This Is A Voice
This Is A Voice
Change your pitch, change your meaning. Vocal exercises from This Is A Voice book
Feed the dog!
Changing your pitch patterns can help your listeners understand your emotions and meaning. In this week's This Is A Voice podcast (Season 6 Episode 12), expert vocal trainers Dr Gillyanne Kayes & Jeremy Fisher use the sentence "Feed the dog" to showcase different pitch patterns and meanings.
We read out the instructions from the second half of exercise 26 (page 84 of This Is A Voice) and show you step by step how to change meaning, intonation and interest in your speaking voice.
Jeremy reads out a paragraph of text with two very different pitch patterns (it's almost like singing), and Gillyanne shares a very simple exercise to help non-singers process their own spoken voice pitch patterns.
Jeremy also demonstrates two different pitch patterns that can become irritating if repeated - the upward inflection and the creak down.
There's a BRILLIANT exercise borrowed from UCL's phonetics department for speaking voice inflection that's very close to science fiction, and Jeremy demonstrates all four versions of the exercise to create four different emotional states.
(You can go to the free preview of our Pitch, Pace & Power webinar where we explore this more here https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/courses/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge/lectures/27906956)
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This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice. Hello and welcome to This Is A Voice, Season six, episode 12.
Gillyanne:The podcast where we get Vocal about voice.
Jeremy:I'm Jeremy Fisher.
Gillyanne:And I'm Dr Gillyanne Kayes.
Jeremy:And we're back with Pitch Contours. We said we were gonna do the second half of exercise 26 on page 84 from This is a voice, the book, and this is all about What's Your Pitch Pattern? Had a fantastic session last time. If you haven't heard it, please go because a lot of this will make sense. Um, but we're gonna start with the second half of this exercise.
Gillyanne:You're looking at me, you know, in a very pointed way. Okay.
Jeremy:It's all about feeding the dog.
Gillyanne:It is indeed.
Jeremy:So we're gonna read out the instructions and uh, then do the exercise. So here we go. Next, you're going to explore some different pitch patterns with the phrase feed the dog. Everything we say has a context. You know for me, context is everything. Therefore, you're going to explore how your pitch pattern changes in relation to different contexts. Number one, feed the dog. I forgot to do it this morning.
Gillyanne:Feed the dog.
Jeremy:Number two, feed the dog. That's the third time I asked you this morning.
Gillyanne:Feed the dog.
Jeremy:Number three. Feed the dog. He looks hungry to me.
Gillyanne:Feed the dog.
Jeremy:Okay. And interestingly in the book, we have given you a little shape to play with, so they are approximately what we think you might do. Gillyanne just did a different one, which is fascinating. So let me try, uh, you read me the instructions and I will do what we've said. You'll do it right. It's not, it's not about doing it right. There's no right way of doing this. It's about doing, doing what we drew.
Gillyanne:Absolutely. Absolutely. So, um, um, so part one, Feed the dog. I forgot to do it this morning.
Jeremy:Feed the dog.
Gillyanne:Feed the dog. That's the third time I've asked you this morning.
Jeremy:Feed the dog.
Gillyanne:Feed the dog. He looks hungry to me.
Jeremy:Feed the dog So interesting that it's exactly the same words, but I'm using different timing. I'm using different tempo. I'm using uh uh, obviously different pitch patterns, but also elongating, different intonation and it produces completely different meanings.
Gillyanne:And do check out the book if you've got it, because there's a super little cartoony thing.
Jeremy:Very, very cute. And we're gonna hold it up to the YouTube thing. It's a cartoon made out of letters, which is really, really great.
Gillyanne:Our illustrator was so good for this book.
Jeremy:So good. Um, so, uh, just let me read you the last paragraph. Notice how you adjust your pitch pattern according to the contrasting intentions. Throughout the day be aware of the pitch patterns you use to communi. You can experiment with exaggerated or subtle changes, or if you habitually use wide and varied pitch patterns, investigate narrow or repeated pitch patterns. I'm gonna read that again, and I'm gonna change all my pitch patterns.
Gillyanne:Go on then.
Jeremy:Just so that you can hear it. Notice how you adjust your pitch pattern according to the contrasting intentions. Throughout the day be aware of the pitch patterns you communicate. You can experiment with exaggerated or subtle changes. Or if you habitually use wide and varied pitch patterns, investigate narrow or repeated pitch patterns. It's actually like singing. It is so fascinating. Mm-hmm. It is like, it's like contemporary classical music where you sort of just make it up.
Gillyanne:Um, and can I just say, you know, for people who might be, um, using this exercise in different situations with people who aren't used to singing, just getting them to go mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm with different intentions. Yes. Because it's, it's kind of so natural to people to do that, that sound of agreement. That can be very helpful to just get them to tune in.
Jeremy:And I think people have, are quite often unaware of the patterns that they use.
Gillyanne:Mm-hmm.
Jeremy:Until you bring their awareness to them, and then they become very aware of them. And, uh, there are a few patterns that are considered irritating, which is quite fascinating.
Gillyanne:Depending on your cultural influences.
Jeremy:Yes. I mean, there's nothing necessarily good or bad about it. Um, but the upward inflection at the ends of sentences,
Gillyanne:It's one of the reasons why people might want to do work on their spoken voice because of the, they're not having the impact that they would like within their community.
Jeremy:Uh, for those of you who haven't come across the upward inflection before, and we do talk about this in the book, um, anything you say has a pitch pattern rather than like a group of notes in music that you speak for each phrase. If you use the same pattern repeatedly, it will sound monotonous. So the flick up in pitch at the end of each phrase or each sentence.
Gillyanne:There's been a lot of academic research into this, which is quite interesting.
Jeremy:And then there's a sort of opposite version, which is really prevalent at the moment. Anything you say has a pitch pattern, rather like a group of notes in music that you speak on for each phrase. If you use the pattern, same pattern repeatedly, it'll sound monotonous. So people just dropping into creak all the time. Very interesting and honestly, it's really not about whether a pattern itself is irritating. Often it's whether it's repeated and therefore it loses its emotional meaning because it's just there all the time.
Gillyanne:I think you are right that people aren't always absorbing the meaning because you get the repeated.
Jeremy:Which is just what you said. It is. Just what I said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was,
Gillyanne:You were listening. Listening. I was kind of listening at the same time. I was trying to clear my throat very quietly.
Jeremy:I clearly have to have a more interesting voice Um, we're gonna take this exercise a little further and we're going back to the Learning Lounge Webinar 11. Pitch, Pace and Power.
Gillyanne:Ah, this was so fun. This came from a very cool piece of research, which we can mention.
Jeremy:We can, This comes from UCL, um, and it was part of their phonetics course and we had permission to use it, and we had permission to actually show the diagram, uh, and use the, this particular exercise on the webinar. And that was quite a few years ago now it's all nine years ago, I think we've been using this. Lovely piece of work. And what do you see? I mean, what we'll do is we'll make this particular little video in the Learning Lounge free, so I will put the free preview link in. So you can just click on the link if you are watching in YouTube or if you're listening on Buzzsprout, or if you're listening on any of the podcast platforms, there'll be a link for you to go and actually see what we're talking about.
Gillyanne:Yeah, and I think what's nice about this is that, you know, we've been talking about how it's hard for people to process melody and speaking voice, particularly if they don't come from a music background. They don't have that awareness. Because you've got visuals here. It's super helpful.
Jeremy:Now you don't have to read music to be able to see this, but I'm gonna describe what we are seeing on the screen. Uh, there is a top line. There's a middle line, and you have, and then the words are written underneath and you have little dots. Some of them have tails, some of them don't.
Gillyanne:Like little tadpoles.
Jeremy:Yeah. So, um, and what you're looking at is where that dot is positioned between the two lines. So if it's closer to the top line, it's going to be a higher pitch. And if it's closer to the bottom line, it's going to be a lower pitch. And the tails tell you whether the, if there's no tail there, then the, the word just stays on that pitch. Mm-hmm. But if there's a tail going downwards, then the pitch slides down during the word and likewise going up.
Gillyanne:And just for people who aren't used to the word pitch, note. Yeah. Where the note is.
Jeremy:If I spoke to you all on the same pitch, it's gonna sound like. If I start to move the pitch up and down a bit, if I, well, that's going up and then that's going down. So now I can do that contour and it's almost like I'm around a middle line, but I'm going higher and then I'm going lower, and then I'm going back to the middle line. So, um, what is so lovely about this is it's, the sentence is, No, no, you fool, no you silly fool. That's the sentence. And they're taking each of those syllables and put them on a dot on this chart. So the first one is called the high fall. You start high and you come down and it goes like this. No, no, you fool. No, you silly fool. Now I am following exactly the contour that's, that's pictured. But it has a particular emotion or it has a particular story that you hear.
Gillyanne:Mm mm So you assign meaning to it.
Jeremy:Yeah. Do you wanna try it?
Gillyanne:No, No, you fool. No, you silly fool.
Jeremy:Absolutely. And Gillyanne is doing exactly the same pitch contour that I'm doing because she has a different voice and a different personality. It has a slightly different meaning.
Gillyanne:And that says to me, Danger. Yes. Yeah. For God's sake, don't do it.
Jeremy:So that's called the high fall.
Gillyanne:Okay.
Jeremy:Now we do the low fall. Most of the words are in exactly the same place. They're close to the bottom. But the ones that we started high and fell, they are now not close to the top line. They're right in the middle. So the fall will, the general pitch will be lower for them, and the fall will be smaller. So it goes like this. No, no, you fool. No, you silly fool.
Gillyanne:Well, now the musician in me just wants to copy his pitch. No, you fool. No, you silly fool.
Jeremy:Great. What's so good about this is that because it's not written as music, it's not written as rhythm. So Gillyanne and I can do different rhythms on this, but we have the same shape.
Gillyanne:Can I do the next one first? Yes. Otherwise, I'm just gonna copy your pitch again.
Jeremy:Yes. Now the next one we, This is called the low Rise. So the first note of each phrase, No, no, and no. Starts very close to the bottom line. Uh, there's this little tail up. So there's a bit of a slide, but then they climb slightly.
Gillyanne:Yes. Okay. No, no you fool. No, you silly fool.
Jeremy:Very good. So each phrase climbs. No, you fool. No, you silly fool. Again, exactly the same wording. I'm doing pretty much the same rhythm, but it has a completely different meaning.
Gillyanne:Jeremy, can you do that again because I'm not hearing the L in fool?
Jeremy:Nope. Right. No, no, you fool. No, you silly fool. Actually really interesting cuz an L is a pitched consonant so you can pitch on it. Mm. It's a voiced consonant. And then my, my, the last one is my favorite. This is called the high rise. So all...
Gillyanne:Sounds like a pair of trousers.
Jeremy:Yeah, I wear them. Hate lowrise trousers. Um, uh, just call me Simon Cowell. Uh, okay. So all of the notes now are further up between the two lines. So the final note of each phrase is almost touching the top line, but that all the, the words in general are higher up. Okay. Gillyanne, you do it first.
Gillyanne:No. No you fool. No you silly fool.
Jeremy:Very good. The reason I love this is because
Gillyanne:body conducting.
Jeremy:I love this because this, as far as I'm concerned, is a science fiction program that you may have seen on television.
Gillyanne:Mm-hmm.
Jeremy:No. No you fool. No you silly fool. That to me sounds just like a dalek.
Gillyanne:He was channelling his inner dalek.
Jeremy:Absolutely love that. So it's very interesting to, I mean, this is, this is exactly the same sentence said with high fall, low fall, low rise and high rise. I'm just gonna do them all in a row so that you can hear the difference in meaning. I'm gonna do the same rhythm, I'm going to attempt to the same volume, although that's tricky. Mm. I'm gonna talk about volume in a minute. And I'm gonna do the same speed, but I want you to notice how different the meanings are. Okay? Go on then. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. So fascinating. It's like playing four entirely different characters.
Gillyanne:And this is the moment to mention that. The way the human ear processes sound, we hear the high notes as louder. That's automatic. Yeah. So in a voice science concept is that pitch, which is your note, and volume co vary. So the higher you go the louder it will be heard as the louder it is actually.
Jeremy:Now as a speaker, as a singer, as a performer, you can override that by deliberately making. Stuff softer and the low stuff louder. I'm gonna do that. The low rise and the high rise. But I'm gonna go softer on the high rise and see what effect that has. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. No. No you fool. No you silly fool. That's actually quite hard to do. It's very hard. But it's really, it still sounds like a dialect to me, but it sounds like a dialect in the distance. It's very strange. So I'm having to to override the human ear, if you like, because if I do it at exactly, if I do it myself at exactly the same volume, everyone around me will hear the, the upper one as being louder.
Gillyanne:It's one of the reasons why we raise our pitch. when we're shouting.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:And when we want to warn people.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:It's also one of the reasons why we often raise our pitch when we're excited.
Jeremy:For me is most of the time. Uh, yeah. I was just thinking back to my days at music college when, uh, in my last year when I had to present something and we didn't have microphones in those days. You know, microphones hadn't been invented while I was at college. Um, and
Gillyanne:you exaggerate.
Jeremy:Only slightly. Um, it was very interesting that I had some, some coaching from the voice of person there. And her main thing was speak higher. That was it. There was nothing about projection. It was just speak higher.
Gillyanne:Because he's a bass.
Jeremy:Because I'm a bass and nobody could hear me. So I ended up sort of talking about this level, which is still within my range, but it's fairly high in my speaking range when you consider where I normally speak. Yeah.
Gillyanne:And if you spoke like that all the time, you'd get vocally tired.
Jeremy:It's so tired. Mm. I would be so tired.
Gillyanne:Uh, and also, I mean, there, there's a whole load of stuff we could be discussing about how everyday voice pitch, what we call the habitual voice pitch, will tend to change across age. Yes. And that in fact that is mapped much more reliably than biological sex, gender.
Jeremy:Can. I mean, I'm going to do huge generalization here. In general, women's voices go down as the age and men's voices go up as the age. Huge generalization. Mainly true.
Gillyanne:Yeah. Well, I mean it's supported certainly in research literature.
Jeremy:There's something else that I quite like to talk about because we mentioned it in passing. I think it's in the book. If we go to the book, and we're talking about, uh, context and intention, When you are having an ordinary conversation as we sort of are, Well, actually no, let me do this properly. If Gillyanne and I are going to have a normal conversation, my volume will probably be about that. So I will de voice slightly, it'll be slightly a leakier sound. It's slightly more intimate, so I don't feel the need to project or do anything.
Gillyanne:And I'd say that often my voice pitch these days it's, it's quite low, sort of down there. And I find that that's not very efficient when I'm speaking in this kind of a situation.
Jeremy:I mean, this is really interesting because in this kind of a situation, I am also, by the way, we're both wearing headphones, but I am usually projecting a little more than I do normally. Even though the camera is less than a meter away, much less than a meter away, but there's something about being on, you know, doing a broadcast that we just raise slightly.
Gillyanne:And these days I have to warm up my voice to speak at this pitch. Yes.
Jeremy:Also, by the way, microphones catch, I mean, as we said, a couple of podcasts ago, shit in, shit out. Microphones catch everything.
Gillyanne:Excuse me?
Jeremy:Microphones catch everything. So if your voice isn't clear, then the microphone will catch that your voice isn't clear. I mean, you've heard both of us, I think clear our throats very very slightly because what we want is a really clear Vocal signal so that our intention and our conversation and our meaning comes across to you, the listener, without any interference.
Gillyanne:Because if you're not watching on YouTube, it's all got to come in through the ear.
Jeremy:Absolutely. Now I'm just thinking about intention and context. If I was to go into a slightly bigger room, or if I was conducting a chorus or I was doing a rehearsal, I have to say that probably what I do is just increase the solidity of the sound I'm doing. I might project a little bit more, but I'm not even sure how this is coming over on the microphone, but it's a little bit more work and I want to talk about Vocal loading. Okay, so what is Vocal loading?
Gillyanne:He's looking at me, Everybody. I'm suddenly supposed to come out. I mean,
Jeremy:I hadn't warned Gillyanne about this at all.
Gillyanne:Vocal loading is the measure of how many times your Vocal folds come together throughout the day. And there are lots of different ways of measuring this, but if you think about Vocal load, you know, if you're not used to thinking of the, the sciency concept, um, think about something like a repetitive strain injury where you are working with the mouse on your computer in exactly the same way over and over again, and suddenly things start to go wrong. Now, what can happen with Vocal loading?
Jeremy:Can I just say, I'm thinking tennis elbow and I'm thinking carpet layer's knee.
Gillyanne:As you do.
Jeremy:If you haven't see, if you haven't heard of carpet layers knee, it's because basically they use the same knee. knock the edges of the carpet out. So they're, they're basically kneeing into a padded metal bar to, uh, stretch the carpet. Yeah. And that's, it's quite a well known thing if you're a carpet layer. Mm-hmm. I dunno where I went there.
Gillyanne:Cool.
Jeremy:I know I've just put Gillyanne off completely now.
Gillyanne:Yeah. You've also put me on the spot cuz I'm not quite prepared for, um, the, the no, the true science definition.
Jeremy:But that's alright. If you think about Vocal loading and you think, if you think about Vocal fold collision. Vocal fold collision has two, two parts to it, if you like. It has the speed of closure and I, and, no, sorry, let me rewind on that. It has the number of closures per second, so anybody who sings high is going to have a, a higher number of, of, um, collisions. And it also has the strength of the collision. So any belters are gonna have a higher strength collision.
Gillyanne:So you're looking at volume.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:You're looking at the number of collisions.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:And of course you're looking at how that pans out across the day.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:And lots and lots of studies have been done with that. Uh, and so for example, if we fur, refer again to fitness trainers. Fitness trainers are often speaking over loud noise. They should always be working with a microphone, but sometimes they are not. Therefore their Vocal load will be very high.
Jeremy:And quite often they're doing the exercises along with the class as a motor, as a physical visual motivator. Mm-hmm. So they're also in high oxygen use.
Gillyanne:And obviously classroom teachers and lecturers who are working for, you know, five, six hours a day. It's considered that if we are using our voice for work for five hours a day, we are a professional voice user. And that includes if you're doing a series of meetings on Zoom.
Jeremy:Mm-hmm.
Gillyanne:There's all kinds of Vocal loading issues
Jeremy:happen. The Zoom voice. Yeah. Who remembers getting tired doing 5, 6, 7, 8 hours on Zoom?
Gillyanne:Well, my hand is up, although I never did 5, 6, 7, 8 hours. What I found was when I didn't use headphones.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:Was that I was projecting, trying to project across the screen.
Jeremy:Yeah.
Gillyanne:And I found I was getting tired with, um, some of my one-to-one sessions.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:Because I actually prefer to hear the singer, you know, in, in the acoustic space. That's just what, That's how I roll.
Jeremy:Yes.
Gillyanne:But then I was getting vocally tired, so I had to switch, I had to adjust.
Jeremy:It was very interesting. Um, I think it became a big thing when people were working on Zoom a lot, and particularly the singing teachers and the Vocal coaches working on Zoom a lot. And we used to say to people, Get a really good microphone that's close to you and get headphones for exactly the reason that Gillyanne said, which is you end up trying to project your energy and your personality through a screen and also the microphone, if people didn't have the much sort of microphones we do would be on the camera and the camera is half a meter away from you and you end up basically, you're sort of trying to do this to reach through the screen.
Gillyanne:Mm-hmm.
Jeremy:And that is incredibly tiring.
Gillyanne:I'm now going to throw something at you.
Jeremy:Go!
Gillyanne:Because last time we mentioned the app. And can we give a big shout out to our partners on the app?
Jeremy:Speechtools.
Gillyanne:Speechtools. Do check them out.
Jeremy:Garry and Sam. Hi, Garry and Sam.
Gillyanne:Could you do the greeting exercise for people who may be running meetings, business meetings? The good morning?
Jeremy:Oh yeah.
Gillyanne:With different intentions. Yeah. Cause I think that's a really useful exercise.
Jeremy:Um, Right. Good morning. Welcome to this conference on carpet underlay. Good morning. Welcome to this conference on carpet underlay. Good morning. Welcome to this conference on carpet underlay. Same speed, same volume, just a completely different pitch intention.
Gillyanne:Do you know what I think on the app it's linoleum.
Jeremy:It is linoleum. I couldn't remember.
Gillyanne:Linoleum flooring.
Jeremy:I could not remember. Vinyl, linoleum, vinyl flooring. I couldn't remember.
Gillyanne:I think, I think everybody will get the idea.
Jeremy:I just wanted to find the least exciting thing I could think of, but then I get quite excited by vinyl flooring. So there you go.
Gillyanne:So do you let us know how you find using your own voice and how maybe you are mapping what your clients are doing with their voices in terms of their pitch and their volume, and I think it would be really interesting in the future to talk more about tone of voice. Yes, because we have something about tone of voice in the book. We do. Again, super interesting.
Jeremy:And I'm actually going to apologize to everybody listening because we probably ruined your day because you are now going to go out and listen to what everyone does, and it is going to drive you nuts for a couple of days, but it is such a fascinating topic. Uh, thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening.
Gillyanne:Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Stop it.
Jeremy:We'll see you next time. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice.