Roland Millward

Archive for November, 2009

Just looking at microphone instills fear into some people!

I often ask people “What is it about microphones that you find so frightening?’

The answer is nearly always the same. They say that when they speak through a microphone they sound so different and they don’t like it. Why is that?

When we speak normally to others we are not hearing ourselves directly through our ears. Much of the sound from our vocal cords is travelling through the bones in our jaw and face up into our ears. Therefore what we are hearing is not the voice that others are listening to. The sound has been changed because it has travelled through bone as well as air.

The truth of the matter is when we hear ourselves through a sound system the sound coming back to our ears is pretty much as we really sound to others. To see this in action record your voice on a voice recorder or video and play it back to yourself. Your voice will sound different to what you are used to hearing. By recording yourself and listening back will prepare you for when you hear yourself over a public address system and it will not prove such a shock!

So please do not fear a microphone – it will not bite and it will be you that is speaking!

The correct use of microphones is covered in our 1 day intensive speaking course.

Roland Millward

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The Powerful Pause!

One of the most powerful tools that you can use when you are speaking is the Power of Silence or better known to speakers as ‘pausing’.

A pause can be used in a number of ways to help your audience to understand what you are saying. Here are some examples of when to pause.

You should of course pause for normal punctuation. The spoken word still has full stops and commas although not visible to the listeners do help your speech to make sense. If one sentence simply flows into the next without stopping it can be hard for people to follow what you are saying.

Pausing can be used before or after  you say something of importance. I call, this ‘pausing for emphasis’. The pause before arouses interest from your audience that second or two of silence makes them concentrate their mind on what is to come. If you pause after the point then it gives the audience time to reflect back on what was said. In some cases you can pause both before and after the main point. However do not overuse this technique as the main points may no longer stand out if you do.

You should also pause for a ‘change of thought’ . Your talk will contain different points and when you move from one point to another you want your audience to realise that you have made a change in thought. The pause gives your audience the chance to see that you have made a change of thought. If you don’t do this there is a risk that they will be trying to work out what you are saying now has to do with what you said a while ago. They could become confused and not be able to follow along with your line of thought.

Finally there is the pause for ‘circumstances’. This may simple be a when a disturbance occurs that distracts your audience. For example you may have to pause if you disturbed by noise from a low flying aircraft drowning out your voice or in today’s modern world the ringing of a mobile phone. You should not compete with such distractions and by pausing until they have passed will make sure that your audience will not miss the points that you are telling them.

So next you have to speak, make sure that you don’t forget the ‘power of the pause!’

Roland Millward

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