Vocal Qualities : Modulation

Crowns and Roses
~Yuri~
MODULATE YOUR VOICE



You heard Sush and Ash’s story in the last issue. If you’re all charged up, let’s continue polishing our communication skills from where we left off in the issue before that. Remember, the Q & A rounds are the most important part of any pageant. We’ve talked about the pitch of your voice and the rate at which you speak. Let’s tackle another important aspect of your vocal skills, modulation.

Modulation is the trait that provides color to the black and white picture that you draw with your words. The words by themselves only provide the outline of a picture. Modulation will further enhance the meaning of what you are trying to put across.

Modulation in the context of human speech is really is the stress that you put on various words by varying the strength, tone or pitch of your voice. An unmodulated voice is like a monotone. Think of all the people who don’t talk well. Most of them will have a modulation problem. They don’t stress on the right words and thereby, don’t provide energy where they ought to. The meaning of the sentence, therefore, is not conveyed. (Remember, verbal skills are only 7 to 8% of your communication, it is the vocal skills like modulation that make up 38% of any good communication).

Modulation is really difficult to explain in a written article like this. The reason, once again, is modulation itself. I cannot demonstrate good and bad modulation just through the written word because you cannot hear my changing tone and pitch as I speak. If I were to train you in person, things would be different. However, let’s try and understand through some examples.

If you were to say the following sentence : “She won the Miss India crown in 2005” in an unmodulated voice, it would convey just that. But suppose you had said this in a conversation about whether either one girl or the other had won, and you point to one of them and say the same thing, you would raise your pitch and volume slightly when you say the word ‘she’. So it will sound like :

She won the Miss India crown in 2005.

However, if you were talking about a particular girl and wondering whether she won the crown or didn’t, you would say :

She won the Miss India crown in 2005.

How about if you were discussing whether the girl won the Miss India or the Miss Gladrags contest. You’ll then say :

She won the Miss India crown in 2005.

Or if the question was about whether it was 2005 or 2006 that she won the crown, you would go like this :

She won the Miss India crown in 2005.


It all seems simple, but ironically, most people lay stress on the wrong words thereby completely taking away from or at least reducing the intensity of the feeling they are trying to convey.

Modulation is not only about raising the pitch and volume, there are times when you have to lower them too. For instance, if you want to say something very assertively, you will start with a higher pitch and lower it towards the end. This conveys to the listener that you are sure about what you are saying or about what you want. However, if you were to reverse this and raise your pitch towards the end of the sentence, you will be giving the impression that you are doubtful, or that you have a question rather than an assertion. That is why you always raise your pitch when you as a question.

Modulation is this, and much more. However difficult it is to explain through the written word, we will continue to talk about in future articles. To color your speech with the right modulation is an art that all good speakers have mastered. They attract the listener with their modulation and obviously, if the listener is a judge in a pageant, you get more points for saying the same thing ! Makes sense to modulate, doesn’t it ?

If you want to ask me anything else about the subject, contact me on yuriyuriyuri@gmail.com

In the next issue, let’s get away from this tedious communication skills learning and do something exciting. We’ll do it, but remember, this tedious stuff is really very important as it sends out all the right messages that tell the judges that you are Miss India material. Keep your wheel turning and learn these skills, you won’t regret it ! See you next month.