The Voice Coach Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Welcome to The Voice Coach Podcast!

This podcast is for anyone interested in improving their spoken voice.

I’m Nic Redman, a voiceover artist, speaker, podcaster and coach. I’ll be sharing with you vocal health tips, vocal technique exercises, interviews with other voice geeks, and voice training advice.

Why do we need a podcast about spoken voice?

Most of us have a voice, and we use it every day without even thinking about it, until we wake up one day and find our voice sounding croaky or getting tired really quickly. Or sometimes people say they don’t understand what we are saying. Or we're suddenly asked to speak in a room full of people at a networking event, and find that nothing comes out of our mouth.

As a working voice professional, I understand how important the voice is when you rely on it for your job. All voices are brilliant and valid, but all voices can be even better, and that’s why I’m here. I want this podcast to inspire you to explore what your voice is capable of.

Whether you are a podcaster, a voiceover artist, an actor, public speaker, teacher, business professional or athlete, join me each episode as I guide you through raising your vocal awareness and understanding.

Let's have fun with our voices and remember, stay hydrated!

P.S. Big thanks to Jack Evans for creating the music for The Voice Coach Podcast. 

Let’s connect:

• Join my Facebook group Voice & Accent Hub: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthubb 
• Find me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA6sEJJZohM
• My website: https://nicolaredman.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Get my book here

In this episode, I talk about a proper voice warm-up, and I cover the bases of how to do it, when to do it, and for how long. We also talk about the difference between a warm-up and a workout of the voice and the five stages to correctly perform a voice warm-up. 

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

• The difference between a warm-up and a workout of the voice
• The simplified science of how the voice is produced
• Five stages of a mindful voice warm-up
• Three spaces the voice travels through

Warming up the voice is not just doing loads of random tongue twisters for no reason. It's also about finding out what your voice needs, and concentrating on it. Lastly, it is crucial to keep your warm-up routine nice and playful anytime you can. 

Thanks to Jack Evans for creating the music for The Voice Coach Podcast!

Resources:

• Voice Science Works: Resonance https://www.voicescienceworks.org/resonance.html
• The Voice Foundation: How the Voice is Produced https://voicefoundation.org/health-science/voice-disorders/anatomy-physiology-of-voice-production/understanding-voice-production/
• Barbara Houseman Masterclass: Developing Your Voice https://www.digitaltheatreplus.com/education/collections/tinhouse/barbara-houseman-masterclass-developing-your-voice
• Dane Chalfin - Vocal Rehabilitation Coach https://www.vocalrehabilitation.com/
• ShewellVoice https://www.shewellvoice.com/
• Academic article on hydration https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2925668/
• Where I did my Vocal Health First Aider Training https://vocalhealth.co.uk
• Vocal Mist Nebuliser https://myvocalmist.com/products/vocalmist-portable-nebulizer 
• Nebuliser or Steamer article from The Naked Vocalist Podcast https://www.thenakedvocalist.com/upgrade-your-vocal-steamer/
• Join my Facebook group Voice & Accent Hub: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthubb 
• Find me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA6sEJJZohM

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

This episode is a practical guide to deal with a common, yet dramatic situation - losing our voice. We will go through the possible reasons that cause it, the importance of resting our voice, release exercises that can help us, and what to beware of when we lose our voice.  

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

• Don't panic because stress is not helpful in these cases
• Why you need to rest and cancel any non-essential talking
• How nebulizers provide great assistance to your voice
• Why we must stay away from menthol
• How to encourage vocal rehab through exercises

Even when we have a balanced diet, we keep ourselves hydrated, and we meticulously perform voice warm-ups and cool-downs, we can get ill or be stressed out, and lose our voice as a result. However, if this happens, we must keep calm, take some rest, start upping our fluids, and perhaps do some gentle exercises to smooth voice rehab. 

Resources:

• Nic's Quick Voice Tips - vocal tract release:
• • Tongue Release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGaTHw7rFfU&t=69s
  • Yawning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3pbTvEPwIs&t=42s
  • Jaw Release https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUJAHfDdmdM&t=67s
  • First Aid for Hoarseness http://www.joannacazden.com/first-aid-for-hoarseness/?fbclid=IwAR2orTOSscKiRRbIOleOfoyejOImLMb8OrRZOJfvQQg4z-_EWFB8gA-yDp0
  • NHS Laryngitis guidelines https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/laryngitis/
  
  
• The Voice & Accent Hub Facebook group

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

In this episode, we talk about sibilance, what it is, why some people sound more sibilant than others, and why it gets people annoyed. We will also focus on a few practical ways of controlling our voice's features, so we can reduce sibilance.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Is sibilance a speaker or a listener issue?
• What is sibilance in phonetic terms
• The sibilance and its relationship with different accents
• The effects of the various articulation contacts
• The benefits of exploring the alveolar and post-alveolar area

Next time when someone tells us we sound sibilant, we have two choices - we either ignore them, or we can observe which part of our tongue we use to make the "s" sound, we pay attention to the airflow we produce, and work on it. The only rule is to keep our voice exploration fun, curious, and free of judgement. 

Resources:

• The Voice & Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub
• Finding Your Voice by Barbara Houseman https://amzn.to/2NOdtgW
• Vocal Arts Workbook by David & Rebecca Carey (pg 174 & 175 for extensive consonant cluster practise) https://amzn.to/2NSC1VW

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Today, I will walk you through a preparatory physical bodywork that will help you release tension. Learning how to loosen any tightness in our bodies is essential before starting with the fundamentals of voice training. 

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- Alignment and posture - mandatory step #1

- Spine roll - secrets and techniques

- From spine roll to crouch transition

- The shoulder clock movement

- From curious dog to ‘what are you looking at’ position

- Drawing the infinity symbol with our nose

Awareness of alignment and tension is a must before any voice training. As voicing is a holistic experience, any isolated tension in our bodies might lead us to low-quality performance and perhaps even voice damage in the long term. While doing these tension release exercises, it is vital to allow the breath to keep flowing and to go through this bodywork with a curious mind, observing the body's response.

Resources: 

- Vocal Rehabilitation/Primal Voice - Dane Chalfin https://www.vocalrehabilitation.com/primal-voice

- Spine roll and release routine video https://youtu.be/D6A9pixcaLU

Mentioned in this episode:

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Get my book here

Today, we are taking the first step on our journey into breathing for voice work. We will explore how to improve unnecessary patterns in our breathing and why we tend to use more breath than we need. This episode will help you become more aware of the intuitive nature of inhalation, and the importance of breathing rhythm in a resting position.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- The benefits of proper breathing

- The most common breathing issues in voice work

- A simple exercise to identify our breathing patterns

- The scientific understanding of our breathing

- The importance of the in-breath for getting a free, responsive, and supportive breath for voice work

When we have a better understanding of how breathing works, it impacts not only our voice work performance, but also our mental and overall health. Although breathing is an automatic function of our bodies, having an awareness of our breathing patterns will enhance our voicing performance. 

Resources:

- Article on breathing from Voice Science Works https://www.voicescienceworks.org/breath.html

- Breath by James Nestor https://amzn.to/2NSG2tU

- And Breath Podcast https://breathingtree.co.uk/welcome-to-the-and-breathe-podcast/

- Vocal Rehabilitation/Primal Voice - Dane Chalfin https://www.vocalrehabilitation.com/primal-voice

- This is a Voice - Gillyanne Keys & Jeremy Fisher https://amzn.to/3b9MGVw

- The Voice & Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Today we are talking about filler sounds and words when speaking, why they show up in our speech, and whether we need to eliminate all of them. I’m also sharing a few techniques we can use to reduce or replace filler sounds.  

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- Hesitation signs and filler words as a natural part of speaking

- Why we use filler words

- How to use pauses as a powerful tool when speaking

- How to replace a filler sound with an out-breath

- How our mind and speech can flow smoothly in a perfectly aligned body

Unless we are writing every speech word by word,, we must accept filler words as a natural part of speaking. What we can do is focus on our body alignment, be aware of our breathing, pay attention to our speech tempo, and use pauses to give us time to think and plan our next words.

Resources: 

- How to Improve your breath awareness https://pod.fo/e/bd7ac

- How to release the body for voice work https://pod.fo/e/bbe13

- Why posture is important for voice work https://pod.fo/e/b70e5

- The Voice and Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub

Mentioned in this episode:

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Get my book here

In this episode, we are analysing the importance of in- and out-breathing. Understanding the in-breathing as the fuel for voicing, and out-breathing as the mechanism responsible for producing sound, we will go through a simple exercise to gain awareness of the pause between breathings, or to notice any tendencies to hold air unnecessarily.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- The adverse effects of holding our breath

- The origin of the word inspiration, and how our thoughts are connected to in-breathing

- Why the exhale is the most potent process of using our voice

- The importance of finding the balance between breathing in and breathing out

- A simple exercise to gain awareness of our out-breath

Speaking is a holistic experience, and breathing affects the quality of the voice we produce and our vocal freedom. The tension created by holding our breath will affect the power of our voice to connect and communicate our message with clarity. By being fully aware of our out-breath, we will ensure that the body is naturally dropping as much air as it needs to. 

Resources:

- Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater https://amzn.to/3fatYj7

- Autonomic nervous system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_nervous_system

- The psychology of exhaling https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/body-sense/201009/waiting-exhale

- Etemology of the word 'inspire' https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-origins-of-inspire

- The Voice and Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub 

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

In this episode we will go through the meaning of common terms in voice training like voice support and breath support. We will talk about the three crucial elements of voice support, and we will do a simple yet powerful breathing exercise.

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- How getting support is not a simple one-step fix

- Why voice production works somewhat like a guitar

- The role of diaphragm in speaking, and why it is so hard to be aware of it

A common misconception when speaking is believing that we are using the diaphragm when we activate our abdominals. In fact, we are making our core more rigid and making the in-breath much harder to take. Ideally, you should release the belly completely on the inhale, making space for the diaphragm to expand freely and draw down as the air comes in. 

Resources:

- Find You Voice by Caroline Goyder https://amzn.to/3whj4yf

- Finding You Voice by Barbara Houseman https://amzn.to/3rz3VEF

- This is a Voice by Jeremy Fisher & Guillyanne Kayes https://amzn.to/3m9qm25

- Freeing the Natural Voice - Kristen Linklater https://amzn.to/3nDZwyp

- Joanna Cazden - Everyday Voice Care https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1458443183/

- Christina Shewell - Voicework; art and science in changing voices https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0470019921/

- The Voice and Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub

Mentioned in this episode:

Get my book here

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

In this episode we are continuing with our breathing for voice journey. Today we will talk about connecting breath support with speaking, and we will perform a few exercises to explore and understand which body parts participate in breath support.  

What You Will Learn In This Episode:

- Is it hard to implement breath support? 

- How to avoid creating tension when we practice breath support

- The parts of our body that react first when we need vocal support

- How to connect our voice with a support action through popping vocal fold vibrations

We are using vocal support all the time while we speak, even if we are not aware of it. But working too much on generating support might create unnecessary tension. The more we practice an easy release of the air in the out-breath, the more we develop flexibility in the muscular system, required to keep the voicing support with low effort. 

Resources: 

- Finding You Voice by Barbara Houseman https://amzn.to/3rz3VEF

- This is a Voice by Jeremy Fisher & Guillyanne Kayes https://amzn.to/3m9qm25

- Voicework by Christina Shewell https://amzn.to/3d2oGot

- The Voice and Accent Hub https://www.facebook.com/groups/thevoiceandaccenthub/ 

Mentioned in this episode:

Buy Nic's Book

Head to onthemicbook.com to get your copy now

Get my book here

Get my book here