Interested in Podcasting? Try these Vocal Tips!
Recently, I had the pleasure of co-presenting a webinar called Podcast Voice Work: How to Sound Amazing. If you missed it, it was recorded and you can watch it here.
I thought it would be helpful to write out the highlights in a blog post for those who are mulling over the idea of starting a podcast. There are lots of resources out there for how to structure your podcast, how to batch record, who to look for in a guest, and how to market your podcast. What I want to talk about is how to speak.
I’ve listened to many, many podcasts over the years, and what has always struck me as surprising, is that people will spend hours and hours creating podcast episodes, doing research, using great equipment and editing software, but pay little attention to how they sound.
If you haven’t yet, this is where my free public speaking guide (grab it here) will be incredibly useful. I’ll be referring to techniques found in the guide, and it goes into greater detail.
Warm up: take the time to get your voice in good shape. This is not just a “on the day of” tip - this means that every day, if you’re wanting to express yourself through your voice in your podcast, you need to dedicate some time to getting your voice in good shape. This means stretching out your body so that you’re not carrying tension (this affects your voice), drinking lots of water, doing lip and tongue rolls, stretching your tongue, humming, massaging your face to open it up. You wouldn’t just get up and perform on stage without warming up, and the same should be true for recorded audio of your voice!
Practise deep, controlled breathing. This will help you for two reasons: firstly, it keeps you calm and focused, reminding you to slow down (for more information about the science of controlled breathing and how it affects your body, refer to the guide, or check out this article). Secondly, it gives you breath support to enhance a rich and resonant voice, once you’ve found your optimum pitch. It’s very easy to speed up when you’re speaking in a recorded medium (as I did at first in the video mentioned above! I was trying to cram in a lot into a little amount of time), and controlled breathing reminds you to slow down, and take breaths more frequently.
Taking more breaths is also a tenet of text mapping, which I’ve written about in this blog post. Text mapping is the secret sauce to knocking your podcast episodes out of the park. Adding breath bars to your punctuation points means that you’re making sure you have enough breath power to get you to the end of your sentences (ever hear somebody run out of breath mid-sentence and race to try and finish?), but it also means you’re choosing when to breath, which is a form of controlled breath, which, as mentioned in point 2 above, means you’re keeping calm and focused.
Make sure you have an awareness of how to speak into a microphone. Depending on what kind of mic you’re using, you want your mouth to be about two fingers distance from the microphone. Be mindful of plosives (T P K D G B sounds) - they can send a burst of air right into the mic that creates an unpleasant pop for the listener. Be careful of clicking and popping sounds that come from your mouth - often if we’re stressed, we keep a tight jaw and suck in a bit of air with our mouths closed. This creates a sound when we open our mouths, and that can be distracting, too. You want to make sure your face is warmed up, your jaw relaxed, and that your tongue is in a comfortable position resting behind your lower teeth. That’s where it should stay for “s” sounds, as well.
Get to know your audio recording system, and make sure you do a sound check before you hit record. This will save you lots of time and ensure you don’t have to re-record any episodes. Keep your levels outside of the orange/red zone (where the sound becomes over saturated and buzzes and sounds awful), but also high enough that you get a good signal.
Prepare. If you’re going to interview somebody, as Tim mentions in the webinar above, make sure you do your research. Ask them engaging questions and make sure you’re helping them to craft a story that your listenings will want to keep listening to.
And just in case you’ve overwhelmed by the amount of podcasts out there, just remember that nobody is you, and your unique interests and storytelling will help to craft the kind of podcast that you would subscribe to!
Got a comment or a question? Let me know in the comments below, or hit me up at megan at ubuskills dot com. Have fun!
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