Public Speaking and Voice Training Resources Thread - For those who are lacking orally

[1440p Curved Monitor]

I don't like public speaking and am not a big fan of my voice but I really want to improve that. My problem is twofold: my rambling and the pitch of my voice.

I find that I ramble and that it's hard for me to say things clear and conclusively. Im positive that it affects how others view me, and then I get a bit worried about it, which leads into the problem getting worse. Before I talk to someone or ask a question in a work meeting I think about what exactly Im going to say before I say it so it makes sense. Sentences never flow out of my lips naturally for me.

My other issue is that I find that my voices pitch goes deeper than Id like as I speak longer. I'm a woman so that isn't ideal for me. It goes to the point where I feel like I'm a fucking frog. Maybe my vocal cords are tired because I'm not speaking properly? I used to sing when I was younger and I don't recall my voice being like this.
No, I wont post recordings of my voice.

I've done some research but I noticed that a lot of the free online material is for actors. I don't know if that would be too verbose for me. So I'm asking for free course recommendations and passages that I can read aloud to practice.

 

[Pee Cola]

Find your local Toastmasters chapter and go to a couple of meetings. If you think you can get something out of it, join them.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I misread the title as "Public spanking and voice training". Was very confused for a minute. Anyway, public speaking bad.

 

[Grub]

What kind of public speaking are you talking about? I used to have to give presentations a fair bit and I'm not really the most outgoing, giving presentations kind of guy. For me it just took lots of practice. Preparing my material in advance and practicing over and over. In front of a mirror or to my wife or to my presentation partner if I had one.

As far as your voice goes, most people don't like the sound of their own voice when they hear it recorded because it never sounds the same as it does in your head when you speak.

Again, I'm not sure what kind of public speaking you're doing, but for content and structuring, one piece of advice I was given was. 'Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you just told them.' People's attention spans are short, they tend to remember the beginning and the end of things but not the middle.

And some general tips for nervousness and such, people are paying less attention to you than you think. You might feel awkward or like you're rambling and whatnot but chances are, unless it's really bad, the audience probably won't notice. They're paying more attention to whatever it is you're telling them then to how you're telling them.

 

[herefortheactualthreads]

visit a speech therapist/speech-language pathologist maybe, also try to control yourself if possible, by focusing on your pitch, or talking slowly but clear.

general public talking tips and autism: look people in the eyes while talking, dont be nervous, use your body language to get your point across, do some jokes to catch the attention of ppl (or pay them, up to you), dont mindlessly read from your notes or powerpoint presentation if possible, try to engage and hook your audience into the public talkings by asking them easy questions or asking for their opinions. dont use too much history/theory because that shit is dry and boring, spice it up with puns and cool facts.

 

[Pruto]

Just imagine the entire audience is KF members and Null

 

[peachlover669]

Just imagine the entire audience is KF members and Null

"haha NIGGER! ha ha! am i right or am i right guys! anyways when we look at the data here-"

 

[Chongqing]

When I was young person, watching/listening to and imitating Howard Stern helped me learn how to speak confidently and clearly.

He demonstrates a good way of how to convey an idea to someone who has no context of what you're talking about. He's good at building-out ideas while also enunciation well.

This helped me communicate better with people in different generations from me.

 

[1440p Curved Monitor]

What kind of public speaking are you talking about? I used to have to give presentations a fair bit and I'm not really the most outgoing, giving presentations kind of guy.

Im more concerned about talking and presenting to my coworkers, managers, and clients. I want to eventually get a managerial position and talk to clients directly and I think that presenting my ideas clearly will definitely aide with that.

'Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you just told them.' People's attention spans are short, they tend to remember the beginning and the end of things but not the middle.

That's good advice.
My typical way of structuring information that I want to give is like an upsidedown pyramid. I start with the TLDR and then make my way into the specifics, while emphasizing how it connects to the TLDR. But since I'm a retard it sometimes doesn't sound clear.
I'll give an arbitrary topic as an example: f what I mean to say is "today I went to the beach because it was a nice day. I did that by packing my swimsuit and towels, then I drove my car to the beach to relax" it comes out like "today I went to the beach. I packed my swimsuit and drove, because I went there to relax. Also it was a nice day so that's why I went". It just feels all over the place because I'm nervous. I might be nitpicking though...

And some general tips for nervousness and such, people are paying less attention to you than you think. You might feel awkward or like you're rambling and whatnot but chances are, unless it's really bad, the audience probably won't notice. They're paying more attention to whatever it is you're telling them then to how you're telling them.

Its probably not bad because no one has specifically told me that it is.

general public talking tips and autism: look people in the eyes while talking,

One of my personal annoyances is that I have trouble looking people in the eyes, especially when I'm talking something out. I can usually do everything else on that list well, but the eyes thing has never been my strong suit. If I'm having a good day I focus on the nose or mouth, but can people can tell when you're doing that and not looking at their eyes?

 

[Grub]

I'll give an arbitrary topic as an example: f what I mean to say is "today I went to the beach because it was a nice day. I did that by packing my swimsuit and towels, then I drove my car to the beach to relax" it comes out like "today I went to the beach. I packed my swimsuit and drove, because I went there to relax. Also it was a nice day so that's why I went". It just feels all over the place because I'm nervous. I might be nitpicking though...

Organizing notes before hand and practicing lots will help with that. If you know exactly what you want to say and you've practiced how you're going to say it, you won't stumble over yourself like that.

My typical way of structuring information that I want to give is like an upsidedown pyramid. I start with the TLDR and then make my way into the specifics, while emphasizing how it connects to the TLDR.

That's similar to what we used to do, though saving the 'emphasizing how it all connects to the TLDR' as a conclusion rather than interspersing it throughout will also help make things more clear and concise. Instead of something like:

'So these are the things I'd like to discuss today first we'll be talking about 'A' and and how it relates to 'B' 'C' and why by taking 'A' into account we can benefit our organization/stakeholders etc.

Now onto 'A'. 'A' is...blah blah...And this is important to our organization and A, B and C together will benefit etc.

Now B and A are...blah blah... And this is important to our organization and A, B and C together will benefit etc. And so on.'

You end up repeating yourself a lot and dragging things out and muddying whatever you're trying to say.

Try something like:

'So these are the things I'd like to discuss today first we'll be talking about 'A' and and how it relates to 'B' 'C' and why by taking 'A' into account we can benefit our organization/stakeholders etc.

Now onto 'A'. 'A' is...blah blah...

Now B and A are...blah blah...

Now C and A are...blah blah...

As you can see from what we've discussed today taking A into account in relation to B and C could be a great benefit to our organization/stakeholders etc.'

Because in the end, they might not remember this part

'Now onto 'A'. 'A' is...blah blah...

Now B and A are...blah blah...

Now C and A are...blah blah...'

But they'll remember:

So these are the things I'd like to discuss today first we'll be talking about 'A' and and how it relates to 'B' 'C' and why by taking 'A' into account we can benefit our organization/stakeholders etc.


As you can see from what we've discussed today taking A into account in relation to B and C could be a great benefit to our organization/stakeholders etc.'

And that's the part you want them to remember. Because, in most things like that, meetings, presentations all that kind of shit, most people get bored and only remember the beginning and the end. So as long as you've made your main points clear in both the beginning and the end, they'll remember what you were trying to tell them.

One of my personal annoyances is that I have trouble looking people in the eyes, especially when I'm talking something out. I can usually do everything else on that list well, but the eyes thing has never been my strong suit. If I'm having a good day I focus on the nose or mouth, but can people can tell when you're doing that and not looking at their eyes?

I'm not great at it. When I've talked to groups I usually look at people's foreheads just above they eyes and kind of scan around. That's what they taught us to do anyway and it seems to work well in those situations. One on one, I just kind of look at the person's face and nobody's ever said anything to me about it if they've noticed. I've never noticed anyone looking at my nose or whatever and not my eyes if they've done it with me.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

there's a couple of shorts MST covered in the day about public speaking that are actually pretty informative and def gave me a leg-up

I've done public irl shit a mess of times for various sorts of YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA THING IS HAPPENING barker type crap, not a lot of spoken word but a little, my main talking crap is radio, been doing that for a couple of decades

obviously nothing replaces real experience
find some inconsequential shit so you can fuck up a bunch of times in front of a crowd and realize that it doesn't really matter as long as you keep the energy up and everybody will stay happy and you'll live through it
for me it wasn't intentional but I was a regular at Rocky Horror for a decade or so, over the years I'd lead the crowd in yelling at the screen, did a few parts in the shadowcast, but yeah once you've hopped up and down like an idiot in your underpants to get a pop from a crowd you'll be infinitely less worried about fucking it up

the single biggest thing I can think that makes the difference for me is: don't intentionally fuck up, but do inconsequential shit for a hot minute enough to fuck up bigly on a public stage a bunch of times so you can truly bellyfeel how it doesn't really matter when you fuck up as long as you roll with it and keep going

voicewise for a long time I would listen to NPR boring shit like Marketplace and other daytime stuff for good examples of Standard American, as an exercise I'd recite what they said at about a three second delay and just try to keep up with keep talking live when it comes to speech and diction, but they haven't been good for that in ages
I'd say find somebody who's voice is in a vaguely similar range as yours and who's work you dig

these days I exercise on the recording session Paul Frees did for The Haunted Mansion

I try to lean my voice a bit deeper than it normally is so Frees is a good baseline (more liek BASSline amirite), and there's something reassuring in hearing a legend like him fucking it up and doing retakes, makes me feel infinitely less self conscious about when I fuck up and do the same sort of "gibberish/backwardstalk" when you're selling the fuckup

 

[Omori Boy]

Did someone say voice training?

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Tips to improve your presentations:

1. Intersperse your presentations with short, sharp screams.
2. Take occasional breaks to perform bodyweight workouts like squats, lunges, and pushups
3. Use less vowels
4. Pick one person in the audience and speak to them specifically, periodically ask that person if they understand or have any questions. Ignore everyone else.
5. Instead of having one podium, set up several, all over the presentation space, and frequently sprint to and from each one when changing slides or topics.

I hope this helps.

 

[Chongqing]

I'm a woman

I really want to help you, but I missed this part.

My advice is to find a woman you admire and want to sort of emulate (not completely, you'll still be you) and observe them while repeating some of what they say while you observe. Pretend you're them as you're watching them.

For this, I recommend YouTube judges. There are some incredible women around the country speaking publicly from the bench.

A good one is Judge Boyd, of Texas.

The best one is Judge Manning, of Georgia.

Judge Manning is especially good for speaking at work because she has to run Zoom meetings. The way she whips out, "Cameras on, everybody stay on mute. Cameras on! Everybody stay on mute. Cam'ras on, everybody stay-on-MUTE. Cameras on, I'll say it until I don't have to, everybody stay on mute..." You don't have to be abrasive as her, but you have full license to be as fun and engaging as she is. She has a sidekick in the courtroom named Bostic who she'll incorporate into what she's doing, almost like a late night TV show host bantering with their show's band leader (think Letterman and Paul Schaeffer). The material she presents is dry and very numbers driven, but she makes it so much fun.

"Pre-TRIAL!!" (Seriously, take note of how she orders pre-trial hearings to be held).

Take note at how she presents information, how she emphasizes some of it and not all of it, and she's not afraid to make asks or of having standards of her listening audience (in other words, she's not afraid to be a B, for lack of a better term), but this is all in balance; it's a tradeoff because she is sincerely respecting their valuable time, and they really appreciate that. She's also polite, wishing people a nice afternoon / weekend or a happy upcoming holiday.

Listening to this and parroting along with it will help you. Doing so with several female rolemodels you can observe will only help you more. I recommend, however, listening to people speak unscripted rather than scripted.

Here's one stream. Please feel free to follow her channel on YouTube.

 

[R00T]

I focus on the nose or mouth, but can people can tell when you're doing that and not looking at their eyes?

That’s good enough. There are times where I’ll look at the space just next to someone’s shoulder if Km far enough away but anything generally on the head will work.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Despite the title, this is a good guide in general for learning to project and use your voice generally.

It's all about looking at your voice as a musical instrument basically. You need to understand the mechanics for it to speak clearly and effectively.
Edit: and don't feel insecure about your voice. It's yours and you need to use it as yours first and foremost.

 

[Chongqing]

One of my personal annoyances is that I have trouble looking people in the eyes, especially when I'm talking something out.

And old salesman trick is to look people between their eyes, like right above the bridge of their nose.

But seriously, a great way to practice looking people in the eye is with a friend, and it can be a lot of goofy fun. Just see how long you and a friend can keep eye contact. You can talk or not talk, but just try to get as much uninterrupted time as you can. It's awkward and you're going to laugh, but this will help like you wouldn't believe. It's like exposure therapy.

 

[Relinquish]

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

View attachment 5990940

I did the same thing with Trump, unironically.