CHAPTER 1
Assessing Your Voice

If you ask people how they want their speech and voice to be described, they will probably say articulate, resonant, and knowledgeable, clear, persuasive, and confident. These are the characteristics of speakers you admire, and you want to be in that club because you know how very much it matters. As one of my clients said, “Every time you open your mouth, you put your business in the street” (i.e., you put your reputation on the line).

I will tell you a secret: People are not good judges of their own speaking characteristics. They may be aware that there’s something about the way they talk that is a problem for them and they make guesses about the specifics. Here’s what many clients say when they first come to see me:

”My voice is too high (too gravelly, too nasal, too …).”

“I mumble/swallow my words, and I don’t speak distinctly.”

“I am very uncomfortable with small talk, public speaking, and interaction with any authority figures.”

“My speech is too soft, and people are always telling me to speak up.”

“I sound like a child.”

“My voice is too feminine for a man.”

“I’m terrified! I have to make a speech (deliver a eulogy, toast at a wedding, etc.).”

“I have an accent, and people keep asking me to repeat myself (or “people in the workplace seem to discriminate against me because of the way I speak”).”

In this part of the book, we’ll take a look at the assessment process. If you want to take a serious step in your own self-assessment, use the materials in the Appendix to help you get more objective feedback about the impression you make by the way you speak. The first step to improving is figuring out what specifically you’d like to improve so you can address the issue directly.

What Is a “Problem”?

A problem is some aspect of your speech that calls attention to itself or causes you or others to be distracted from your message. Many of the following chapters will describe features of speech that frequently cause problems. You will be told repeatedly to record and listen to yourself for the simple reason that you do not know how you sound; you only know what you intend. Trust me on this. Throughout this book you will find examples of persons who are shocked when they first hear their recorded speech, those who absolutely do not recognize the recorded voice as their own, and even people who cannot understand their own speech when listening to a previously recorded passage.

We have a unique internal relationship with our speech that is nothing like the waves of sound that other people hear as our voice. We hear our own voices right inside our heads, and this makes an enormous difference in the sound we perceive. Also, our brains are so involved in the formulation of meaning and language that we simply do not have the cognitive bandwidth to pay attention to how we sound.

Speaking concerns usually have two components: (1) aspects that represent linguistic learning, habits of speaking, and expression, and are amenable to change through specific identification and practice of new patterns, and (2) psychological aspects (tensions, anxieties, etc.) that can either cause or be the result of the speech pattern in question.

Let me illustrate this situation with Andrew’s speech problem. Andrew, a man in his mid-twenties, knew there was something wrong with the way that he said the /s/ sound. When he was in junior high school, others kids would tease and imitate him, making a funny slushy sound for the /s/. (“I shee you’re shitting on the sheet!”) Oh, how very funny this was. And how humiliating to Andrew! You are probably asking where the school’s speech therapist was. Apparently his problem was considered “too minor” for these overworked people.

He was currently a backroom employee in a financial institution, but he really wanted a promotion and an increase in his salary. The position available to him would require face-to-face customer contact and some management communications. You can be sure that Andrew had avoided any public speaking situation up to this point. He decided to give it one last try, and he found me.

When I tell you how easy it was to correct his /s/ problem you will just shake your head in wonderment. Probably in response to a dental problem in the front of his mouth in childhood, Andrew had learned to produce an /s/ sound through the side of his mouth, by his incisor teeth (a lateral lisp). Normally, the /s/ is made right behind your two front teeth with the tongue forming a narrow channel to shoot the air right behind the dental surface. His lateral lisp became habituated, and he used it for the following twenty years. It started as a physical problem to which he adapted through learning, which had huge psychological consequences for his expressive confidence, which in turn had a major impact on his career path.

In one session, I was able to show him how to produce a correct /s/. Of course, it felt totally foreign to him and required much practice, reassurance, and monitoring on the recorder to make him comfortable with the new articulation. Then we had to go through practice situations of increasing speed and complexity to get the new habit secure. Andrew was highly motivated and willing to do the focused practice to internalize the new /s/. Four sessions later, our last, he entered my office, sat down, and announced with a twinkling of his eyes, “I am sssitting on the ssseat!” We enjoyed a great shared laugh, and it was a sweet moment. Andrew got more than just a good /s/. He got the confidence to speak in front of people and to reach out for the promotion. So you can see, emotions and habits are equally involved in the communication process, and both must be addressed to go forward.

What happens in my office?

1. An appointment for an evaluation is made. A few people, like Andrew, know exactly what their problem is, but most people have to make wild guesses and need professional clarification in order to proceed. The evaluation takes about an hour. From your side of the desk, you are having a simple conversation about your inquiry, with some questioning about your background or relevant present-day situation. You soon forget that you have a microphone in your face!

Next, we will listen to that recording together to make a more realistic decision about the impression you make by the way you speak. You will NOT want to do this at first, but I will pretend that I don’t know that and go right ahead. You soon get over your apprehension when you see that I am not going to beat up on you but will be trying to help you understand what you are hearing about yourself. Then you will love it. You may well be able to hear that you speak a lot better than you thought you did. In any event, you are confronting your “self” as never before. You will be surprised, and you will feel elated.

Next we discuss our impressions and set goals for your progress. I will give you a general idea as to how our work will proceed and may even get you started on some aspects of our work. You will walk down the hall with resolve and hope in your heart and a lot to think about.

2. The second visit is an important one for me. I will ask you what you got out of the evaluation and will find out what was important for you, what you forgot, and what you learned about yourself. I will also find out about the quality of your practice efforts. I need to learn how you learn. At this point I will be giving you written materials to work with, and we will be recording elements of your homework so you can be sure that you are doing the right thing. There, I said it! HOMEWORK. This is what you do outside my office with what I have taught you inside my office.

If we are working on speech or voice issues, I usually ask that you spend a half hour a day going over our work in short periods of time—five minutes, but a mindful, focused five minutes—repeatedly through the day. I will ask you to telephone me with one of these short practice sessions so I can be sure that you are on track. We will make an appointment for the following week.

3. There will be many illustrations of how people practice in this book and much discussion of practice in different situations. Enough said. Some issues require several months of weekly appointments; it just depends on how much you need to accomplish.

Read on to meet the people like you who have worked on their speech, or go to the Appendix to get started on your own concerns.