Change Your Voice

1. Unlock Success by Mastering Your Voice

To demonstrate that the one trait shared by almost all who achieve greatness is the power of communication, and to show you how to acquire that power and incorporate it into your own life.

Communication is Key. The ability to communicate effectively is a cornerstone of success in all areas of life. This book aims to demonstrate how mastering your voice can unlock your potential and enhance your personal and professional life. By understanding the principles of effective voice usage, you can acquire the power to captivate, persuade, and inspire others.

Voice as a Tool. Your voice is a powerful tool that can be honed and refined. Just as athletes train their bodies, you can train your voice to reach its full potential. This involves developing self-awareness, applying practical principles, and practicing consistently.

The Magic of a "Right" Voice. A well-produced, natural, and healthy voice can have a hypnotic and powerful hold on listeners. This "right" voice is a valuable asset that can open doors and create opportunities. By contrast, an inefficient or unpleasant voice can hinder your progress and inhibit your ability to connect with others.

2. Voice Image: The Key to Your Identity

The manner in which you express yourself is the key to your identity.

Voice Image Defined. Your voice image is the way you perceive your own sound and the way you perceive others' sounds, as well as the interpretive judgments you apply to those sounds. It's a vital, pervasive, meaningful, and controlling factor in your life. It pertains to both sound and persona.

Lasting Impressions. Reflect on the people who have made lasting impressions on you, good and bad. While visual perceptions fade over time, what often remains is a voice image. This voice image can be positive, negative, or indifferent, but it's the qualitative response that lingers and determines your long-lasting recollection of that person.

The Winning Component. Others may not listen to what you say—and may not have a flattering impression of who you are—unless they are engaged by how you say it. Your manner of expression, particularly how you use your voice, is the key to your identity. A positive and compelling voice image can draw others into your spell, while a negative one can repel them.

3. The "Right" Voice: Natural, Healthy, and Hypnotic

I am referring here to what I call a “right” voice. One that is well produced and natural and healthy. Such a voice is a valuable asset. It can have, quite literally, a hypnotic and powerful hold on your listeners.

Defining the "Right" Voice. The "right" voice is well-produced, natural, and healthy. It's a valuable asset that can have a hypnotic and powerful hold on your listeners. By contrast, an inefficient, unpleasant, or misplaced sound is a "wrong" voice that can hurt rather than help.

Exceptions to the Rule. While some people have managed to turn deficient or improperly produced voices to advantage, the manner in which you express yourself is the key to your identity. Others may not listen to what you say unless they are engaged by how you say it.

Physical Consequences. Incorrect voice usage can not only hinder your relations with the world but can physically harm you. Voice abuse can lead to voice suicide. The physical consequences of voice abuse will be covered fully in Part Two of this book, as will special problems such as stuttering and dysphasia.

4. Debunking Voice Myths: Knowledge is Liberation

Voice health and rehabilitation is a relatively new field, and so it is a subject that has been always clouded by the enemy, the unknown.

Simplicity vs. Complexity. The sheer simplicity of these methods of voice management often strikes a chord of shock, even disbelief, in laymen and professionals alike. Medical doctors, trained to use drugs or surgery for physical deficiencies or complaints, are usually not educated in voice health.

Attitudes and Misconceptions. Your ultimate success in finding voice magic will require, in addition to changing your sound, that you change your attitudes. Attitudes born of misinformation, or indeed of no information. Cultural attitudes that create and perpetuate vocal stereotypes.

Liberation Through Knowledge. Information and knowledge are liberating and should inspire healthy change. By keeping an open mind, you may well meet up with your own voice idiosyncrasies in the pages that follow. And you might just elect to give freedom to your psyche, as well as your voice, in the pursuit of commanding, effective communication.

5. Voice Types: Are You a Stereotype?

A voice type may be consciously or unconsciously acquired, but in either event is indicative of a sound concept with which the user is comfortable.

Cultural Norms and Stereotypes. Since most of us were not educated in the proper use of our natural voices, we all, along the way, adopted a sound which became "our own." This sound, in fact, is rarely an individual's "right" voice. Rather, it represents in one fashion or another a commitment to the cultural norms of the society and/or to the stereotypes, which individual have observed as being correct for a certain station, position, or situation.

Common Voice Types. Some common voice types include the intimate or confidential voice, the telephone voice, the sexy or bedroom voice, and the authority voice. Each of these voice types is often misused and can lead to vocal strain and other problems.

Authenticity vs. Imitation. The intonations you put into your natural voice can reveal sex appeal, discretion, intimacy, importance—whatever trait best defines you—better than your former, misused voice. The key is to project your voice from the mask, rather than from the lower throat.

6. Voice Suicide: The Dangers of Misuse

For as surely as a good voice can further you in life, a misused or abused voice can physically harm or impede you.

The Harsh Reality. While a good voice can further you in life, a misused or abused voice can physically harm or impede you. This is why it's crucial to understand the potential consequences of long-term vocal misuse and abuse.

The Epidemic of Voice Misuse. There is a virtual epidemic of voice misuse and abuse in this country today. Many people whose voices are considered "normal" have either aesthetically defective voices or episodic voice problems, indicating misuse and abuse of the voice mechanism.

Potential Consequences. From 10 to 25 percent of the population could go on to develop one of many chronic voice conditions, and possibly pathology. This means that they are even now on their way to committing voice suicide. The resultant conditions of long-term voice abuse include nodes, polyps, and other growths on the vocal folds.

7. The Mechanics of a Healthy Voice

To facilitate your understanding, imagine the throat as a megaphone that projects the voice.

Pitch and Tone Focus. In every voice, there may be two pitch levels: an optimal or natural pitch level, and a habitual or routine pitch level which the speaker normally uses. If the speaker's "natural" pitch is different from the pitch level routinely used, the voice is being misused.

The Throat as a Megaphone. Imagine the throat as a megaphone that projects the voice. Divide the throat into three areas: the lower throat, the middle throat, and the upper throat. Good voices have balanced upper-and middle-throat resonance—oral-nasal resonance, which I call the two-thirds solution—with natural lower-throat resonance.

Breath Support and Volume. Breath support for speech should be centered at the level of the diaphragm, which is located in the midsection of the body. Correct volume is measured by its moderate level. Volume should be produced comfortably, without strain, and should be appropriate for each situation.

8. Special Problems: Stuttering and Spastic Dysphonia

The anxiety that attends the desire to create a perfect speech instills a fear of failure to do so, which in turns creates imperfect speech.

Stuttering and Perfectionism. Stutterers often believe that speech should be perfect, and this misconception sets them apart from the rest of us in their verbal expression. The anxiety that attends the desire to create a perfect speech instills a fear of failure to do so, which in turn creates imperfect speech.

Spastic Dysphonia: A Monster Voice. Spastic dysphonia is often called a "monster voice" because the sounds that emerge from its victims are quite truly monstrous: strained, broken, forced, guttural. Life itself becomes terrifying for individuals who suffer from this dysfunction.

The Importance of Functional Retraining. In both stuttering and spastic dysphonia, it is essential to address the underlying voice misuse and to retrain the individual in the functional use of their voice. This involves achieving optimal pitch, balanced tone focus, and correct breathing techniques.

9. The Power of Voice Psychotherapy

By demonstrating the pervasive influence of negative voice images—voice types that are frequently copied throughout society, as well as individual psychic adherence to a familiar sound concept—I have been hoping to instill in you a desire to liberate yourself and experience commanding and successful voice usage.

Voice Images and Self-Perception. A voice image is a sound or voice that an individual either likes or dislikes; either identifies with or refuses to identify with. It has nothing to do with the natural vocal abilities of the speaker but rather is formed essentially by the culture around him.

The Circular Movement. A misinformed society inculcates voice stereotypes; the individual consciously or unconsciously adopts one of these voice types which becomes rooted in the psyche as a personal voice image; the individual outwardly projects and thus fulfills the general characteristics of his or her voice type.

Liberation Through Change. The change to a more positive and effective voice image will not likely be achieved unless your psyche is open to accepting such change. You must want to undo, modify, or resolve vocal characteristics that do not properly represent you.

10. Don't Fight Success: Embrace Your New Voice

If you are willing to accept, practice, and enjoy the program I have described to you in these chapters, you can put voice magic into your sound, your psyche, your life!

The Final Step. You're almost there. The gift of successful, vibrant communication can become your new reality if you elect to make it so. The mechanics are easy to implement. Repetition and self-awareness will cause the mechanics to become second nature to you.

Potential Challenges. In the early stages of using your new, right voice, you might suspect that your sound has a singsong quality. Don't be disconcerted by this. What you are actually hearing is a new melodic and lilting inflection that results from the use of optimal pitch.

Reach for the Brass Ring. If you are willing to accept, practice, and enjoy the program described in this book, you can put voice magic into your sound, your psyche, your life! All you have to do now is reach for that brass ring—the vibrant "ring" of voice clarity, smoothness, efficiency, well-being.

Last updated: March 23, 2025