Voice is an integral part of how we perceive and express identity. Our voice and communication can provide information related to gender, orientation, age, geographic location, and more. If our voices do not align with our authentic identity, we may have difficulty stepping into our true selves.
I want to explore my voice and identity. Where do I begin?
Mindfulness practice can help you connect your mind, body, and intention. Through this, you can begin to visualize the voice you hear in your minds' ear.
Listening to voices you enjoy is a great exercise! These may be actors, voiceover actors, singers, etc. Consider what you like about their voice. Is it their pitch, tone, dialect, language use, nonverbal communication? Is it the person behind the voice? Do you align with the person or the voice you hear?
Consider how your voice currently aligns with your self-perception. Outline the words that describe who you are at your core. Techniques and exercise to explore pitch, resonance, intonation, articulation, vowel modifications, nonverbal communication, and more may be explored with a voice coach or therapist to explore your unique vocal fingerprint.
These techniques may be applied to working with the gender diverse population or professional voice users to align voice with their unique and authentic identity.
An exercise to try:
If you could describe yourself in five words, what would those words be? These are your essence words. Your essence words describe your authentic self.
For each of those five words, what qualities might you expect to hear in your voice?
For example,
bubbly-"energy" in speech, "smile" position across speech, variety of volume levels in speech
passionate-emphasis on descriptive words, speaking with confidence
energized- fast rate of speech, significant use of descriptive words, significant use of facial expressions
Reach out to heather@livevocally.com if you feel motivated to align your voice with your identity. Are you ready to live vocally?
