This is for you, dear Speakers and Singers: How to Use Your Voice for Success.
Today: ENUNCIATION
Here are three steps to ensure clear enunciation:
1) First, always follow the outline of the 7 Steps of Sing Yourself Well. It’ll take only 7 seconds, and warms up your entire body/instrument. In order to use your instrument, even for enunciating properly, you need to build your instrument the right way first.
* You need to be aligned as the antenna between Heaven and Earth. * You need to have space in your body, rib cage and throat. * And you need to have played and warmed up all notes within that space, in order to create flow and perfect communication between the different parts. This will allow you to produce all the necessary tones and emotions in every sound and word.
2) Once you’ve warmed up with that 7 seconds routine, and your instrument is now built and ready to play, do the following: Keep your inner smile, the beginning of the yawn at all times. Keep your throat open. Keep your rib cage off your lungs as much as possible.
The goal is to maintain as much space, which you can then mold into shapes necessary to pronounce various vowels, consonants, syllables, and words with different emotions.
It’s so crucial to maintain that space, because you are Brahman, Infinite. Brahman creates within that space. The Creator doesn’t create by losing Itself in Its creation. So stay big, lungs inflated, rib cage out to allow for that, and have that smiling, yawning feeling in your mouth and throat. When you watch opera singers, they always seem “full of themselves.” That’s the feeling you want to aim for.
Remember, over our life time we often collapse and constrict our instrument. Life experiences, time, and gravity all pull us down. But there’s nothing collapsed about our original instrument, if we use it correctly. And if we feel collapsed, we remember to build our instrument again in 7 seconds and voila, we’re in that creative space again and in our center emotionally and physically.
Then comes the fun part: Then you allow yourself to feel the words emanating from that instrument, and enjoy their flavors. Someone with a collapsed instrument would get overshadowed by them. Someone whose instrument is huge, and infinite, will be in that Brahman space and create out of that, with joy, whether the words are sad, angry, compassionate, happy, wistful, excited or quiet. The whole thing is a play. Go ahead play within that.
3) Maintaining your inner space, you can now use the various muscles of your face and throat to create the sounds you need. Lips, tongue, cheeks, even teeth, all are the helpers in your creation.
Pay attention to each sound and word. Pay attention you keep your throat and chest open. Pay attention to using all your tones consciously, high to low. Play around with talking in a very exaggerated fashion. Do you notice what muscle groups are active? Take note of all your facial expressions. They, too, are involved in creating sound.
Hope this helps you. The online course of Sing Yourself Well in 7 Seconds shows you exactly how to create a healthy instrument for yourself, step by step, with me as your teacher. I’m also available for personal coaching via Skype.
Enjoy your priceless instrument to create the sounds and life you choose and love!
Ulrike Selleck, motivational speaker, classical singer, healing voice expert.
