elharo comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

55 Post author: D_Malik 15 May 2013 10:27PM

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Comment author: pscheyer 18 May 2013 04:44:33AM *  57 points [-]

Learn some basic voice production for stage techniques. How your voice sounds is an absurdly strongly weighted component of a first impression, particularly over a phone or prior to direct introduction, and being able to project your voice in a commanding fashion has an overpowered influence on how much people listen to you and consider you a 'natural leader.' In particular, learn what it means to speak from the diaphragm, and learn some basic exercises for strengthening your subsidiary vocal chords like Khargyraa and basic tuvan throat singing, and you'll be surprised at how much it makes people sit up and listen. You might coincidentally have your voice drop into a lower register after about a month of such exercises, it (anecdatally) happened to me and several people in my voice production for stage class in college. (class of 25, 6 people had their voices drop within the first 4 months, teacher said those numbers were normal.)

Most people just assume you're born with a voice and have to deal with it, which is demonstrably untrue, and so they consider your voice to reflect your character.

Comment author: elharo 18 May 2013 04:34:12PM 11 points [-]

That sounds like very useful advice. Do you have some suggestions for where to start learning this? E.g. particular books, classes, or Youtube videos?

Comment author: pscheyer 01 June 2013 02:31:18PM 2 points [-]

Yes, I do have particular books, classes, youtube videos, lectures, exercises, and other resources. It is highly dependent on your particular vocal tendencies, so your mileage will vary for all of them.

But just as i don't feel comfortable posting physical fitness advice due to the above issues, i don't feel inclined to share the techniques which worked well for me or have worked for my students without providing the support to ensure you gain maximum benefit from them. So I will simply state some intriguing names of techniques and remain available to answer questions from your own journey, instead of listing techniques which will be mostly useless and are easily disproven in the majority of circumstances.

Comment author: pscheyer 01 June 2013 02:48:57PM 4 points [-]

That being said, here are a couple of links.

Diaphragm Breathing/Speaking: http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=3

Khargyraa Techniques: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCom9ZCJAmE

The best tip for the Khargyraa stuff is just to watch that video and maybe this one and then wing it for a while, trying to get the sound right. If you manage it, try just saying some stuff in a normal voice and note the difference. It is immediate and surprising.

This link is nice because the guy is such an amateur! He clearly learned, like, one technique (probably from youtube) and then posted his immediate results on youtube, so it's a good starting point. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X54KBdi5_xg