How to prepare your reading voice

Guidelines for preparing your voice for an Open Mic reading

Stumbling over words and running out breath happens to the best of readers at an open mic, but there are steps you can take to prepare your voice, your breath and yourself for your audience. These guidelines will help you build your confidence and improve your open mic reading.

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“Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.”

Maya Angelou

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As with everything in life, the choice is yours whether to follow any of these guidelines.

What not to do

Three hours before you read, avoid:

• caffiene it dries up the vocal cords.
• carbonated drinks it affects the sound of your voice.
• alcohol it affects the sound of your voice.
• exercise it makes the voice sound unnatural.
• smoking it dries out the vocal cords
• dairy (eating or drinking) it creates mucous that sticks to your vocal cords. Do you really want the sound of you trying to clear mucous during your reading be what the audience remembers about you?

Troubleshooting:

Mucouse on your vocal cords: If you do find yourself with mucous on your vocal cords before a reading, you can:

• drink pineapple juice it will strip it off.
• plant your feet on the ground, bend your knees and shake you whole body while humming. See 1.08 of this video from the National Theatre.

Dry vocal cords: Drink water.

What to do

Read your work through a couple of times to feel out the ebb and flow of the story. Try the whispering technique described by Jeannette Nelson to tease out the emotion and rhythm of your writing. Voice – Text Work: Consonants in ‘Hamlet’

Prepare your voice by doing:

• voice warm up exercises to make your voice more controlled and sound stronger. National Theatre Vocal Warmups 1, 2, 3, and 4.
• tongue twisters they will help you with articulation. Smart Words Tongue Twisters, 14 of the Toughest Tongue Twisters in the English Language
• diction exercises they will help with enunciation. Voice and the Actor by Cicely Berry
• drink water to lubricate your vocal cords.

There are steps you can take to prepare your voice, your breath and yourself for your open mic performance.

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References:

• The National Theatre Vocal Exercises
• The Sweettalker
• Are Fizzy Drinks Bad for Your Voice & Can Soda Damage Vocal Cords? 
• How Vaping and Smoking Affect Vocal Cords

Thanks for the photo by Mike Lewinski on Unsplash