Latest / The Vocal Hack Podcast / #20 What is Vocal Power?
Transcript
- Joana Lisboa: Everyone, Joana. Assumpta: And I'm Assumpta, and welcome back to the Vocal Hack Podcast, where we explore your voice, how it works, and how you can use it with more confidence, clarity, and impact. Joana Lisboa: Today we're talking about something that is the heart of what we do. Vocal power. And I want to start by challenging a very common idea that is having a powerful voice means being loud. It doesn't. you can speak loudly and still have very little vocal presence. And you can speak quietly and completely command a room. Vocal power is a superpower that everyone can access. You don't have to be born with a powerful voice like Morgan Freeman. and you don't need to become someone else to develop it. It's about learning how to use the voice you already have. Assumpta: I love that. Because when people hear powerful voice, they often imagine someone with a big, booming voice who can fill a room without even trying. But vocal power isn't about the size of your voice. It's about what happens when your voice connects with your breath, your body, your intention and the person listening to you. And that means it's something we can actually train. It's really funny because something that happens to me all the time when people hear me speak and then sing, because they're like, you have Very calm and soft in a sense voice. But then when I sing they're like my god like where did this sound come Joana Lisboa: Yeah. Assumpta: from? Joana Lisboa: you can be a good example of a quieter speaker. Assumpta: Yeah, it's true. Definitely. I I always notice that because when I give a workshop or have to speak in front of people, I know I'm not the loudest person. There are other people that speak before or after me that have louder presence if that makes sense. Like their whole demeanor, the way they talk, the way they speak is way more animated and like way like louder also from volume standpoint, but I always can feel that the attention comes like this, like a vacuum, like to to me when I speak. Joana Lisboa: Yes, yes. That's a wonderful feeling I desire for all people that are listening. You don't need to be the loudest person in the room. You just need to f attract the attention with your vocal presence and your physical presence. So One of the foundations of vocal power is breath. If you're speaking while holding your breath, breathing very shallowly or constantly running out of air, your voice has to work much harder. When your breath is supporting your voice properly, you have much more freedom. You can sustain your sound, vary your volume, change your pace, and actually choose how you want to sound instead of fighting with your own voice. Assumpta: And I think that's a very important distinction to make power versus force. A lot of people try to sound powerful by pushing. they push more air, they put a lot of pressure on them, and they increase the volume and tense on their throat, they tighten their body to like have more pressure there. And essentially they're trying to force the voice into the room. But that can actually make the voice less effective. Power feels much more grounded. There is a support, but there is also freedom. Joana Lisboa: Yes. Think about the difference between pushing a voice out and allowing a voice to travel. When you push, you're working harder. When you have a good vocal support and resonance, the voice can actually do more with less effort. And resonance is another big part of vocal power. you want the sound to vibrate and carry rather than simply increasing the amount of air or volume you're using. Assumpta: To the pushing instead of having the freedom. What I always love to imagine when you jump on a trampoline, it's more like boing Joana Lisboa: Yes. Assumpta: boing and there's like always this moment where you're just like floating and then it takes Another powerful trajection out of this like trampoline. That's what I always try to imagine because I'm just purely putting force there, but it's actually more of a support that makes you like catapult in a sense. talk Joana Lisboa: Makes sense. Assumpta: yeah. talking about the resonance, we I think we can actually give our listeners a little example or like a little experiment here. If Joana Lisboa: Yeah, let's do it. Assumpta: yeah if you can just make a gentle humming sound like hmm Don't don't make it loud. Just let your lips come together and notice the vibration around your lips, your face, maybe even your nose. Like everyone feels that vibration in a little bit at different spot more or less. some feel it on their like forehead or your nose, your jaw. Just feel around. Joana Lisboa: Hmm. Assumpta: imagine taking that same sensation into a word or a sentence. You may notice that your voice can feel present without becoming louder. Joana Lisboa: Okay, let me try it. It's like Mmm Voice something like that? That's what you're Assumpta: Yeah, I like that. Because if you like sometimes when you open your mouth after having that mmm sound, it's very easy to just push the the sound out and forget about all the vibration that you just felt. So it's really like trying to have the same sensation. I need to touch it sometimes to feel it better. So like mmm and feeling the vibration and then keeping your hands on wherever you feel it the most. For me it's actually my nose. Like this area. Joana Lisboa: Mmmmm mmm yeah it's my nose also. Mmm Assumpta: Yeah. Joana Lisboa: but also a little bit here. Mmm Assumpta: Yeah. singing you love to call it the mask because it's basically all the things here in your face where you put a mask on or like you know the Venetian masks like all Joana Lisboa: Yes. Assumpta: around here. So that's most of the time where especially let's let's say female or women with a higher voice can feel it a lot while men or like people with a lower voice can feel it also a lot in their chest more or like in their jaw just because of the low. for frequences and vibration it's sometimes easier to feel it there But the difficulty is that keeping that when you open your mouth to say a word or a sentence. So like hmm Marmalades, you know, like try like try a word for example that starts with the same mmm so it's easier to keep it. Joana Lisboa: And this is where I think the idea of a superpower becomes really interesting. Because vocal power is a superpower that everyone can access, like I said before, and you don't need to have a natural big voice. You don't need to be extroverted. You don't need to be the loudest person in the room, like we said before. Your breath is part of it, your resonance is part of it, your posture, your body stability also are part of it. Your articulation, your pace, and perhaps most importantly, your intention are part of it. Assumpta: I think you just named so many important parts that I definitely think we're gonna make a another episode just on vocal vocabulary where we talk about all of these in detail because I think it's really important to understand the differences between those things. We already had one about resonance and projection and what the difference is. So Joanna, I think we're definitely gonna do another one because you just named so many important things where I'm like if people don't understand what those really mean, it's really difficult to understand what to focus on or what to keep in mind while you speak. Joana Lisboa: It's true. We need to do that. Assumpta: Also Pace I think is something a lot of people underestimate. And I just noticed that again this weekend. I was working with a lot of founders and one of the biggest things I notice in pitches where you have a time limit that people get so stressed out that they start with knowing that I have a time limit and I want to fit everything in there on top of like just being nervous or the adrenaline, like maybe making you speak faster and faster, that they underestimate how much that influences how much people can listen to you. And even a technically really strong voice can lose its impact. The listener has less time to process what you're saying, and you may also sound more nervous and rushed and insecure. Sometimes simply slowing down, allowing a pause, and finishing your thought before moving to the next one can completely change how your voice and you are perceived. Joana Lisboa: And then there's an intention. You can have beautiful technique, but if you don't know what you want your listener to feel, understand, or do, the voice can still feel disconnected. Vocal power isn't just about producing a good sound, is about having something to say allowing the voice to support that message. When you breathe, when breath, yes. When breath body, voice and intention are working together, when the communication becomes much more powerful. Assumpta: And here's another important thing: vocal power doesn't always sound powerful in the traditional sense. It can be warm, it can be gentle, it can be intimate, and it even can be very quiet. Think about someone telling you something important in a very soft voice. You might actually lean in because you don't want to miss a word. That is power too. Joana Lisboa: Absolutely. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do with your voice is not to increase the volume, but to reduce it, to pause, like Assumpta was saying before. To let a sentence breathe, to trust that people are listening. And that's why I love this idea that vocal power is a superpower. It's not something reserved. For a particular type of person. It's something that we can all develop by becoming more aware of how we use our voice. Assumpta: So perhaps a useful question for our listeners is What would happen if I stopped trying to sound powerful and start learning how to use my voice intentionally? What happens if you focus on your breath? You know we always talk about breath here this is our broken record breath, breath, breath. Joana Lisboa: Yeah, it's our mantra. Assumpta: Yes It's like if you wake up wake us up at three a.m. that's what we say breath. Breath Joana Lisboa: Breath, Assumpta: But also about your resonance or what we just talked about, your pace, your articulation, and Joanna mentioned it before, your intention. These are all things you can experiment with and develop. Joana Lisboa: And that's really the message we want to leave you today. You don't need a different voice that you have. You don't need to be louder. You don't need to imitate somebody who sounds confident. You can develop the voice you already have and discover what you can actually do. Vocal power is a superpower for everyone. And the more you understand this, The more choices you have about how to communicate. Assumpta: If you wanna learn call us. So next time you're preparing for a presentation, a meeting, an important conversation, or even just to speak up in a group. Remember, don't ask yourself how can I sound more powerful? Instead ask, am I using my voice to its full potential? Joana Lisboa: Because power doesn't come from pushing harder. It comes from using your voice better. And remember vocal power everyone can access. This is the takeaway of this episode. Assumpta: And once you start discovering it, you may realize you had much more of it than you thought. Joana Lisboa: That is so true. Thank you for listening to the Vocal Hack podcast. We'll see you next time, Assumpta: Don't forget to subscribe, follow, and leave us some comments. We'd love to hear from you. Bye! Joana Lisboa: Yes. Bye.