Comments on: Now Hear This: Taking control of your vocal image for effective speaking http://katepeters.com/blog/2009/11/23/now-hear-this-taking-control-of-your-vocal-image-for-effective-speaking/ A blog about voices: using them, freeing them...and hearing them Fri, 04 May 2012 01:41:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Ricardo Levy http://katepeters.com/blog/2009/11/23/now-hear-this-taking-control-of-your-vocal-image-for-effective-speaking/comment-page-1/#comment-169 Ricardo Levy Tue, 04 May 2010 23:46:11 +0000 http://katepeters.com/blog/?p=376#comment-169 First, I am looking forward to your article on helping us executives with our quarterly earnings calls. Our challenge is exacerbated by two factors: we do not see our audience (in fact we are not even sure there is anyone at the other end of the transmission!) and because of disclosure rules we need to be careful about what we say – and hence we tend to read. A very poor combination! Your help is so welcome. I want to make several points on your excellent note on analyzing our speech pattern. I think integral to the components that you listed is the use of silence. Where we pause and for how long is a wonderful tool to combine with both the cadence and pitch you described, all serving to make the words we use more effective. In this respect, it is good to listen to some good teachers, and we have two that stand out for me in the last few years. One is Tony Blair. His power comes from the mastery of his words. His ability to capture complex issues in clear simple language saved the day several times in the last decade. But the person that for me tops them all is our very own Barak Obama. In addition to a remarkable mastery of the language, his use of pauses is masterful. Notice sometime not only where he pauses but how he enters the next sentence. His emphasis thus comes not just from the cadence at the end of a sentence but from the vocal power at the beginning of the next. First, I am looking forward to your article on helping us executives with our quarterly earnings calls. Our challenge is exacerbated by two factors: we do not see our audience (in fact we are not even sure there is anyone at the other end of the transmission!) and because of disclosure rules we need to be careful about what we say – and hence we tend to read. A very poor combination! Your help is so welcome.

I want to make several points on your excellent note on analyzing our speech pattern. I think integral to the components that you listed is the use of silence. Where we pause and for how long is a wonderful tool to combine with both the cadence and pitch you described, all serving to make the words we use more effective. In this respect, it is good to listen to some good teachers, and we have two that stand out for me in the last few years. One is Tony Blair. His power comes from the mastery of his words. His ability to capture complex issues in clear simple language saved the day several times in the last decade. But the person that for me tops them all is our very own Barak Obama. In addition to a remarkable mastery of the language, his use of pauses is masterful. Notice sometime not only where he pauses but how he enters the next sentence. His emphasis thus comes not just from the cadence at the end of a sentence but from the vocal power at the beginning of the next.

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