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.

Vocal Qualities : Pitch

Crowns & Roses

~Yuri~


What you say is important, but how you say it is even more important.

You would hardly ever see a beauty queen who cannot speak well. I first came across Amruta Patki, Miss India and Miss Earth 2006, when I was training the Miss India contestants in Mumbai. This lady was determined to iron out her speaking faults. She didn’t leave any stone unturned. Even after my training session with the contestants was over, Amruta talked to me everyday and continued to rectify little defects. Slowly but surely, she started to get more self confident. Needless to say that while I was biting my nails watching the Miss India 2006 finals on TV, Amruta called me in an excited voice to tell me that she had won (There is a half hour delay between the actual event happening and the telecast). The battle was won because Amruta accepted that she had problems with her communication and she was willing to overcome them.

Complacency is a big problem with us. Even worse is either ignorance or tendency to not accept some faults in ourselves. As young children, we learn to communicate, and then further build on our skills. However, lack of proper direction and guidance often leads to the wrong communication habits being formed, and these wrong habits consolidate over the years, leading to incorrect and unimpressive communication. Once these habits are formed, you accept them as normal. They, however, continue to irk those who you communicate with. Bringing about a change needs some work, and so, very few people try and change themselves. But if you want that crown, you have to imbibe those qualities that make good communicators sound impressive. What are those various elements that make up your delivery? The special qualities that make Sushmita Sen or Amitabh Bachchan sound good? The nuances that send positive subliminal signals from a charismatic talker to the listener’s mind? These qualities form the ‘Vocal’ element of your communication. Qualities that all great communicators must have.

The first vocal quality is the pitch or frequency of your voice. There is a certain well known cricketer who appears in a lot of TV ads, but sadly enough, he has an extremely shrill, high pitched voice. Many a mature man is handicapped similarly. You also see a lot of ladies with high pitched, babyish voice.
The fact is, a high pitched voice, whether in a man or a woman, is normally associated with an immature person, or someone who does not have total control over her/himself. Notice how your speaking pitch suddenly goes up when you are angry, or when you get very excited, in other words, not in control of yourself. A low pitched voice on the other hand, gives the impression of self confidence and hold over your life.

All voice trainers will tell you to speak from your stomach. Your speech should be originating from the diaphragm that is located between your lungs and your stomach. If you don’t have any other medical problems, it is possible to improve your pitch and voice. Strengthening your diaphragm and making use of it to speak, gives you a nice rich, sexy voice that is attractive to the listener. Here’s an effective exercise for your diaphragm.

Push your diaphragm with both hands (just below the rib cage) using your fingers and you will be able to feel it rising and collapsing when you try and cough. Having identified it, push it again with your fingers, thereby offering it some resistance and shout out the word ‘Hhutt”. Producing this sound tries to force the diaphragm out against the pressure of your fingers. This should be repeated 10 to 12 times at a stretch and done at least twice a day. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t find a change in a week or 10 days. It usually takes much longer to obtain any noticeable results.

Within about 3 months of doing this exercise regularly, you will find that it becomes easier to use your diaphragm when you speak. There will be an extra reserve of breath power that comes out with your speech, and it is this extra reserve that you will use to manipulate a whole lot of things in your voice to make it sound good. Being able to lower your pitch, is one of the benefits. Feel free to e-mail me and ask questions about how to do this exercise or any other doubts that you may have.

Using your diaphragm also has many other inherent advantages and will help you sound good when you are answering the judges during the contest and in the final Q & A round. Let’s talk about this in our subsequent issues. Till then, keep building that confidence, improve your spoken language, and get working on that diaphragm.

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