Week Three - Breathing and Vocal Excercises - Posted on 2017-08-21 by Jacob Payne

The first step in achieving a professional broadcasting voice is making sure you're breathing correctly and properly warming up the vocal cords. Just as an athelete would not hit the field before stretching and loosening up his or her muscles, a seasoned broadcaster must first exercise their voice before rocking the mic. 

Optimal breathing starts in the diaphragm, which lies just below the lungs. In this section, I learned to conciously access air from my diaphragm to power my voice. Breathing excersies can be done by holding one hand on your stomach and one on your side. When breathing from the diaphragm, you will feel your hands expand with your abdomen. If done right, only your stomach will move. Shoulders should remain stationary. Other breathing excercises include lying on the ground in a sit-up position, keeping your chest as high as possible and breathing through both your nose and pursed lips. 

To warm up my voice, I've adopted the practice of reading my textbook aloud. Not only was I growing accustom to hearing my voice out loud, I was also reinforcing the material in my brain. It's a method that I plan to implement in all future readings! I read each word with an emphasized articulation in an effort to be perfectly understood. Excellent articulation is achieved by exagerrating the movements of the mouth as you voice each word. The exaggerated movements also work to excersice the lips and jaw. As you've now noticed, I'm all about killing two birds with one stone. Cuz we have a bird problem, folks. So pick up a stone and do your part to control the bird population. Alfred Hitchcock did not die in vein!