Does anyone have any good tonality exercises? I need some good exercises...thanks

[Unregistered]

Does anyone have any good tonality exercises? I need some good exercises...thanks

[Simple Guy]

Practicing speaking into a tape recorder can be helpful (as well as revealing). It's best to discover and develop your own natural voice to its fullest; a vocal coach or speech therapist can be helpful. Anything that you can practice with may be beneficial; I don't know of any specific tonality exercises. Perhaps others do.

[skip]

Cup your hand over your ear so that you actually hear yourself speaking, thru your ear, rather than thru the vibrations in your head, as you normally do.

Ask a voice coach for some exercises.

Jon Altman has a website (use google) where he offers a voice training CDset that is very effective.

[Unregistered]

Cup your hand over your ear so that you actually hear yourself speaking, thru your ear, rather than thru the vibrations in your head, as you normally do.

Ask a voice coach for some exercises.

Jon Altman has a website (use google) where he offers a voice training CDset that is very effective.

Skip,

That's Jonathan Altfeld!

Jim R

[skip]

Quite correct thanks!

Now how did I do that?

skip

[Calvin Iwema]

You might try practicing your tonality by impersonating others. Write a simple paragraph and then read it out loud like Jim Carey, Sam Kinneson or a bunch of different people, male and female. Be fully over the top and outrageous. If you increase your flexibility you increase your range, etc.

Breathe in before you speak. Some people breathe out first...it's common.

Often people's tonality matches their inner experience, so noticing your feelings and amplifying them may also help.

[Jonathan Altfeld]

Does anyone have any good tonality exercises? I need some good exercises...thanks
Hi folks,

Thanks both to Skip for the mention, and to Jim Rapson for adjusting my name reference. Much appreciated and perhaps I can add some value here on this topic.

Also, while I appreciate the reference to my CD-set, I thought I'd chime in with some actual content & ideas for vocal improvement here on the thread.

Here's my first belief: Everybody needs to improve their voice. I don't care who you are, how good your voice already is, everyone can stand some improvement. Including me. I've hit a few walls in my own vocal development, such as having a deviated septom and not wanting surgery, but there are many such "walls" for vocal improvement that are more perceived than real, which can be moved, stretched, broken through, etc.

First, a recording device of some kind IS a useful tool for vocal improvement, but also potentially limited. Unless you're using the device with instant amplification through headphones of what you're 'recording' real-time, it's not going to make a vast amount of difference in how you sound.

The trick is using such devices to replicate the effects of a great PA system. Because real-time feedback is vastly more useful than an old recording (even scant seconds old). With a real-time feedback loop, you can create vast changes almost effortlessly, and get immediate knowledge of how to improve your voice. A PA system (or miniature recorder with real-time playback thru headphones) will help you to hear how you sound TO OTHER PEOPLE! And that's the key. You currently have no idea how you sound to others, because other people don't hear the bones in your head resonate when you speak. But you do, and that's what's getting in the way of hearing how you truly sound to others!

So, a recording device that doesn't amplify real-time into headphones doesn't make the cut. Ideally, we'd be speaking through a PA system, but most folks don't have regular access to such.

Also, the quality of the microphone is MUCH more important than the quality of the recording device. I have experienced vast differences in these real-time feedback loop systems, and always the best mic, even on a crappy recording device, makes for the best result. Spend most of your budget (if relevant) on a great mic. Then skimp on the recorder if you need to.

OK, moving on. Great voices have wide dynamic range. So spend some time varying your pitch. Great singers practice notes, like "Do re me fa so la ti do" etc. Why shouldn't we do the same if we want some of the same results?

Also, learn to speak by pushing out your lips 1/4" while you speak. Learn to speak while pushing out your tongue 1/4" while you speak. At first, you'll sound like Truman Capote. Over time, your natural resonance will emerge, and then you'll thank yourself (and me) for having completed these exercises over & over again. And then people you meet will quietly thank you for not using bad tonality around them, and then ask you who your voice coach was.

Next suggestion -- enjoy learning & playing with doing impressions and foreign accents. The heightened attention to detail (while both hearing & speaking), and the greater finesse with modifying the sounds you produce, will have significant impact on the quality of your voice over time.

There's ooodles more, but that's definitely a good start. Hope that helps!

Best regards (& happy holidays!),

- Jonathan Altfeld
http://www.altfeld.com/mastery/index.html

[Alonso]

I like the real time tape recording exercise, it sounds cool.

Also, Richard Bandler gives some very good suggestions in his book "Time For A Change."

The first one is to do one very simple exercise/reminder every day. This is not even hypnosis. All you do is you touch your nose with your fingers and say "this is where I breathe through." Second, you touch your lips and say "this is where I talk from." Third, touch your chest a little bit far down and say to yourself "if I can start talking from here from now on, I should also be able to quadruple my income...."

Heheheh, using your lungs when you talk seems to be a good idea.

Also, he suggests an induction in the last part of the book. This one is really good. He suggests you specifically go back to when you were not even born yet, enjoying the comfort and safety of your mother's womb. He says some people could find this unethical. I found it perfectly good, its a good guided fantasy and really gets your emotions going throughout the day and of course, your tonality somehow improves.

Call it one of those submodality tricks on your unconscious. Heheheh