A thoughtful comic by Grant Snider on finding your voice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At his Incidental Comics web site there is a thoughtful comic by Grant Snider on September 2, 2016 titled Finding Your Voice. There are sixteen panels, titled as follows:

 

Speak softly.

Carry a big megaphone.

Speak reasonably.

But stay open to nonsense.

Speak uniquely.

Find your own voice.

Speak confidently.

Beware the echoes of self-doubt.

Speak simply.

Words are easily twisted.

Speak passionately.

Let your words be illuminated.

Speak moderately.

Don’t get drunk off the sound of your voice.

Speak your mind.

Then listen.

 

The same comic also appears on pages 62 and 63 of his 2017 book The Shape of Ideas: an illustrated exploration of creativity. On September 28, 2024 I blogged about how In 2020 Grant Snider published a profusely illustrated book – I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf.

 

My cartoon was adapted from one at Openclipart.

 

Tips for taking care of your voice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (part of the National Institutes of Health) has an excellent article (Publication No. 14-5260) from March 2021 titled Taking Care of Your Voice, which also can be downloaded as a four-page pdf.

 

There also is a single page pdf Voice Care Factsheet from May 2022 by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists titled Top tips on caring for and projecting your voice.

 

And there is a brief article by Lesley Childs from UT Southwestern on April 13, 2020 titled Voice care: sorting fact from fiction.

 

For more detail, there is a six-page pdf article titled How do I maintain longevity of my voice? by Yolanda D. Heman-Ackah et al in the March/April 2008 Journal of Singing.

 

Does your voice project well enough to fill the room?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary says projection is:

 

“control of the volume, clarity, and distinctness of a voice to gain greater audibility”

 

At LinkedIn Pulse on February 8, 2022 there is a good article by Sandra McKnight titled Projection - Your Most Powerful Public Speaking Tool. But she starts her second paragraph by claiming:

 

“The problem is, nobody really tells you how to do it.”

 

That simply is not true. For example, the Toastmasters International publication titled Your Speaking Voice, from June 2011 (their Item 199) which can be downloaded as a 22-page .pdf file, discusses projecting your voice on pages 9 and 10.

 

A guest post by Kate Peters at the Six Minutes blog on March 24, 2010 is titled Speak Up! A Guide to Voice Projection. An article by Lisa Braithwaite at Speak Schmeak on July 22, 2010 is titled 4 tips for better vocal projection. A second article by Lisa B. Marshall at Quick and Dirty Tips on April 25, 2014 is titled How to Project Your Voice. A third article by Tina Blake on October 31, 2016 is titled How to be heard: Voice projection. A fourth article by Bill Rosenthal at Communispond on December 20, 2018 is titled Voice projection: Where presentation confidence starts. A fifth article by Gale McCreary at WikiHow on September 15, 2021 is titled How to project your normal speaking voice.

 

And a 2012 book by Judy Apps titled Voice and Speaking Skills for Dummies has a section in Chapter 7 on Volume and Speed titled Projecting Your Voice.  

 

The image was adapted from a cartoon titled Untimely Suggestion on page 10 in the November 3 1909 issue of Puck magazine found at the Internet Archive.