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Tag: Voice stability

  • Stable vocal tract for consistent voice

    In the previous post, I stated that having a proper American English oral posture will change your voice immediately, making it sound much more natural and reducing the influence of your native language accent when you speak English. Continuing the series “Unlock your American English Voice”, this post is going to focus on how to form a stable vocal tract by covering three critical components: the tongue position, throat openness and effective breath control. Understanding and mastering these elements can significantly enhance vocal stability and quality.

    First, the tongue should be neutral and stand tall inside the mouth without straining the root. The relaxation of the tongue’s root is extremely important. Maintaining a tall tongue position without straining the root helps stabilize the oral posture. This standard position should be maintained throughout speaking with necessary adjustments for various phonetic units. Always balance between the height of the tongue and the relaxation of its root. If the tongue is tall but the root is tense, it will hinder the tongue’s movement. Breathing in or slightly moving the lips forward will help naturally raise the tongue.

    The second main point is the throat openness. The throat should be open at all times while speaking. Think of the open throat as a gas tank, it contains breath needed for sound production. A “flat” or blocked throat means there’s no breath release, resulting in no sound. Achieving this openness shouldn’t involve excessive use of throat, neck, or surrounding muscles, as this will make the throat hard and rigid. Instead, the throat should be opened by inhaling. The practice should be smooth, gentle, natural, and effortless. The deeper the breath, the more open the throat becomes. However, please note that our goal is to open the throat, and inhaling is a way to achieve that goal. Therefore, do not force yourself to breathe in so deeply that causes the stiffness of your abdomen area and throat. The process of breathing in and out should be constant and flowy.

    The third one is breath control. Having enough air is crucial to make sure it’s always available while speaking. However, how to release it properly between sentences is key to maintain a flowy, consistent voice. This breath control is closely related to the vibration of the vocal folds. The vocal folds are two muscular bands, located in the larynx in the throat. When you inhale, the vocal folds open, and then come closer vibrating upon exhalation. The focal folds function like the gate to decide how much air can come through. When the vocal folds aren’t tight enough, too much air will be released, resulting in a hollow, weak and breathy voice. In contrast, when they are too tight, only a very tiny string of air comes through, which causes overuse of surrounding muscles to be able to produce sound clearly. As a result, this will make your voice harsh, rigid and unnatural. Generally, in normal speaking, effective breath control involves using a very small amount of breath to vibrate the vocal folds and slightly tightening them to produce a strong and consistent voice.

    Maintaining the standard tongue position, open throat, and breath control are essential to create a stable physical speaking environment in the vocal tract. Holding a drinking straw or a pencil between the teeth while speaking is a great exercise that helps stabilize the overall vocal tract.

    In conclusion, achieving a fluent and consistent speech requires maintaining a stable physical speaking environment. This involves positioning the tongue neutrally and upwards, keeping the throat open, and effectively controlling breath. Mastering these principles can be challenging initially, but it’s a common experience when starting something new. Keep patience, regular practice, and attentive awareness of how your articulators, breath, and voice function during speech to make necessary adjustments, you will achieve your goal in speaking English naturally.

  • Unlock American English Voice

    Greetings, English learners!

    Today, I’m going to share with you the ways to enhance your English voice, making it sound natural, effortless, yet powerful. This subject has lingered in my mind for months, but the right moment never seemed to come. Today, however, I’m feeling enough energy and motivation to delve into it, one that I’m deeply passionate about and have dedicated a countless amount of time, energy, and effort to master.

    This post doesn’t detail the specifics of the IPA chart, sound reduction, sound connection, assimilation or elision as you are likely familiar with these topics, and there are ample free resources covering them. While these aspects significantly contribute to clear and correct pronunciation, instruction on producing individual sounds isn’t my aim. The ultimate goal of this sharing is to assist you in achieving a natural, effortless, yet powerful voice in American English. For this purpose, a more comprehensive approach is necessary, involving a thorough understanding of the physical aspects of speaking American English.  

    To avoid wasting your time, kindly disregard this post if you have no concerns with your voice or no desire to reduce your native language accent or adopt a general American English accent. However, if you are grappling with any of the following issues, this post is a perfect fit, I believe, a game changer, that drastically addresses those challenges, ultimately boosting your confidence in expressing yourself with your own voice.

    English learners, this post holds the solution to the following issues:

    Voice-Identity Mismatch: You don’t hold affection for your voice and sense it doesn’t truly represent your authentic self. 

    Robotic And Rigid Voice: Despite your earnest efforts to improve your English, you find yourself unable to speak it naturally and effortlessly due to a lack of control over your articulators. There is an overuse of articulative muscles and surrounding muscles, causing restrictions and tension in the movement of the articulators. 

    Inflexible, Non-adaptive Voice: When you speak alone or in a small group, you sound fluent. However, you encounter difficulties in open spaces or crowds where louder speech is required. Your delivery becomes unclear and disjointed, primarily due to a lack of smooth and consistent transitions between pitches in your voice. The issue is rooted by the failure in maintaining stability in your articulators during speech.  

    Shallow, Flat And Weak Voice: Your voice lacks depth, energy, richness and fullness because there isn’t sufficient space inside your mouth, inadequate breath support, and a narrow or blocked vocal tract. 

    Native Language Influence: Despite your fluency with phonemes and dedicated practice of pronunciation rules such as sound reduction, connection or assimilation, your voice is still heavily influenced by your native language accent. While mastering phonemes greatly improves your English voice, understanding how the articulators function in American English speech is crucial for reducing your native accent.

    Speaking Anxiety: Though you excel in vocabulary, grammar and sentence formation, you lack confidence in your English voice. This stems from difficulties in coordinating your articulators effectively. You get stuck in identifying a right approach to speaking fluently.

    Native Speaker Listening Challenge: You have watched numerous movies, YouTube videos, or podcasts by English native speakers; however, comprehending what they say remains difficult. Apart from encountering new vocabulary, cultural aspects, or unfamiliar knowledge, the main hindrance to catching up is the lack of full understanding the physical features of American English speech, making it feel like they speak too fast.

    Slower Speech Rate: This is affected by your native languages, such as Vietnamese. Speaking American English without changing or adjusting the way the articulators work based on your native language prevents you from speaking American English at a native speaker’s speed naturally. 

    Moving forward, let’s explore the physical aspects of American English, specifically understanding how the articulators work because they are the key to address those issues. While there are numerous documents on the Internet explaining articulators, they aren’t geared towards English learners. Instead, they target individuals, both native speakers and those seeking to enhance or modify their vocal capabilities. This post, however, is designed with a focus on English learners, yet it can also provide valuable insights for native speakers facing similar challenges or for those in the transgender community.

    The articulatory system shown in the picture below encompasses 1) lips, 2) teeth, 3) alveolar ridge, 4) hard palate, 5) Soft palate, 6) tongue, 7) jaw, 8) nasal cavity. In this post, rather than analyzing the features or functions of each articulator, I will concentrate on the characteristics of American English based on how these articulators work. This approach, I believe, provides a practical and solid guide for improving your voice. 

    Image source: Internet

    When speaking English, keep in mind the following key points:

    1. Open the mouth vertically rather than horizontally. Doing this will elongate your vocal tract, automatically open the back of your mouth, making your voice deeper and fuller. Horizontal mouth opening narrows the oral space, hindering the tongue’s free movement due to limited space.  

    2.  Move the jaw back and forth, not up and down. During this motion, the lower jaw slides smoothly on the hinges (TMJ) located in front of the ears. Be aware that the movement should be gentle and within a small, controlled range rather than the full extent of its motion.

    3. Position the tongue towards the front of the mouth, in proximity to the lips, teeth and alveolar ridge. This positioning facilitates easy pronunciation of consonants and ensures a smooth transition between syllables.

    4. Slightly purse the lips when speaking. This way will help maintain a vertical mouth shape.

    5. Expand the back of the mouth. Elevating the soft palate, keeping the throat open, and relaxing the neck will aid in opening up the space at the back. 

    6. The articulatory muscles should relax during speech, especially those in the tongue, neck, throat, and around the cheek areas. 

    7. The deeper breath, the louder the voice becomes. When you need a louder voice, ensure inhalation reaches deep into the diaphragm.  

    8. The vocal tract comprising the laryngeal cavity, the pharynx, and the oral cavity should be clear. Avoid blocking the vocal tract while speaking unless it is necessary. 

    Ensure your voice remains consistent for a natural, effortless, yet powerful sound. To achieve this, maintaining stability and smooth cooperation between articulators is crucial for the desired result. Regardless of the sound produced, the articulators should return to their original positions that I mentioned above after adjusting for different sounds. This secures articulator stability throughout speech.

    I hope you now have a clear understanding of the physical aspects of speaking American English. Best of luck on your practice. I would be so delighted to receive positive feedback on your progress. Feel free to ask if you have any questions about this post or English voice.