. That's why a lot of speakers prefer speaking from the chest voice area. The following are 4 ways different voice pitched speakers can use their chest voice for optimal strength, resonance, pitch, and tone. Higher voice: Start speaking from your lowest relaxed voice placement and lift the words up briefly and back down. Middle voice: Speak and gesture with the hands at waist level or below to keep the pitch lower in the chest. Weaker voice: Plant the heels of the feet in the ground, bend the knees slightly, and tighten the lower buttock and thigh muscles. Ultra Deep voice: Begin speaking at a higher voice pitch and dip down briefly into the lowest tones before returning to the slightly higher voice. To find out more about Voice Placement and other Speaking Tips, go to RealTalkingTips.com.

Real Talking Tips 39 is the 2nd of 4 Voice Placement episodes. Last episode, we concentrated on the natural sounding 'mask voice.' This time, we move the voice pitch higher into the skull and head area. Depending on your work and social interactions, speaking from the head voice can be used to: 1. Calm an uncomfortable guest in a podcast or interview show. 2. Differentiate the sound of two similar sounding people in a live performance, recorded dialog, or interview. 3. Establish specific character voices when reading books aloud to children and voicing higher pitched characters in a variety of entertainment genres. 4. Sound like a baby in a cartoon, video game, or toy. Practice along as we explore when and how to use your 'head voice' in this Real Talking Tips video, ElaineClarkVO.com/podcast blog, my Elaine Clark app – Activate Your Voice, best selling books, There's Money Where Your Mouth Is and Voice-Overs for Podcasting, and adding variety to your speaking voice in my other Elaine Clark app, Adding Melody To Your Voice!

Speak from the nose to mouth 'mask' area for more impact as Real Talking Tips Episode 38 kicks off a new 4-part mini-series focused on speech Voice Placement. This first episode in the series focuses on uniting the breath, resonance, and emotion in your natural speaking voice. The air flow or intake of breath should begin in the bottom half of the body, move up through the stomach area, into the lower-ribs and spine area, so the dome-shaped diaphragm muscles can push the air up and out through the mouth. Breathing properly aids in connecting emotions to the spoken words. The mask area also needs resonance. So we'll warm up the resonators, too. You can refer back to the 2nd episode of Real Talking Tips and my Elaine Clark 5-minute voice and diction app, Activate Your Voice for additional resonance information and practice tips. Use these Voice Placement tips to add more strength, beauty, and emotion, to your natural 'mask' voice. Practice along with the Real Talking Tips podcast and the ElaineClarkVO.com podcast blog, my Elaine Clark app - Adding Melody To Your Voice, and my best selling books, There's Money Where Your Mouth Is and Voice-Overs for Podcasting.

Take the Word Emphasis challenge! Practice 11 dynamic speaking techniques from episodes 27-36. Real Talking Tips episode 37, reviews the Word Emphasis Chart gestures and demonstrates how each movement draws focus to specific words, phrases, sentences and speech. Communication Coach, Elaine A. Clark, shows how to apply those speech techniques to voice-overs, podcasts, sales calls, Live Talks, Presentations, and Virtual Web Meetings. So, shake your hands out and get ready to use the Word Emphasis Chart movements and symbols so you, too, can get 'Wired for Sound.' Practice Along with Real Talking Tips

This is my absolute favorite Word Emphasis technique! What makes the Up-Down-Split the Difference speech movements and gestures so important? This Real Talking Tips 10th Word Emphasis technique musically separates important information, making it easier for the listener to receive, define, and comprehend each spoken element. These three elements can be single words, phrases, or full sentences. Using 3 distinct musical speech placements supports the written 'Rule-Of-Three' that uses an odd number to achieve humor, tempo effectiveness, the element of surprise, and audience satisfaction. While some of the other Word Emphasis techniques should be used sparingly, this Up-Down-Middle Word Emphasis placement technique should be used a lot! For more information about this technique, visit my RealTalkingTips.com website: https://elaineclarkvo.com/podcast/

Real Talking Tips Episode 35 is the 9th of 11 Word Emphasis lessons. The HOOK uses a simple finger movement on an individual word. This hook-like 'S' movement slows down the focus word, adds clarity and musicality to that word in order to attract listener attention. An attention grabbing Hook is typically used at the beginning of a talk or speech to quickly switch focus to a new discussion topic, business, product, or person. As a clarifier, the Hook word emphasis movement provides an auditory twist to important Who, When and Where words in the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. To view more information about the Word Emphasis chart and this Real Talking Tips podcast, go to https://elaineclarkvo.com/podcast/.

Join me, Elaine A. Clark, in this Real Talking Tips episode, where we're going to dust off some basic English class lessons and apply that knowledge to speech and movement. You may recall that the Noun,Verb, and Subject of the Noun comprise the three main parts of a sentence. Your English teacher may have also referred to it as the Statement / Action / Connecting Statement. In this 8th of 11 Word Emphasis mini-series, we're going to honor these three grammatical elements by adding a 'Wave' to our speaking voice to define and separate Who, What, Why, When, Where, and How phrases. You can also read and see it in action on my website: elaineclarkvo.com/podcast/

As a speaker, when you need to change direction and attitude quickly, the 'Dip-Down' is your Word Emphasis choice. This Elaine A. Clark Real Talking Tips dip-down technique uses opposing gestures, movements, voice pitch, tempo, and attitude to create a story arc. It's an effective speaking tip to prevent the message from becoming flat-lined, boring, and monotonous. The purpose of the dip-down is to speak so opposing information from the past "before moment" is clearly defined and understood. Then, when the voice and attitude quickly shifts in the opposite direction in the second part of the dip-down, the speaker takes the listener to the outcome and result of the "current moment" information, message, and attitude. Practice adding Dip-Downs in this 7th of 11 Real Talking Tips Word Emphasis lessons. Each element of the Word Emphasis Chart [introduced in Episode 27] adds variety and attitude to words and phrases! In the last six episodes, we added a Dot, Arrow Up, Caret Up (^), Arrow Down, Caret Down (v), Wiggle, Stretch, and Parethetical. Practice along with this Real Talking Tips podcast and the ElaineClarkVO.com/podcast blog and video, my Elaine Clark app - 'Adding Melody To Your Voice' and my best selling Elaine A. Clark books, 'There's Money Where Your Mouth Is' and 'Voice-Overs For Podcasting'. Please subscribe and add a comment. I love hearing from you!