Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Vocal Variety- Public Singing



[Greetings to the Audience]

There were at least two conversations held by the Articulators about public singing  after a night of speaking at the Picadilly Pub.  Every Thursday night, the Pic has a karaoke contest and the question came up, "Is public speaking like public singing."  Laughing, we all agreed that we could probably publicly speak better than sing.  This conversation had me thinking.  Isn't public speaking pretty much public singing?  I mean there are certainly trade-offs or there wouldn't be singing clubs and speaking clubs.  BUT you can see the overlap.  Think about your favorite song for a second.  Think about the change of pitch, the volume, and the words (if any) that streamline a message right to your emotions. That, my fellow toastmasters, it what a perfect speech would feel like.

Pitch, volume, and words, all should flow together.  They should be pushing all in the same direction, stimulating the senses and the mind.  When you are happy, excited, or want to show confusion, you should use fast high pitches.  For example, "And then she said yes, and I was thinking, oh crap what do I do now, then I thought of something and..."  Slow, low pitches should be used when in grief, conveying something dark and unholy, or if your sad. For example, "You have no idea what she did to me...she took my heart and shoved into my ears...she made sure I could no longer think or love again..."

The second overlap between public singing and speaking is volume.  Rocking topics are high volume, Easy Listening topics should be quiet and thought provoking.  Does anyone remember being asked to "close your eyes and imagine..."  You had to be asked that once in your life, I know an articulator just said it a couple of weeks ago.  Imagine if he just yelled at the top of his lungs while you were imagining something!  Don't do that!  Be quiet, calm, collected...speak like you were speaking to a church mouse, "Here ya go lil' guy...take the cheese."  And on the other side of things, don't try to tell someone about your near fatal accident in a whisper. The message will come out silly! Use a loud powerful voice from the bottom of your stomach!  Don't just give them the message, throw it at them!

The best and very best way to make yourself concentrate on using the right pitch and volume is using the right words.  You have to get into that "there is a best word for what I'm saying mindset."  You must push your message in the right direction.  You can silence, gain attention, and entrance an audience in many different ways.  My teachers tried many different tactics to get me to stop talking.  "Shut Up Len!"  and "silence."  What way would work best for your audience with your topic? Do you use hard to pronounce words to gain credibility? Or do you simplify because they already know who you are or don't care?  Are you taking a position?  Are you entertaining?  Most times word selection comes in second nature, but sometimes, picking the good word instead of the best word is fatal to your speech. "Hey Jude...don't make it bad...take a sorrowful song and make it cheerier..." See, doesn't work!

To make my the overlaps truly apparent, and give you a summary of the three overlaps I just talked about.  I would like to sing a speech to you...[special conclusion] [Farewell]