Vocal projection

Proper voice projection requires a combination of exercises to refine your breathing and voice technique to increase your vocal clarity. Here are some of the most effective ways

The diaphragm is a muscle located between the abdominal and thoracic cavities. The diaphragm is responsible for pushing out air that is sufficient enough to project the sounds you make, so exercising the diaphragm is crucial to vocal projection. There are many ways you can do this. One of the easiest for beginners is to take as much air into your lungs as possible, breathing deeply until they are filled. Slowly exhale, letting the air out, then try again. Do this several times. When you feel you're taking enough air into your lungs, begin singing a single note. Unless you're already accustomed to using your diaphragm to push the air from your lungs, your voice will sound weak and the note will falter. You're probably singing from your throat, which doesn't allow you to project your voice at all, and can do damage to your throat. Fill your lungs by breathing in through your nose and mouth simultaneously, then concentrate on the area just beneath your ribs, where the diaphragm is located. Keep working at it until you are using that muscle to push the air from your lungs.

Controlled Breathing
•Controlled breathing exercises can help make using your diaphragm more natural. Try deep, slow breathing exercises to accomplish this. Breathe in through your nose and fill your lungs, then breathe out slowly. Quickly releasing your breath doesn't give the diaphragm time to think about what it needs to do. Breathing out very slowly will force your diaphragm to take control and prevent the breath from escaping. Mastering this technique helps give you control over your diaphragm and strengthens too. Do not suck your stomach in after performing this exercise. Allow it to come in slowly and naturally. Sucking your stomach in is a sign that you are not using your diaphragm properly. The belly should remain relaxed while you take in air, but not forced out. The exhalation should be more like allowing the air to gently release, not actually pushing out either.
Place the palm of your hand under your rib cage, then place your other hand at the same level but on your back. Now breath and make sure the distance between your two hands increases as much as you can. If you breathe and your shoulders move up, then you are doing it wrong, your shoulders shouldn’t move. The upper part of your belly should move forward.

This increases your lung capacity and with the diaphragm muscle you can control how fast you want to let the air out.

Pitch and Resonance:
Now that you know how to breathe you have to use that breathing to resonate your voice in your chest. Your objective will be to find the perfect pitch in which your chest vibrates the most.

Place your hand on your chest, but not like the previous exercise, this time place it at heart level. Now breathe with your diaphragm and say Ooooh! with a high pitch as if you were imitating the voice of a girl and drop it down until the lowest pitch you have and then up again like an ambulance. Pay attention to the vibration on your chest, and there will be a specific pitch level in which you feel more vibration than the others. That is your optimum pitch, the more vibration you can achieve the better. As a general rule, the optimum pitch will be lower than the one you use right now.

Volume and Projection:

Now you only have to differentiate between projection and volume. When you use your diaphragm you project, and it can be loud or soft, and people will hear you over any other noise that is going on, like music in a nightclub or your friends talking at the same time in a heated conversation. They will hear you and the most probable thing is that they will stop talking to pay attention to you.

Volume on the other hand is only loud and it’s annoying to everyone, it means yelling, screaming and not using your diaphragm. You can actually hurt your vocal chords like this. If you’ve gone to a club and by the end of the night you can’t speak, then you are not projecting.

First you have to know what your optimum pitch is by doing the exercise I wrote above, make sure your chest vibrates a lot. Say “Ooooooooh!” maintaining that pitch for a while and then immediately start saying something, just count to 10 or say whatever is going on in your mind, but focus on maintaining the same pitch and vibration you just discovered. You might sound like a robot at the beginning but that’s why we have the concept of “color’.

Color:

Color is what makes your conversation interesting. For storytelling this is something you should focus on, it’s essential. This implies accentuation of words while speaking, through changes in pitch and/or volume, this way you can give different meanings to a same phrase, for example look at the difference between saying “YOU must see that movie” and “You MUST see that movie” or “You must see THAT movie”. Pausing is another aspect of color, if you read a whole paragraph in a public presentation without pausing, it’s possible that no one will get your idea and the same thing happens if you make a pause every 2 words.

Make a list of phrases like the one I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, read it many times and accentuate a different word each time.

•YOU must see that movie
•You MUST see that movie
•You must SEE that movie
•You must see THAT movie
•You must see that MOVIE
You can accentuate the words by adding volume, by increasing pitch, or by pausing half a second when you say that word, or any combination of the three.


Scale Exercises
•Singing scales is not only excellent ear training, but scales can be used to practice vocal projection. Start on the first note of the scale you want to sing, breathe deeply through your nose and mouth simultaneously, and begin singing the scale, pushing each note out progressively louder. Use the air and diaphragm: Never push with your throat. Practice releasing your breath slowly and evenly behind each note in the scale. By the time you reach the last note, it should be loud, clear and solid. If your voice is cracking, you aren't using your diaphragm to push the notes, or taking in enough air to sustain the notes. Try this same exercise lying on your back with your hands on your waist and your fingers positioned right at your navel. If you are using your diaphragm properly, you will be able to feel vibration beneath your fingertips.