It never ceases to amaze me how many people yell or shout doing great damage to their throats and vocal folds. In addition, a voice produced by yelling hurts your listeners' ears. There is a technique, however, which saves both your throat and everyone else's ears. It is called projection.
Increasing your volume correctly involves powering your voice from your chest, the largest of your resonating cavities. You have 5 resonators or cavities responsible for the production of voiced sound. They include the voice box, throat, mouth, nasal, and chest cavities. Unfortunately, most people have no idea that they should be using their chest as their major sounding board or how to do it. Instead, they rely on their throat and vocal folds to push out a larger volume of sound resulting in excessive wear and tear on those two resonators.
Once you begin the process of powering your voice from your chest:
1. you will notice an immediate difference in the quality of your sound;
2. you will be able to increase your volume with greater ease;
3. your voice will not hurt your listeners' ears;
4. your voice will not hurt your throat;
5. you will have more voice by the end of the day;
6. you will have more energy by the end of the day; and,
7. if you suffer from vocal abuse, it will be eliminated immediately.
Yelling or shouting takes a lot of work. Projection, on the other hand, takes less work, which is why you will notice an increase in your level of energy if you are using your voice correctly over a prolonged period of time. Coaches, trainers, teachers, ministers, politicians, actors, public speakers, and anyone required to speak in a loud environment notice a tremendous difference once they start using their chest to power their sound. Their throat no longer feels raw nor does their voice become hoarse.
Had Hillary Clinton been taught to project her voice, she wouldn't have suffered the damage she experienced during her 2-year long campaign. She also would have had more energy by the end of the day had she been powering her voice properly. In addition, the quality of her speaking voice would have improved dramatically had she been given some voice training.
Stop yelling; stop shouting; start projecting. You will be amazed at the difference.
