Unfiltered Thoughts

2023.03.26 – 0815 – Relaxation From Tension
The flip side of tension is relaxation.
Hopefully you will have seen by now how so many parts of the body are involved in creating the sound we call voice: your spine, various ligaments and muscles – some as small as the vocal folds in your throat, some large and powerful such as your diaphragm. And ‘relaxation of the mechanism’ is the key to have these work to support your voice, its construction and projection.
Better relaxation leads to better presentation – but that’s easier said than done, with deadlines to meet, stories breaking, talking to time, important clients watching you through the glass, and the occasional breakdown of the technical setup.
Relaxation with concentration (you’ll be no good if you’re practically asleep!), will soften your voice, help it be more resonant, help you breathe better and reach the end of phrases and sentences, all of which will lead to more confidence and fewer verbal trips and slips.
Proper posture helps you prepare. Health reminderThese exercises can only be a general guide.You know your body the best. Well, you and a health professional. Consult them first and stop if anything hurts.
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2023.03.25 – 0814 – Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Tension
Some physical tension creeps up on us. We don’t notice small changes to the body until it’s ‘too late’. So here are Ten Tell-Tale Signs of Tension:1.      Your voice sounds crackly and raspy2.      It sounds thin or strained3.      Your voice sounds weak4.      You find yourself short of breath while speaking5.      You sound irritated or bored6.      You have trouble projecting your voice7.      You sound an octave higher than you normally do8.      You have ‘dry-mouth’ syndrome9.      Your presentation is rushed10.  You often have headaches, back or neck pain The quickest way to damage your voice is to talk with tension. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.24 – 0813 – Your Studio Desk Set Up Your Studio Desk Set UpAre the screens in your studio laid out so you can see them without twisting and turning, actions which will causes spinal stresses and strains?
If you talk with a twisted neck, you are pulling the larynx out of alignment causing other muscles to compensate, which will affect your vocal sound, health and stamina.
If you can, move the screen or the mic or your chair so everything is ‘square on’.
If this is not possible, make sure you exercise your neck when you can, carefully moving it in the opposite direction.
Consider a regular massage to release postural tension caused by the poor studio layout. (It’s not self-indulgence, it is taking care of yourself and may be tax deductible) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.23 – 0812 – Nine Lines On the Spine (7-9)
7.  Similarly wearing high heels can also throw your body out of alignment, you may have to stick your bum out to counterbalance your weight, causing other stresses on the ‘wrong’ part of the skeleton and muscle groups, and the resulting tension causing a less effective and free voice.
8. The ribs are joined to the spine and they need to be free to move as the lungs fill with air.
9. A good posture, one that is soft, and which we are not gripping or holding but free to move, will also help your breathing and therefore your breath control and resonance. Consider looking at yoga, Pilates or the Alexander Technique to learn more about strength, balance and flexibility. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.22 – 0811 – Nine Lines On the Spine (4-6) 4. The larynx is at the top of the trachea which runs along the same line as your spine. What you do with your head and neck alignment has a knock-on effect on your larynx, and therefore your voice. 5. The average human head weighs around 5kg or 11lbs, that's more than most new-born babies, and is balanced on just seven vertebrae in your neck and supported by around 20 muscles that move your head and keep that weight in place. If you force your head back or your chin up, or slump or slouch then your alignment will be affected and so too your voice. 6. Bad posture can literally be a pain in the neck. If you’re using the correct muscles to keep your head in position (and remember your head is not naturally perched perfectly on your neck like a toffee apple on a stick, it is slightly forward of the rest of the body, although not jutting forward with a ‘laptop neck’), then that’s less tension that’s feeding through to your neck and larynx, which’ll affect your voice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.21 – 0810 – Nine Lines On the Spine (1-3) Nine Lines On the Spine1. Why is this important? Well, your voice is affected by your postural alignment, and you will have better breathing and resonance if your ‘spine is fine’. That means using minimal effort for maximum effect: an efficient, effective and effortlessly good voice without the work of holding and tensing muscles to create it.
2. That means when standing, lining up the heaviest parts of your body so the centre of gravity goes down the middle of your frame. Balance without tension. 3. That doesn’t mean, despite what you were told at school, you need to “stand up straight” because your spine isn’t actually straight, it has three curves in it. And if you stand as though you have a rake up your back you will be holding yourself in unhelpful tension as other muscles and bones over-work to compensate.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.20 – 0809 – Vocal Tension From Sitting and Standing  
Physical tension can come from sitting down and standing up
It is very easy to stay still in a studio and only at the end of a programme realise that you have been in the same seat for three or four hours.  Sitting still has your body relaxed into a sedentary position, your breathing slows into shallow breaths as the lungs struggle to fully open. You begin to sound dull and lifeless because of a lack of oxygen to power your voice, and your muscles and brain. Get re-invigorated by walking around the studio whenever you have a chance. It will get some air into your lungs and help you sound more alert the next time you open the mic.
Standing for a long time may also cause problems: locked knees, a tight lower back, head jutted towards the mic. But in general standing is preferable. Standing up gives you better control of your breathing, helps you stay alert and means you can move around much more freely as you gesture.
Radio stations which have presenters who ‘stand to deliver’, have studio desks which are raised slightly so they don’t have to slouch to operate the faders and some have microphone head-sets so their presenters can walk around the studio as they talk. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.19 – 0808 – The Causes of Vocal Tension 
What Causes Tension Nerves. Overwhelm. Anxiety. Excitement. The unknown. Panic. Being underprepared. Being worried about how you sound. Concerns about your message and the audience’s reception to it.
Any physical niggle can affect your voice. That’s anything from a paper cut to menstrual cramps, discomfort anywhere will cause ‘compensatory muscular tension’ and so mental distraction. Even if just a small part of your brain is dealing with the pain, possibly even if you are trying to block it out, it will affect your voice performance. The solution is obvious: deal with the source of the pain. Physical tension can be a direct cause of you sounding different: text neck, baby carrying, shopping, pushing and driving can all cause muscular strains or stasis that will affect your breath – the very foundation of how you sound.
Tension pain may be treated with medication, which itself can cause a change in your voice: overly relaxing you, causing drowsiness or a lack of mucus. And a lack of mucus in your throat and mouth can lead to hoarseness and possible polyps
Tension can cause tiredness, both fatigue in your vocal instrumentation, but also in the rest of your ‘self’. Tiredness will affect your voice
Pain can cause you to be irritable or depressed, itself leading to stress and the possible use of medication… and so the spiral continues. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.18 – 0807 – Tension and Relaxation 
We looked at releasing tension in the mouth, jaw, tongue and lips in the previous chapter, but as the Voice Box above shows, physical tension that can affect your voice can be in many other places.
“Tension murders vibration (and) vibrations thrive in relaxation”Kristin Linklater, “Freeing the Natural Voice: Imagery and Art in the Practice of Language” And it’s important to remember that physical tension can come from mental tension: nerves or excitement about a presentation can manifest themselves in your muscles and so affect your performance. You see how everything is interconnected? (We look at mental stress and ‘mic fright’ in the next chapter.)  Muscles in a state of undue tension can make your voice sound a little thin, strained, irritated or bored and put it up an octave. Your reading can also speed up and your mouth can dry up leading to articulation problems.  Releasing tension opens the diaphragm, which gives deeper breathing which in turn helps the voice sound more open and confident. And in a ‘self-fulfilling spiral’, when you know you sound good, you relax, you slow down, your heart rate decreases and the natural fluids returns to your mouth.
And during times of dramatic or significant news, it is important for radio and TV presenters to manage their personal tension. Feeling anxious, angry, sad or depressed can make it difficult to sound comforting or calm. But that is exactly what radio presenters need to sound if they are to communicate their message effectively. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2023.03.17 – 0806 – Stretching and Strengthening Your Laryngeal Muscle 
There are around 27 muscles in and around the larynx, 15 of these are outside the larynx and hold it in position in the neck, 12 are essential, with a direct action on the vocal folds in their lengthening and shortening, tension and relaxation, thinning and thickening.  These laryngeal muscles are intimately connected to the muscles of the neck, shoulders and upper chest and back. The tension of all these muscles is influenced by how we are feeling both physically and emotionally and they affect the function and sometimes the structure of the vocal folds.  We need enough tension for a strong healthy voice, but not so much that the voice becomes strained and constricted. [1]
So, the muscles around the larynx are intricate and need delicate movement to work, and you need to avoid the other muscles around it, like in the neck (and they’re huge – if you’ve ever been in a car accident and had whiplash, you’ll know how debilitating that is) getting tense.
And that’s why exercises are so important in getting a better voice: moving and stretching to both relax and strengthen muscles.
[1] https://www.wsh.nhs.uk/CMS-Documents/Patient-leaflets/SpeechandLanguageTherapyServices/6534-1-Practical-voice-care.pdf  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.