Voice is dynamic. It can be developed and enhanced with a regular practice. If you want to improve your singing ability and the quality of your singing voice, you have to do a daily ‘riyaaz’ (practice) for a number of hours. Great singers continue to carry on with their singing practice as long as their health permits. This is a basic requirement for excellence in singing. But you require much less time and effort for enhancement and maintaining your voice quality so far as your speech is concerned.
First of all, you need to have a proper understanding of: how the voice is created? and how the words are formed? Further, you have to keep in mind certain basic principles of bringing about clarity in your voice. ‘Wani Yoga’ offers you simple breathing, vocal and speech organs’ exercises which enable you to achieve the objective of a clear, attractive, and richer voice. This in turn helps you to be articulate in your speech.
Now, lets understand how is the voice created? Though we speak all the time, yet often we do not reflect on the process of the creation of voice or the formation of the words. The origin of speech is in your mind. If you want to say something, the brain sends a signal and some breath is released from your lungs. This ‘air’ (breath released) strikes the vocal chord which is located in the throat.
Like any other wind-based musical instrument, sound is produced due to the vibrations caused by the ‘air’ released by the lungs. The sound travels in the cavities that we have in the mouth and in the nose. Resonance is added by the vibrating muscles. But until then, it is only a sound. The words are created by the speech organs. We have five speech organs namely jaw, tongue, teeth, lips and the hard and soft palettes. Appropriate use of these speech organs helps you to speak all syllables of any language clearly.
Speech blemishes are caused by inadequate and/or improper use of these speech organs. Some people do not open their jaw. So, they can not speak clearly and their speech lacks ‘openness’. Children cannot pronounce certain words when they lose their front teeth even though they know the correct pronunciation.
Likewise if a person’s upper lip is curved upward and a little apart from the lower lip showing the teeth, he or she will have difficulty in pronouncing the letter ‘p’ or ‘pha’. But there are exercises in Wani Yoga which can correct these and most of other handicaps which cause problems in speech.
According to the ‘Seven Chakra philosophy’ our communication centre is represented by the ‘Vishudda Chakra’. This Chakra is placed in the throat and is also known the ‘Throat Chakra’. Any malfunctioning of the ‘Vishudda Chakra’ results in a range of speech problems. The Vishudda Chakra is also associated with hearing and listening. However when the ‘Vishudda Chakra’ is open and well balanced one is able to express himself/herself creatively and with confidence. There remains no fear of criticism by others which can inhibit anyone from articulating his/her views. There are meditation exercises in Wani Yoga which help in building up self-confidence for better expression. Unless the functioning of this Chakra is corrected we cannot develop our Voice to its full potential.
Further, an attractive Voice should not be flat and must have some resonance. While recording in a studio, an expert sound engineer adds some ‘echo’. It makes the voice rich and interesting. Your Voice can also be made resonant by chanting some mantras and/or by singing the seven notes of Indian classical music in a certain fashion. Besides, there are additional exercises for activating the resonators. A good voice should also have an adequate range. You need to change your pitch while speaking at different situations. The pitch also needs to be changed as per the requirements of the content of communication. You can not speak at a high pitch when you are paying homage to a departed soul. Similarly, the commentator of a football match can not speak on a low pitch. If he does, nobody will like to listen his commentary.
