As a podcast host your voice is your main point of connection with the audience. Your main aim as a podcaster is to share your message and so it’s worth working on your vocal tone and energy to keep your listeners engaged. The good news is that you can work on it away from your recordings, and retain the spontaneity while talking directly to your listeners or to guests. In this post, I suggest five things you can work on regularly to improve your voice.
I was working with a new podcaster who had already released a couple of episodes. Having done lots of public speaking, he was quite eloquent as a podcast host, but you could hear that he had some small habits which could be easily corrected. He’d asked for help to improve his voice. Having listened to a couple of his episodes I noticed for example that the volume of his voice would drop at the end of each sentence, almost as if he often ran out of breath. Another area I felt he could work on was the clarity of his diction.
During a consultation, I went through all the things he needed to address to take his delivery from okay to pretty good.
“I can’t be paying attention to all of that while I’m also trying to interview my guests,” he said with a smile on his face.”
“I know,” I said. “These are all things that you can address in between recordings. They’re all things that you can be mindful of as you go through your day, so that when you get down to recording, whether on your own or with a guest, everything is in place to be able to give your best.”
Building a muscle, building a skill
Many musicians practice their scales every day and train their ears through exercises, so that when they come to perform all they have to worry about is being present in the moment. The same goes for theatre actors. They carry out voice exercises, they work on the character’s voice and posture in rehearsal, so that when they’re performing everything falls into place and all they have to do is stay open to react to what’s happening live around them.
Being a podcast host is no different.
If this is your first show, there are things to learn, but you can’t work on them while you are recording an episode. When you are behind a microphone you want to concentrate on what you’re saying, on portraying the right tone to your listeners, and really talking to them, And when you’re working with a co-host or a guest, you want to be fully present for them so that they feed your own thoughts, challenge your assumptions, and create a rapport that inspires the listeners.
Good audio enabled by technology and a decent set up helps with all of this – it helps your message to come across, it helps you connect with your listeners. And a good voice, whatever that will mean for you, is also an asset worth striving for.
So here are five things you can start paying attention to in between recordings. You can incorporate them into your plan for getting your first 20 episodes out into the world.
1. Buy a microphone
While a headset might give you decent enough audio to carry you through your first few episodes, it feels rather different to be sitting on a chair with a headset, than having a microphone in front of you. For some, the microphone might be a horrifying reminder that you are in the spotlight. But unless this is a very real problem for you, if you want to have a podcast longer than 10 episodes, then you should invest in a microphone. It doesn’t have to be expensive, buy something like the Yeti USB microphone. (Or if you want to find out what else is out there, check out the article For Non-Techie Podcasters: How to Choose the Best USB Microphone for Podcasting.)
Not only will a microphone give you good audio quality, it will turn on your “performance switch”. It might take some getting used to, but speaking into a microphone reminds you that people are listening to you, even if you’re not live.
A microphone also gives you something to play with. By spending some time playing with your microphone you can easily learn ‘mic control’. You can turn away from it when you laugh, so as not to blast listeners’ ears or you can come close to it when you want to be intimate, or make a joke. It doesn’t just reproduce your voice, it actually helps you to bring out the variety in it.
2. Set up your environment and master your microphone
I perform at my best when I’m standing up. When I work as a voice-over, most of my work is sitting down, because the sessions can take hours, and most of the work doesn’t require much performing. But as soon as I have to play a character, or deliver something which has upbeat energy, I always ask for the microphone to be raised so that my whole body supports my voice.
At home, from where I podcast, my microphone is resting on a bookshelf so that I can stand as I record. This helps me sustain my energy throughout the longest of recordings.
If you’re going to be sitting during your conversations, make sure you are comfortable, and that your back is in the best alignment possible. Remember that your breath starts around your belly, so if this is under strain with either your back arching out or curling under you, you will have difficulty breathing. (In point 3, we’ll cover the basics of how we breathe.)
It’s not enough to plug in your microphone switch on recording and talk into it. Test the best distance to be away from it – too close to it and your voice might sound distorted. Place yourself too far from it and you’ll sound like, well, you’re too far away from your listeners. If the mic has any buttons, understand what those buttons do.
For example, most USB microphones will have a setting for cardioid, which means that they will only pick up the voice that’s coming from the front of the microphone. Make sure that setting is on.
If you haven’t checked your settings and your mic is on “bi-directional”, then the microphone will pick up sound from its front and back,, creating unnecessary room noise, or even picking up unwanted sounds. As this is your first show, I imagine you will have a simple microphone, so understand what these few buttons do.
You probably also want to use a pop filter, which will prevent you from throwing lots of air into it when you talk about how “Possibly Better“ your day should’ve been.
Plosive consonants (your “p”s and “b”s) will distort the sound if they don’t go through a filter, and even then, listen out for them in your recording.
3. Train your breath
Working on your breathing will also help with your delivery. Here’s a quick reminder of how we breathe.
The in-breath starts with the diaphragm muscles expanding out. As we breathe out, they come back in pushing the air out of your lungs and through your mouth/nose. A neutral posture allows the air to move in and out freely, without the obstacles of for example, arching our back.
Poor posture or tension in your stomach muscles can prevent you from taking full breaths. This might result in your voice sounding strained or you running out of breath when you speak. Training your breath to support your speech is something you can work on at any moment of the day.
A good moment to check how well you’re breathing is when you are alert and aware that others are watching you, without being in the spotlight. For example, attending an online meeting with your webcam on.
Remember my podcaster client I was talking to you about earlier? This is one of the things I suggested he worked on.
“When you are attending a meeting, and the stakes are low, check in with your breath. How are you breathing? Is the tension creeping up in your shoulders? Is it in your neck, the jaw, even in your tummy? See whether you can release the tension and bring your breath right back down to your belly.”
Becoming self-aware of what your body does on auto-pilot is a good skill to develop. It’s the first step in training your breath to work properly. For example, if you realise your breath is quite high in your chest and that your shoulders come up to your ears every time you take a breath, you can mindfully bring your breath down to your diaphragm.
If you don’t want to use moments like online meetings, to work on your breath, you can develop your self-awareness when you are waiting at a bus stop, or watching television on the sofa, or waiting in the line for the supermarket.
Once you become aware of your breath, you can work on building your breathing muscles. Simple exercises like breathing in for five counts and releasing the breath with control for another five counts, will help you learn to control your breath and stop you from running out of air.
Once you’ve worked on this you will naturally be able to get to the end of long sentences without running out of breath.
Here’s an article from Theatrefolk to get you started: A Simple Breath Control Exercise for Actors & Singers.
4. Strengthen your articulation muscles
Along similar lines, we don’t want to be over-articulating as we are speaking, as it will come across as unnatural. However, if we work on keeping our lips supple and keeping our tongue nimble, when we come to speak, we’ll hit every consonant with clarity without even trying.
*Please note that I am not talking about changing your accent, just making sure that your words are not mumbled and that you are pronouncing every consonant in whatever accent you are working on. It really is about preventing listeners from thinking: “What did she say?” and needing to hit the rewind button to find out.
Here’s a video full of simple articulation exercises you can follow.
You can take this one step further and warm up your face before your recordings. It’s the equivalent of warming up your joints before going running, or stretching your muscles before dancing. Simple exercises like chewing (to get the jaw moving), sticking your tongue out a few times and scrunching your face (which will release the tension as it “unscrunches”) can help you focus and remind your face that it’s about to do some work.
(For a quick warm up, have a look at this video.)
5. Train your ear
If you’re going to implement one of these five pieces of advice, make sure it’s this one.
If you want to improve your voice, listen back to your episodes with the aim of learning from them.
Listen to where clarity could be improved.
Listen to your breathing pattern: does it get in the way of clarity, is it noticeable (and therefore getting in the way of meaning)?
Also listen to other podcasters with a critical ear and see where their voice and diction could improve and make a difference, versus “it could improve but actually the difference wouldn’t be noticeable and they’re pretty okay”. You need to decide what good means for you, and strive for that, rather than looking for perfection.
Next Steps
Now is as good a time as any to work on your voice.
Pick one of the five things above and decide on your first step. Maybe it’s watching one of the videos, or redesigning your recording space.
And if you need any feedback or guidance on how to improve your podcast voice, you know the drill: get in touch.
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