Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety

by Andrew Dlugan
Nov 1st, 2009
Does your voice put your audience to sleep? Does
it put you to sleep?

Do you find it hard to convey emotions with your

voice?

Are you easy to listen to, or does your voice let

you down?

The sixth Toastmasters speech project guides

you to harness the power of your own voice. This
article of the Toastmasters Speech Series
examines the primary goals of this project, provides tips and techniques, and links to
numerous sample speeches.

The Toastmasters Speech Series

1. The Ice Breaker

2. Organize Your Speech
3. Get to the Point
4. How To Say It
5. Your Body Speaks
6. Vocal Variety
7. Research Your Topic
8. Get Comfortable with Visual Aids (coming next)
9. Persuade With Power
10. Inspire Your Audience

Why is This Speech Important?

The aims for this speech project are to use your voice to complement your message by
enhancing your:

 pace,
 pitch,
 power, and
 pauses.

Your voice is the best tool in your delivery toolbox. You must learn to use it effectively to
enhance your presentation.

Tips and Techniques

1. Plan Around the 4 P’s: Pace, Pitch, Power, and Pauses

Be conscious of all four major vocal variables, and work all of them into your speech.

1. Pace — One of the easiest ways to incorporate variable pace is to slow down through
key statements.
2. Pitch — A convenient way to hit different pitch points is to play with different
emotional content. A sad voice takes on a different pitch than a content voice, which
is distinct from an excited voice, and so on. Stories are good speech building blocks
for many reasons, including how they bring a speaker’s voice alive through different
emotions.
3. Power (Volume) — Don’t overdo it with changes in volume. Again, align your
variations in volume with emotional content. Anger or joy tends to bring out a loud
voice. Fear or sadness calls for a quiet voice.
4. Pauses — There are a multitude of ways to incorporate pauses in a meaningful way
(watch for a future Six Minutes article dedicated to pauses). For this speech, keep it
straightforward. Make sure you’ve got short pauses following every sentence, and
longer pauses at the ends of paragraphs or transitions within your speech.

2. Be Deliberate (Keep Score if You Have To)

“Your voice is the best tool in your delivery toolbox. You must learn to use it
effectively to enhance your presentation.”

Don’t just write a speech and try to incorporate vocal variety on the fly as you deliver it. You
won’t get any value from this speech project if you take that approach.

As you write, edit, and rehearse your speech, select words or phrases where you will
consciously vary your voice in each of the four P ways. As you grow as a speaker, you’ll hit
all four of these unconsciously, but when you are learning, it’s okay to be a little more
deliberate.

Consider annotating your speech with colored pen to highlight vocal variation opportunities.

You might even consider making a “scorecard” in the margin of your page, and giving
yourself one point for each vocal manoeuver. Shoot for a score of at least 3 for each P.

3. Align Your Voice with Expressive Gestures

One of the best ways to bring out your most expressive voice is to use expressive gestures,
particularly facial gestures!

If participate in teleconference calls or webinars, you may have learned this trick. Even
though nobody can see you, it really helps to stand up in your office and give body, hand, and
facial gestures as you talk on the phone. Your voice will naturally come alive, as if
synchronized with your gestures.

The same trick applies to face-to-face presentations as well. If you are expressive with your
face and other gestures, your voice tends to naturally align.
4. Ditch the Notes, Keep Your Head Up, and Project Your Voice

Maybe you have used notes for the five previous Competent Communicator projects, but now
is a great time to break free of your notes.

 When you glance down to read notes, your neck and throat bend and can get
contorted.(verbogen) Your voice tends to be low, or poor quality, and low volume.
 Without notes, you’ll be able to keep your head up high and your eyes on your
audience. With your head high, your neck and throat will be stretched out, and the
quality of your voice will be much more resonant.

5. Exaggerate Words

“If you are expressive with your face and other gestures, your voice tends to
naturally align.”

If your speech allows, find some words where you can play with the pronunciation to add
some vocal spice to your delivery. For example:

 Instead of saying “The car was a long way from the beach,” you could say “The car
was a looooooong way from the beach”.
 Instead of saying “The hamburger was delicious,” try “The hamburger was deeee-
licious.”

6. Don’t Speak About Vocal Variety

When choosing your topic for this speech, avoid the temptation to speak about vocal variety,
like this guy (who admits he “cheated”). If you do, you are missing the point of this speech
project.

Your objective for this speech project is not to educate your audience about vocal variety.
Your objective is to incorporate vocal variety to enhance your delivery.

You have infinite speech topics at your disposal… explore!

What I Did for Speech 6

I chose to deliver a biographical speech about Theodor Seuss Geisel, the children’s book
author better known as Dr. Seuss.

This topic was fantastic as it begged for me to use my voice in a wonderful variety of ways:

 My “normal” speaking voice was used for “bones” of the speech — the biographical
details which formed the framework. Even in this section of the speech, I used vocal
variety to emphasize key words, phrases, and points.
 I included numerous quotations from his stories, each carefully selected to both (a)
illustrate the biographical details and (b) allow me to convey a different emotion or
mood. Each of these required varying the pitch, pace, and volume. For example, I
included:
 o Happy, sing-songy passages from Fox in Sox and The Cat in the Hat
o A stalwart, committed passage from Horton Hatches the Egg
o An angry passage from The Lorax (this was one of my all-time favorite
moments in Toastmasters as I used one of the audience members as a “prop” to
be the source of my anger)
o An optimistic passage from Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Reading Dr. Seuss books and other stories with my daughter is one of my favorite activities.
Therefore, this topic revealed an inherent passion, and I knew this would come through in the
quality of my voice.

Toastmasters Speech 6 Examples

The Toastmasters Speech Series

1. The Ice Breaker

2. Organize Your Speech
3. Get to the Point
4. How To Say It
5. Your Body Speaks
6. Vocal Variety
7. Research Your Topic
8. Get Comfortable with Visual Aids (coming next)
9. Persuade With Power
10. Inspire Your Audience

Here are a few sample video speeches which may provide inspiration for you. As you watch
some of these videos, ask yourself which speakers are using vocal variety to enhance their
speeches, and which are missing opportunities. Then, try to emulate the best behaviors in your
own speech.

 How to Communicate with Me by Shana(?)

o Pauses are used effectively, particularly before/after transition statements. This
(along with clear language) helps convey the structure of the speech.
o Increase volume and pace when impersonating another person @ 2:00
o Varying voice to mimic personality traits on “the person who needs love more
than information” @ 2:35
o Emphasis on the word “perturbed” (to make it sound perturbed!) @ 2:55, and
the great emphasis on  “I wish you’d show me more respect” (in a way that is
demanding respect)
o “I was in this one loooooooooong class about muscles” @ 4:05
 For the Love of Animals by Emilie Staryak
o Effective use of pauses throughout, particularly in the opening minute of the
speech, to enhance the understandability. For example (starting @ 1:00), notice
the pause after phrase  “herding, hauling, and hunting”; brief pauses after after
“loyalty” and “security”; and then the longer pause after “companionship”.
o Effective exaggeration used in the phrase “DESperate meOW” @ 2:08
o Notice the variation in pitch @ 2:25 and 2:40, and also how this is
accompanied by gestures
 The Art of Procrastination by Chance Litton
 o Effective vocal variety throughout.
o The speaker’s variation in pace and pauses conveys much of the humor.
 Is Your Dream a Loud Gong or a Faint Whistle by Daniel
 Unknown Title by Anonymous
 Last Child in the Woods by Paul Miller
 That’s Just Rude by Dianne
 Friend or Foe: It’s All In Your Perspective by Robin
 Sioux Hockey Fan by John Sanders
 My Turn Around by Jerome Moore
 Who Wrote That Book? by Stephanie Bryant
 Beyond the Nineteenth Hole by Glenn Woodson
 It’s Your Money by Anonymous
 Unknown by Dick
 The Upside of Failure by John Armstrong