Challenging Societal Expectations: The Influence of Conditioning on Voices
Take a deep breath as Joanne Lockwood and guest Jamie Read explore the power and nuances of voice, dismantling stereotypes, gender expectations, and societal biases.
You. Hello,everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I am your host for theInclusion Bites Podcast. In this series, I have interviewed anumber of amazing people and simply had a conversation about the subjectof inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a betterplace for everyone to thrive. Join me in thefuture, then please do drop me a line.Jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.ukthat's S double E Change Happen dot codot uk. You can catch up with allthe previous shows on iTunes, Spotify and the usualplaces. So, plug in your headphones, grab a decafand let's get going. Today isEpisode 77 with the titleBreathe. I have the absolute honor and privilegeto welcome Jamie Reed. Jamie describes himself as avocal coach and vocal health expert.When I asked Jamie to describe his superpower, he said that hebelieves not only does everyone have a beautiful voice,but most importantly, that it should be heardfiercely and proudly. Hello,Jamie. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Joanne. I'm really
Jamie Readguest
delighted to be here. I'm looking forward to it. Yes, we've talked about this
Joanne Lockwoodhost
for so many months now and we finally got around to it. Excellent.Jamie, why is breathing soimportant? So,
Jamie Readguest
somebody much wiser than me once said, lifeis not measured in years, it's measured in breaths. And I think that's areally beautiful thing. Breathing is the fuel supplyfor the voice, it's the fuel supply for life. Andwe all share the same breath, we all share the same air andoxygen. So it's a veryequal, very available thingthat all of us have and all of us need andbreath. As a vocal coach, so I began my career as an actor and asa performer and moved into coaching about 18 years ago. And breathis so fundamental to the way that we vocalize and howwe produce our voice and how we express ourselves thatit just felt so integral and so important.That's why the word was there in the textthat I sent over. That's why it popped out so much, I think.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, it resonated straight with me because as a professionalspeaker, and even before I was a professional speaker, when I was maybe a publicspeaker or a corporate speaker in the corporateworld, I'd often find that I forget tobreathe. I'd end up, in this time, myself into orpainted myself to the corner where I had no breath left andall my anxiety levels or my panic mechanism kicked in.And often think that many people who have ananxiety or a fear of public speaking worryabout losing their breath or not being able to get their words out.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, it's such a primal thing, it's such an important thing andnobody really focuses on it day to day. We're gettingmuch better in the world at large about being aware of theusefulness and the benefits of mindfulness and meditation and so on. But byand large, nobody's ever thought aboutbreathing because we just do it luckily. I mean, we'd be in trouble if wedidn't. But as you say, when you come under pressure,actually the breath, because it's part of the cardiovascularsystem, if the breathing speeds up or shallows, then the heart rate speeds up orshallows. And those things have an impact on how we feel. And how wefeel has a huge impact on how we express ourselves and what we sayand how we say it. And actually, I thinkthat's the big thing for me as a vocal coach, because I work withgenuinely anyone with a voice. So I've worked with everything from opera singersto rabbis, to people with vocal health difficulties,to business CEOs to actors. I mean, you name it.I do all kinds of different work with voices. And actually, how you feelabout yourself affects the way that you breathe,affects the way that you speak, and therefore affects the way that you're perceived. Andit's such an important interface for human beings. It's a very tribalbehavior. Voice. We hear a voice and decide actually if this personbelongs to our tribe or us to theirs, is this somebody I canconnect with? It's where we get accents and dialects and youhear that kind of corporate boardroom thing where the voice goes downhere somewhere, where everyone's kind of in that space. Or you hear the oh, it'sa new baby. Oh, that's lovely. And that kind of space in there. Andit's such an emotional response and such a primalresponse that if we can get control over it, wecan really start to feel in in control of howwe express ourselves and how we're perceived and how our emotions are expressedand perceived as well. That's so true. I'm thinking about that.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
We can often our pitch of our voice can increaseas our anxiety or our panic, or when we're notmaybe emotionally in control of ourselves. And that can lead usto sound less credible or less capablebecause we associate deep, steadyresonance with authority. Yeah,
Jamie Readguest
which is a curious thing in and of itself. There was a piece of researchlast year that I was reading not that long ago thatshowed that a drop of only about 25 Hz, which is a verysmall drop in pitch in the voice amongstCEOs in the US. Is associated withan extra $187,000 of income for that personper year and something in the order of an increase ofabout $400,000 in the size of the business that they run.And that's just 25 Hz, which I found that reallyinteresting. But also, I don't know, it's slightly jarredfor me because a lot of what I people come in with the idea thatthere's a right or a wrong way to speak and that just isn't true. That'sa hangover from the idea of RP received pronunciation whenevery on the BBC all spoke like this welcome to the BBC Light Service. Andyou didn't hear regional dialects, really, untilyour man from Big Brother in 1999, D 44 in the Big Brother house.And everyone kind of went, oh, wow, what's that? And actually, thatsense of right and wrong is something that we really carry. Oh, in thisspace, I need to be this person. So I get so manywomen in business coming in to the studio to work with me orworking online with me, saying, oh, I need a lower voice because I'm surrounded bymen and I've got to be able to command authority. Andalthough part of the work is in that area, the bigger part of the workwith those clients is helping them to feel the authority and theauthenticity in the voice that they already have and owning theirpresence. So that actually that audience learns to listen to whatevervoice they're hearing, rather than just assuming that this lower pitch rangeis right in inverted commas in that environment. I get a bit of a beamup on it about it. Joanne. Yeah, I agree.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
As you know, I'm a transgender woman. I transitioned about sixyears ago. And at the time, I was in this big dilemma about myvoice because, as you said, it's a critical part of one of those primarysenses of how we categorize people and put them into a boxand assess their worth or my tribe or not mytribe. And I wrestledlong and hard about my voice, whether I could be a professional speaker, but Icould be taken seriously. And I decided one day I was just goingto. It's my voice, it's my voice.Why try and educate or train it or do itdifferently? Because it's another cognitive load you have to dealwith. I appreciate after time, after you trained it,maybe after months and months and months, it becomes more natural. But I justdecided hey. And I think the awesome thing you just said therewas about how that pitch gives acertain level of authority as well. And for me, it's worked as abit of a shock and awe tactic. So I can stand on stage and justhold the room before I speak. And then when Ispeak, people kind of look at me and go, wow, where did that come from?I play it to my advantage sometimes.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, absolutely. And as I say, the authenticity thing is the big part ofit. And actually, the fact that you had that thought and went, do I needto do something about this? Actually, no, I don't. This is my voice. It meanssomething to me. That's the thoughtthat is more important than any other in the vocal aspect,especially for trans and nonbinary clients that I work with, who may bebeginning to question how the world might view them or if they're inthe process of transitioning. Sometimes the voice can be a hindrance,and sometimes, as you say, it can be something where you go, actually, no, thisis really authentically me. I already know this part of myself sowell that I don't want to change it, but maybe I do want to optimizeit, or maybe I want to be able to have a wider range of colorin my voice, whatever the particular thing is. Nine outof ten times people come into the room with one idea ofwhat they perceive the problem to be, and again, I use heavy inverted commas aroundthe idea of the problem, and actually, they leave with a fresh understandingof going, oh, actually, no, I thought it was this. But now, havingtalked it through and understood a bit more about the process,it's often a really different picture that they leave with, which is a great partof the work. I love that. Yeah, don't be wrong. My
Joanne Lockwoodhost
voice doesn't work for me all the time.There are times, say, for example, I've been ingendered spaces, so public toilets, toilets,and my wife's been with me, and she starts having a conversation through thetoilet door, through the cubicle wall, andI don't respond because my voice, without myimage, isincongruent. And in that space, it could be perceivedas being confusing for people outside. I've actually had someoneshout out once, Is there a man in there? And I said, no,it's just Joanne. Oh, sorry, Joanne. So I'm very consciousagain about how we print imprint peoplebased on voice and visuals. And so there are times when Ido I am very conscious about it in certainspaces. Yeah,
Jamie Readguest
I can imagine that. I can appreciate what that would belike. And it is, I think, an experience.The particular experience that you describe, I think is really specificto the trans community. But also, I think there are lots of placeswhere people feel that their voice doesn't represent who they are insome way. You often get the reverse thing where somebody's on theit's so common for people to be misgendered on the phone,regardless of whether they're trans or CIS or transitioning or nonbinaryor whatever, actually, you get that sense of, oh,you didn't understand who I was, you don't know who I am. And there's adissonance there that isn't necessarily comfortable.And also, I've been working with a couple of singersrecently who are non binarysingers, and it's been really interesting because there's a real conversation that'sopened up there that if you wantedto sort of almost point to the science, if you like, and go, well, okay.A traditional CIS male voice would have these parameters. Atraditional CIS female voice would have these parameters. Often, trans peopleare working towards those parameters in some way, or understanding which aspectsof themselves are represented in one or the other. And for the first nonbinary singer that I worked with, who came in saying, not only actuallydo I want to change the keys of these songs and not be singing maleor female rep, but actually singing from a mixture of them, I want to findmy non binary singing voice. And I kind of went, wow, that's really cool. Whatdoes that sound like in your head? And they said, Actually, I don't know. Idon't know what it sounds like. It doesn't sound like anything yet. Let's play togetherand explore. And it was so lovely to have that opportunity to figureout what we were reaching for. Was it pitch range? Was itTombra? Was it repertoire? Was it a mixture of those things?There's a statistical difference betweenthe pitch sorry, the pace and the inflectionof the CIS female and CIS male voices. So was there something in that thatwe were working toward? And even the breath, which,again, speaks to the inclusion thing and the fact that there are things we don'teven notice in inclusion thatoftentimes if a person feels they havethe right in a certain circumstance to speak tobe heard, they will breathe more. They literally take up moreair in the room because they will breathe moredeeply. And that adds to a sense of presence and a sense of command.And we think, all right, I'm supposed to listen to this person. Often withpublic speakers, people have been trained to use their pauses exactly as you justsaid, actually, where you take that moment to let the room landand be in your presence before you start. And sometimes it worksreally well. And if people aren't employing it as successfully as they might, thenthere was a famous speech that I'm going to struggle to remember the beginning ofnow, but that Tony Blair gave, and Tony Blair was a big Pauser.And it was a power pause, because there was that sense that if you kindof stop speaking for a moment, people have tolean in and listen. It becomes really frustrating. You're just like, oh, my God,Tony, get on with it. When it works,it works well, and when it's overused, it becomes a problem.So that sense of power breathing, taking in the breath, holding theair, holding your presence in a space, and thenvocalizing from that, you've automatically taken power and oxygen fromother people in this space. So we kind of have to fight for that alittle bit. I still
Joanne Lockwoodhost
remember that type of, as you say, that extra pause. AndI think it's because it's an unnatural pause in a mid sentence. Ifit's kind of at the end of a paragraph oron a virtual page turn of a chapter, then youcan allow the audience to refresh in bed to soak it in. Butif you're trying to trick your audience into, as you say, leaning in and tryingto grab their attention, it can become a bit exhaustingfor the audience, can't it? I think that's the trouble. It wears you out listeningto that. Yeah. You don't want your audience to be working.
Jamie Readguest
That's the last thing you need. You want them to be engaged, but not havingto work, I should just say, by the way, I'm going to apologize to youand the listeners. I'm currently being buzzed by a helicopter over the top of thestudio I'm speaking to you from, so if there's background rumbling, Iapologize. There's something flying very low overhead.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
We live not far from Goodwood Airport and we often get light aircraftor helicopters flying over here as well. Yeah, we're
Jamie Readguest
on some training route for I think it's RAFBenson. So the helicopters were on a training route down here. They followedthey Buzz the canal, which is about chinook in the house. Twin,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
twin prop chinooks. They fly quite low, as I don't.
Jamie Readguest
Think you're talking of those making a guestappearance. You talk about nonbinary singers and the person springs to
Joanne Lockwoodhost
my mind, me, is Sam Smith, andI find Sam's delivery,because they have such a huge vocal range, thehigh notes, and they can also bring the depth and the realresonance in there as well. I get drawn in to thesong, to the words, because I find they really speak to me.And if I wasn't aware of Sam'sgender, I wouldn't even care, because the songis the delivery is so powerful.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think Sam Smith is a great examplethat when you are notattached to what society tells you someoneis supposed to sound like, when you can in some way unattachyourself from that, you open up a whole range of possibility in termsof both pitch range pardon the pun, but also in terms of the mannerof delivery, the expectation of how heavy or light the soundis going to be. So there's a realopening up there because actually, so much of it is societalconditioning that when you look at WesternCIS male voices as a statisticalanalysis, the sense of, oh, I must have a lowvoice is more or less society. Saying men aresupposed to be, again, heavy, inverted, commas, big, loud, strong,all of these kind of adjectives that have tended to be used. Andgirls are supposed to be light, small, unthreatening,and it's such nonsense, but it tends to be what societyhas told us. So, for example, statistically, the CIS male voice, thepitch range that isacceptable to society in this country or in the west atlarge, is lower than it is, forexample, in West Africa, where a high male voice is quite celebrated,especially in singing. But actually, there's no sense of, oh, you haveto speak low. Using a much wider kind of pitchrange is completely acceptable. And actually, by the sametoken, the traditional CIS female voice, the pitch range can be lowerin south africa and in some of those areas than it isin Asia. So there's a lot of societalconditioning and fundamentally, we all have the same instrument. Somepeople are born with a Steinway and some people are born with a pub piano,but it's basically the same instrument and anyone can learn to operate thething, whether you're singing or speaking. And soknowing that physiologically for the vast majority of people,there are very few differences between our voice and thenext person that we're going to meet, maybe some structural and size things,but actually, basically, we've all got the same kit in there. It'ssociety that tells us what we're supposed to sound like.And actually we can answer back by saying, well, no, I sound like this, andthis is where my authenticity is, and this is my voice. Andthe voice is where we tell people we love them and where we tell peoplewe hate them and where we scream and where we cry and where we laugh.And I only half joking quite often say to people thatactually the larynx is such an emotional thing that on Valentine's Day I think weall ought to give each other cards with larynxes on because it's much more emotionalthan the heart is. That's so true.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Your voice can crack andlose stability, if you like, under emotional stress.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah. And laughter is a vocal we call them vocal gesturesin voice science. Laughter is a vocal gesture. Crying isa vocal gesture. And a lot of the time you get peoplewhat I spend most of my time doing is actually encouraging people to make soundsthey can already make and then using them in a different context. So, for example,if people kind of think of that really moany teenager voice like, oh, mom, it'snot fair, that kind of space in there. Actually, if you take that into asong voice, I don't know, if I just kindof sing a note and just go, Ah. And then if I kind of cry,I didn't go money teenager becomes moreoperatic in its tonality because there's somethingcalled thyroid tilt. There's a movement in the larynx that is produced when we makethe vocal gesture of crying. Whereas on the other hand, if I cheer,which I'm going to back away from the microphone, because I don't want to explodepeople's AirPods, but if I kind of cheer in the opposite direction of the computerand just go, hey yay. If I do thatand hold it, I'm basically belting a rock song going, Yay.It's cheering. It's a vocal gesture we can already do.So when you were talking about Sam Smith, they use such a widerange of vocal gestures that include the kind of thefalsettoe, very light sound, the cry sound, the beltsound, and they're all things that actually each ofus physically can already do, but mentally, dowe have permission? Has society or have we ourselves, or havethose around us, given us permission to makethat sound and to own the noise that we make? And that's where the workis often needs to be done.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
You said just now that we all have the same instrument. Some ofthem are just a bit rougher at the edges, a bit larger, a bit smaller,whatever it may be. Yeah.So how much of our voiceand the way we sound is nurture rather than nature?
Jamie Readguest
I would say a large majority of it. Sothe only physiological difference is to dowith the hormones that hit us at pubertyor in some cases, intransition. But when thelarynx gets a hit of testosterone at a male puberty, orfor a trans man, if they go on to testosterone, thelarynx grows at that point. And because the larynxis bigger, the vocal cords are longer and the instrument you're playing isbigger. And that's why it has a more bass Tombra to it. So ifyou think of someone playing a trombone and somebody playing a flute, they could playthe same note as each other, but the Tombra would be noticeably different becauseof the size of the pipework of the instrument. So when the larynx getsa testosterone hit, it gets bigger and as you've already touchedon, that can happen. So for trans men, when they're transitioning, if they go onto T, the larynx will grow and they go through a voice breakprocess. For trans women, if they have been through aCIS male puberty, you can't ungrow atree. So once the larynx has grown, it doesn't shrink back. Soactually, for trans women, thecoaching work is necessary if they want to change the way thatthey sound. And as you've already touched on, there's no need forthat to happen. It's entirely kind of down to the authenticity of the person.But apart from that one difference of testosteronecausing the larynx to grow, essentially, the physiology is the sameacross everybody. We all have the same capability.I was having the conversation for 15 years. I ran a drama school andwas working with actors in training on a full time basis.And one of my colleagues there isa woman with a very low bass resonance voice. She's got a reallylovely, rich, kind of beautiful, butterscotchkind of voice. And actually, my spoken voice is quite high and my singing voiceis quite high. And we were talking to the students aboutvoice and gender and characterization. And when you're working,in fact, as we are, when it's just a voice that people are hearing,how we're perceiving that sound, and how, as an actor, you can engage thataudience. And somebody said, oh, yes, but women have higher voices than men.And I said, well, no, it's not that you can have a more bassTombra to it, but actually, if I stand next to Claire, who is my colleagueand we both say the alphabet to you. I have a little gadget I useon my computer that shows you the pitch that the speaker is using and loand behold, Claire was a good few hertz below me in our naturalspeaking ranges. But it's the Tombrathat can change. We can work with the Tombra and move it up and down.So a lot of what we perceive as vocal differences are in fact vocalsimilarities. Just with a few little nips and tucks around theedge. Could you just explain to me what Tombra
Joanne Lockwoodhost
is? Not sure. Yeah,
Jamie Readguest
for sure. So for example,this is going to sound very odd for your listeners now. So stand by everybody.Do not adjust your sets. I'm actually making these noisesso I'm going to hold one note so that I'm not changing thepitch. So the actual pitch, if I were to make a pitch change I'd begoing and you'd hear achange of note. Yeah, exactly. Kind of moving up and down.What I'm going to do is hold one note. So if you imagine in yourhead a graph, the graph is flatlining, there's no undulationin it. E. Andthen what I'm going to do is change the treble and bass inthat sound. So you'll hear a bass frequency and a treblefrequency and I'll move between soe.So that's the same note throughout. So therefore, if I speak to you fromthis position here with my larynx really low, I sound a little bit like EORactually from Winnie the Pooh. But if I kind of speak with my larynx quitelow down here, it's got a bass Tombra but I can speak quite high inmy pitch range and still keep that kind of bass voice in there. Whereas onthe other hand, like I said, do not adjust yoursets. This is actually happening. On the other hand, I can talkin a lower pitch range but if I raise my larynx up and make thesound smaller, I've got more treble frequency in there and I kind of turn intoas mayor of the munchkin city in the county of the land of ours. Sopitch and Tombra, that Tombra is to do with the texture of how muchbass and treble is in the sound and often they're attached.So often we'll think of kind of the low voice with the bass Tombra andthe high voice with a small Tombra, but they don't have to be, you canmove between them. Wow.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm sort of fascinated. Fascinated. This isa real educational slot for me today. So I'm loving this. This is ayeah. And you're amazing use of your voice there. Yeah,
Jamie Readguest
it's kind of the day job really.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I can imagine being one of your students or clientsand you've got some amazing ways ofgiving an example of what you're trying to explainbecause I didn't have this idea of tombry in my head, but now I understandit's around the base, the treble, the richness andall those things. It's not just around, as you say, the pitch or the note.It's about everything else, isn't it? But I guess theother side of testosterone is lung capacity. So presumably a lot ofresonance comes from the chest, doesn't it?
Jamie Readguest
Well, now, actually, that's something of a myth. So wetalk about chest resonance and head resonance, and they're usefulbits of terminology as imagery, but they're not actuallyphysiologically true. So the voice is fairly linear.The air comes up from the lungs, through the chest and up to the throat,and at the level of the larynx is where it meets your vocalcords, and that's where the vibration happens. And the sound then travels up and outthrough the mouth and all the resonance happens beyondthat point. So if you were resonating in the chest, you'd be inhalingand speaking out at the wrong end, because you would have to haveair flowing into the chest in order for resonance to be down there.Also, the chest, although it feels empty because of the thoraciccavity, needs capacity for the lungs. Actually, it's a sealed unit and youcan't resonate anything in there because you can't get any sound into the emptyspaces. However, and the same with the head. One assumes that the head is alsoquite full, one hopes, and you can't resonate the sound outsideof the oral cavity. You can't get it outside of the mouth or the nose.You can't resonate in the forehead or in the mask or these are all imagesthat we've used in voice training to help people understandthe sense of the thing. Because actually what it feels like is just asimportant as what it actually is. So you can try asthe experiment and listeners can do the same thing. If you put your hand onthe top of your chest and make the lowest kind ofrumbliest sound that you can, whereverthat pitch range is, you'll feel vibration there, butyou're not actually resonating the sound there, you're feeling sympatheticvibration. The bits of your body that are at the samefrequency as that sound vibrate in sympathywith them. So head and chest are usefulways of describing a set of vocal behaviors, but actually,all of the resonance is done in the throat, nose and mouthin quite a small space, so it's a linear system. Solung capacity has an effect on the voice in terms of how long we canphrase for how long we can keep going and how long we can keep speaking.But it doesn't affect the volume or the resonanceof the voice, because the other myth, that's one thatmost people carry, again, mostly because society tells us thisactually, is that more breath does not equal more voicein the same way that more petrol doesn't equal going faster. You just overflowthe. Petrol tank and you can feel it reallyeasily. So again, another experiment we can all do over the magic of theairwaves is that if you put your hand in front of yourmouth and just make a really quiet breathy soundor any comfortable pitch, doesn't matter where the pitch is,you can feel the air there. And now if you put your hand in thesame place and yell at it yay.If you yell at it there's no air or there's less air. So the louderwe are, the less air actually comes out of your mouth. The quieter weare, the more air comes out. It's a real anomaly of how weperceive things. Butall of that said, I draw a little bit on NLP, onNeuro Linguistic Programming and a lot of mirroring work with my clients.So when somebody comes into the studio they might say tome, I have real problem resonating my voice in mychest because it all seems to be stuck in my head and I need toresonate in my chest more. And if I say to them, oh well actually that'snot what you're doing, and unpick it all, I'm probably just going to bamboozle them.So in my head I'm going okay cool. What we're actually working on is thickvocal folds and a low larynx and what have you. But then I'll give themwhat they asked for and say yeah, can you feel that? There. Now is thatsatisfactory for you? Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted to feel. That feelsgood. And then some clients will come in and wantto get into the nitty gritty and understand it and some clients just want aquick fix and other clients think they have one idea and we need to meetin the middle. And so it's a reallyflexible thing actually of meeting the clients where they are.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So what's going on in my head and my body then? Because I'mso if I'm at a function and someone saysto me joe, can you get everyone's attention? We need to get everyone back inthe room. And first thing I do is I take a massive breath,I expand my body and my chest andI roar with the deepest voice I have and I feel that wholeexercise is digging into me and throwing it out. But whatyou're saying is psychological, not reality, is it?
Jamie Readguest
It's a little of each, but mostly on the psychological side becauselike I was saying earlier on, actually, when you take in a big breath, youincrease your presence, you grow physically, you increase your presence in theroom and you tell your body that everything is fine.Because when we feel short of breath we're normally in panic and we don't likebeing in that state. When we feel we can take a big breath in,we feel in command and in control. So actually we'rereleasing chemicals from the brain that are helping us to feelin control and in command that will help us to vocalizein that manner. But when you're making that roaringsound, if you put your hand in front of your mouth, you'll find not muchof that air is actually coming out. So for the vast majorityof people, they lose air by beingquiet. So actually, if we think of that kind of whispery soundleaning in on the mic a little bit and kind of doing the sort ofMariella Frostropapodo co UK kind of a thing in there,that kind of breathy sound is very inefficient because the fuel of thevoice is breath. And so if there's breath leaking through to make itbreathy, then actually we've got a fuel leak. Whereas actually, if you're kindof in your Brian Blessed voice in here, you're in a much bigger, morerobust vocalization, which means that although there might be lotsof air in your body, it's not going anywhere very quickly. You can keep doingthat for much longer. Soit's about the psychological cue of feeling like you own thespace and you have the right to take inthat amount of air and produce that amount of sound.And also, when we gather the body in that manner, we encouragemuscular work in the back, in the lap muscles, and also in the lowerabdominal muscles in the pelvic floor that help tostabilize the larynx and the breath mechanism to make thevoices optimal call that process anchoring. So there is an amount ofthat going on as well. So taking
Joanne Lockwoodhost
from that, I should be able to create the same impact and presencewith just a relaxed postureand believing that just by making my voiceloud without puffing myself up, it should have the same effect.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, absolutely. Because if you think about the times innature, because that's what it always comes back to, is actually, what were we designedto do with the vocal gestures? So if you think ofsomebody walking along the high street, they've got their earphones in, they'reon Snapchat and they're about to walk in front of the number 17 bus, youdon't have time to stand there, take a big deep inhale, present your body andgo, Stop. Because that sucker's smoosh, they're gone, they're out of there. Right,in that moment, you've got to take a short, sharp breath. Stop. Lookout. Sorry, I'm deafening. You have to do a bit of mixingon this one, but you take a short, sharpgasp to power the voice into that energeticvocalization. Whereas actually, when you're going to cry when something's reallysad, we take that really low, slow kindof breath and that's a slower, lower place,because it's going to use more air to do it, so it's always comingback to naturally. What does the body do in similar circumstances? If Iwere wandering about in a swamp, wearing a skin and carrying a clubwhat would my voice do in this set of circumstances? Andthat normally tells us what to do. I think that's a sort of blueprint forlife, actually, quite often is. What does our instincttell us to do in this moment? So the whole
Joanne Lockwoodhost
posturing, the puffing up, the presence isaround making ourselves, as you say, drawingbreath in. And when we take breath in, we createa kind of a presence around us that people then see thatauthority, if you like, from that presence. So that's what we're really doing iscreating that listen to me, everybody stance.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, exactly. And allowing ourselves to feel that to be in ourpresence and go, I'm feeling strong, I deserveto make this sound. And the physical strength and the breath often go together,but they don't have to. If you think of agreat political speaker or a rock and roll singer, somebody who uses their voicequite loudly and confidently, they're usually really physical withwhat they're doing. They gesture the sound. And actually, even me saying thosewords there for your listeners because obviously we can see each other on the linkthat we're on. But for the listeners, if I punch the air asI speak, you hear that energy in the sound. Sowe use our physicality to engagethe muscles that support the voice. But I can kind of create the sameeffect without doing it. It's just less you feelmore riled up about it. You see the rock singer thrashing into the guitar orhanging onto the mic. That's that anchoring idea of the body feelingphysically strong and giving us permission to hit thesesounds. Whereas when we're feeling not in ourpower, not in our presence, when we're feeling under threat,we get physically smaller and the breath becomes weaker and shallowerand the voice will therefore follow suit. Now, Ican kind of hold a posture like a kind of strong man. I can stillspeak in a really kind of quiet voice, but it feelsodd to do. It looks probably quite odd as well.But if I kind of shrink my posture and allow myself to kind of comeinto a smaller space it feeds thepsychology of what the voice is doing. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I really get this feel for it. It's not just your voice, it's yourentire psyche and body and posture and howyou're perceived. It's a real package, isn't it? And your voice is just onecomponent of this presence. Yeah,
Jamie Readguest
absolutely. And in that kind of chicken and eggscenario of the package, actually, for some people, if they don't feelphysically confident in a particular space, theirvoice won't demonstrateconfidence. And by the same token, the other side of the same coin is ifthe voice isn't confident, they won't feel confident in that space.So there's a whole kind of chicken and egg thing there withspeakers. And that's not just professional speakers and singers, whichI've referenced a lot in this kind of conversation, but actually forpeople just at work who use the phone a lot or on zoom a lot,and they're using their voice professionally without realizing it because no one's saying, oh, you'rea professional speaker. But actually they're a call center worker managing6 hours of telephone calls on a shift. They're a professional voiceuser. And if they are not feeling confident about what their voice isgoing to do, they won't feel confident in the space that they're in,whether that's the work environment or their physical body.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Okay, I've got a bit of confusion now. So why dowe tend to see large size opera singers? We have thisbelief that all of this deep power of an opera singer comesfrom this big chest cavity that they can dive into. What you're sayinghere is a lot of this power doesn't come from the residents because you saythe air is traveling in the wrong direction at that point.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, exactly. And some of that is just about the kind of image that wehold of the sort of Wagnerian soprano with the horns, with that wehat on, that we kind of hold that image as going, oh yeah,that's what an opera singer looks like. But actually, very often whenyou look at great opera singer, there are, of course, you thinkimmediately of Pavarotti and Brin Turfil, for example, who arequite physically large guys. But equally, if you think of Jose Carreras,who was one of the three tenors as well and was a contemporary of Pavarotti,he was a tiny little guy. If you think ofsome of the contemporary opera singers now, Elizabeth Llewell and PamelaHay, they're small built, slightpeople because the power of the voice is not in thesize of the instrument, it's in the resonance. Andthe reason why opera singers trained for so many years is because actuallythey're going into it's like hearing in three dimensions. They're going intoincredible detail about the resonance of the voice. That,for example, we talked about that sympathetic resonance before, the fact thatone part of the body vibrates in sympathy with another. The most audiblefrequency for human ears is, give or take2800 Hz, somewhere between 2000803,000. That's the frequency of baby cry,which is an evolutionary advantage because it sits at a point that it's audibleabove anything else. But actually, if we emulate that sound as an adult,we finish up with a voice that's like this, which is really annoying. And thereason the voice is so annoying when you hear that person on a bus andyou're like, I need to find where that person is and stop them.The reason we have that sensation is because it sits at thefrequency that blocks out every other thought we're trying to have because from anevolutionary basis, it allows us to hear thisbaby cry. So opera singers andperformers in general have often learned touse this resonant frequency at 2800 Hz,because at that frequency, the space above thelarynx that you're resonating in is about 1 CM wide by 3 CMlong, which is roughly the same size as your ear canal. Soyou're getting sympathetic resonance in the ear canal of the audience. So they'renot louder than the orchestra. They're singing over with no microphone. They're morehearable. They're putting on a vocal high vis jacket and sitting at a frequencythat's just a bit jazzier for our ears. Sowhen we talk about projecting the voice, that's what we're doing. We'reactually again, it's the perception versus actually what we'redoing. We think if I kind of go into quite a big intomy sort of interfa voice down here somewhere, that kind of resonancein there. Theresonance comes from a narrowing and creating a reallysmall space in the throat. But we think of it as being a really bigspace because it's a louder sound.But the loudest thing that we knowin day to day life usually is baby cry. And babies are tiny. They don'tneed a big chest cavity. They can hit2800, get straight acrossthe frequency, straight into our ears. This is
Joanne Lockwoodhost
absolutely fascinating. So there's a few well known comediansthat have an annoying baby type voice, isn't there?Do you think that's natural? Do you think it's just that they work on that?
Jamie Readguest
I think they're probably milking it. I think they're probably working on it becauseit gets a laugh. It sort of refersback to what you were saying about when you begin speaking somewhere that actually, ifthere's a dissonance between the person that we see and the voicethat they come out with, it gives that shock and awe tactic. And if it'sa big, powerful voice, we're like, all right, okay. Whereas actually, if we expect itto be a big, powerful voice and it kind of comes out in here somewhere,it's kind of funny because we tend to avoid that sound.People don't necessarily want to go around talking like that. Weknow immediately that's a sort of punch and duty stock character.It's a stock comedy character in the same manner as the big operasinger with the horns on the head. It'sthe comedia Del arte version of that character. It'sheightened. And we know what to expect from that.Yeah. And that just led me on to another thought, Joanne, which is thisthat quite often there's an emotional response to a voice that we're not awareof, where when we hear thatvoice, we instinctively know that it's funny. Because actually, when we laugh, the larynxoften rises up there in that kind of so ifI kind of speak in this place, we want to join in with what we'rehearing, and it makes us laugh when we do it. So there's sucha thing as vocal body language that actually weadopt the physical postures in the body and the breath of thevoices that we're hearing in order to understand how they feel.So if someone rings up and goes, hey, Joanne, how are you?You're right, chances are you'll go, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah.We vocally mirror them becausepartly that's making them feel comfortable, but more importantly, it's allowingus to register the emotion that they are feeling byphysically experiencing what that emotion feels like. By the same token,hey, oh, my God, guess what? I don't know what happened. We joinin with that energy to the point where it's soembedded in us that one of the primary ways weunderstand how other people feel is not justby listening to them, but also by mirroring, muscularly, what that person isdoing to try on their voice. So if youhear someone pretend to cry, you understandintellectually that it's sad, but you don't feel sad if you hear someoneactually cry. Your voice joins in with those gestures and you feelsad. The same with laughter, the same with cheering,whatever the vocal gesture is.There's the famous bit in the musical Le miserabwhere the main character, Jean Valjean, sings a song called The Prayer,people generally know as Bring Him Home. Andit's high, it's in this sort of light, falsetto place,which you can do just in a pure falsetto. So if I just I'mgoing to sing a couple of bars only and just go, Godmy prayer. So it's light and falsettoe,but actually it's really sad and he's pleading. So if I take thatsound and if I take a moment to set up the sensation ofcrying in my breath and my voice, and then I sing, itgood.We have a slightly different emotionalresponse as an audience because we sensethat this person is sad even through themusic, and so we make that emotional connection throughthe voice as well.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I'm sat here in awe. This is an absolutely incredibleconversation. Another thing that's going through my head right nowis you talked about we mirror and you talk aboutsomeone comes in bouncy and happy. We tend to mirror that bouncy. So is thatwhat's happening when we hear maybe a strong regional accent or something? BecauseI've got a friend who comes from Tobadon in Yorkshireand he always comes in and sayseverybody who greets him will always say, Hi, how youdoing? It's like, Why doesn't he mirror us? Butwe always end up mirroring him. Yeah, it
Jamie Readguest
is. Dialects are a really interesting one,and accents, just the whole field of that is something that reallyfascinates me, because all of us are aware that we have slightly differentvoices for different scenarios, usually. So we have our kind of I'm speaking to themum on the phone voice, which might be different than I'm out with the girlsfor a night voice. We have these slightly different vocalbehaviors and dialect. When you've got a strong regionaldialect, you've either got a person who's got a strongidentity that comes with that or someone who hasgot the flip side of it and has got outsider impostor syndrome in theenvironment they're in. So it depends on how that person is psychologicallyfeeling in that moment, can I come into this space and proper own it andbe myself and everyone will join in and that'll be great? Or actually, amI arriving here and everybody talks like this and it's all inislington you need to fill the face with that as well. Sorry,islington people. So if you're kind of in that place, then suddenly you findthat the accent slightly starts to die away, and you just get occasionalmoments of it because we're trying to figure outwhose tribe is dominant. And that's to do with the psychology of actually inthat moment, who's the person in the room who's presenting themost confidence? And I'm absolutelyterrible for just taking on the accents ofthe people around me because I'm so used to doing it. Firstly, as anactor, years ago, it was something that I found that I was quite good at.And actually, I'm bilingual, I speak German as well as English, and Ithink growing up with two languages meant that my ear is quite attunedto what we call prosody, which is the musicality of speech.So each of us is musical. I'mgoing to just say one sentence on this because I go off on a tangentotherwise, but there's no such thing as people who can't sing, there's just people whohaven't sung yet. That's a whole other conversation. But we're allmusical because we learn as babies thatis an angry musicality and is a happymusicality, and so we learn these shapes andaccents have that prosody to them. Soif you think of like a kind of scouse sort of Liverpoolian accent, there's thatkind of slight sort of sing song to it when you speak that, you cango up. But if I take that into my own voice and try and speakto you like that, it sounds absolutely ridiculous because the musicality is wrong. Andequally, if I take the prosody of my Southern English Berkshireaccent and take that into actually, it's really hard to take thatinto a scouse. If I try and take that kind of monotonous prosody into ascouse, I just sound really bored all the time. So you'vegot to find where the dominanceis in the room and what musicality you're matching with the other peoplearound you. And I do it so instinctively. I walk into spaces and starttalking to someone and I accidentally finish up doing an impersonation of themjust because it's become so much a part of what Ido. But we can use that in an inclusion sense if we'reaware of that sense of prosody, that musicalitythat if somebody enters a space and everyone is saying to them, sorry, what? Pardon?A excuse me, sorry. Because they have a regionaldialect or an international dialect, they're speaking English as a second language, or becausethe voice doesn't seem to match the person that you see standing in front ofyou, or because they don't feel in their power. So they're kind of devoicing here.Those are things that, from an inclusion point of view, are really important, actually,to allow people not only to understand what they cando with their voice, but also communication is two way. There'sno point learning how to make sound if you don't learn how to listen toit as well. So what is happening in the acoustic landscapeof the workspace that you are in, or the family life that you're in, orthe friendship group that you're in that is being inclusiveor exclusive of certain people? And vocal exclusionis a really genuine thing that peopleexperience. Yeah, I was going to ask you this. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
there are many studies that show regional accents can introduce holidaybias based on candidate suitability, intelligence,capability, all these things. So is it alearned thing? So the Scouse accent, because weassociate people from Liverpool or that area as beingstereotypically. I don't want to get into the stereotypeswe can have from Scouse people, but do we associate the stereotypes? We have thescouts with the accent, or does the accentcreate a distrust in us? Which is it chicken and eggthere? In my
Jamie Readguest
opinion, in terms of the research that is out there,it's very much a deeply ingrained societal biasagainst the accents. And it really comes fromthe time of the beginning of recorded media. So as soon as westart getting the radio, and the radio is being broadcastfrom London and we have RP receive pronunciation. So as I said before,you kind of get this terrible BBC voice with everyone wearing their tuxedos on aFriday night. That's what we start to hear.And we get the idea of the Queen's English. The King's English? There's acorrect way of speaking. And actually these things are not true.But as soon as you get mass media, we can start to put out themessage that this is what people are supposed to sound like.So RP as a dialect receive pronunciation,is a non geographic dialect. People use RP all over the country. It doesn'tbelong to a region. It belongs to asense of a bygone era where class was a thing that youcould refer to and would have a certain vocalsound. So the idea of the upper classes in those heavyinverted commas, again, of having this particular way of speaking that was better than everybodyelse, which of course it isn't, but that didn't belong to ageography. So you then immediately in whatever place you'rein, if you're in I don't know, Devon. I was talking to somebody from Devonon a call this morning that actually you've got somebody there who's the lord ofthe manor who speaks in this way, and somebody else there who's got a kindof more relaxed Devonshire accent. There's a them and us.There's the lord of the manor and the serfs kind of thingthat is just sowrong, but so ingrained in us, that even if you sayto people who would consider themselves not biasedin any way, that would consider themselves working class, that wouldconsider themselves open to all sorts of different things. If you said tothem, can you imagine a time where the PrimeMinister would have a Brummy accent? Most of them wouldinstinctively chuckle at that and go, well, no, you couldn't do that. Why not? Whycouldn't you? But we have this ingrained bias that the comedycharacters are the regional dialect and the serious peopleare not. And that's a realissue, actually. It's a real problem. And it's something that,since mass media at the beginning of the 2000s has becomemuch more inclusive of regional dialect and different voices in general.There is now a sense that maybe we'll eventuallystart to push back on this, but it includes things like speech impediment,like learning disability and physical disability that have animpairment on the voice and of course, gender as well.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Yeah, again, another reason Iopted not to do anything about my voice, because I have a kind of aHampshire Home Counties type voice. Peoplesay I have like a radio, nighttime radio voice. If I'm easy tolisten to, I thought, well, if I mess with it, I might mess with somethingthat is important, that people resonate with. And I'm also aware thatpeople have told me my voice is very distinctive and they can pick myvoice out as a unique person morethan maybe I could about other people. Because I was speaking to someone, though, theyphoned me up and said, I've just seen you on television, and they live inSweden. And I took part in a TV documentary some years ago, andthey were broadcasting that TV documentary in English inSweden, and they were in the kitchen. They went, Hang on a minute, that's myfriend Joanne. And they ran into the lounge and there I was on telly.So I'm also aware that we have this voice print of people, don't we? Sowe do. As well as the visual cues or the other cues, thesubtle stuff that voice print is also very strong.
Jamie Readguest
Yeah, it is. And that's a really nice way of putting it, actually, through theidea of a voice print, that wehave that sense of who we are so embedded in the waythat the voice works that, as you say, people can pick us out of acrowd often. People can pick outan impostor, if you like, with a particular regional dialect. I know I'm doing sortof various cod dialects during the course of the interview. But people can pick outthe impostor and sometimes theotherness can be beneficial. So I spent ten months living inthe US when I was working out there on a show,and we were in a very curious place calledBranson, Missouri. I don't know if anyone's ever been, but Branson, when I was there20 odd years ago, had 47 theaters and the Kmart, and that was it. Andit was in the middle of nowhere and Dolly Parton was there and the Osmondswere there, and Andy Williams Godreston was there. And they all had these theaters thatthey did their shows and they bust the tourists in and you all watched sevenshows in a day and all got bust home again. So at nighttime, you justhad actors and tumbleweed, really. And I remember going downto the supermarket and every week I went down there,I'd meet someone at the checkout that'd be so thank youvery much. I'd just have a conversation with them, oh, my God, are you fromEngland? Where are you from? And it would become a conversation and it was reallylovely and it was very warm. But then after a while, I was like, Ijust want my shopping. So when I was in the supermarket,I'd work in a North American dialect that wasn't specific to the area that theywere in, so I couldn't be caught out on the little specifics of it. SoI was working in a slightly different dialect, but it just meant I could getthrough the supermarket quicker. So it kind ofbecame I was avoiding my voice print in order to get throughthe supermarket quicker. But by the same token, it was used years ago when Iwas a child. I was at a state school as a kid and Ifilmed a commercial in the States back in the 80sfor biscuits out there, or cookies called FruitNewtons. And they specifically wanted a British kid on theadvert because this was in the days before streaming and what have you. Andwhen the commercial breaks came on, people got up to make a cup of coffeeand they knew if they heard a British accent, people would come back in tosee what was on the TV. Because the Americans generally love the British accent. Andso they hired a British kid to do the commercial and they madeit as cod British as possible. I was lying in a bed wearing silk pajamaswith a suit of armor on either side, butit meant that people listened and heard and came back into theroom and the advert ran for years. Actually, it was quite funny. Once I wasolder, I was like, oh, cracky, here we go again. So you can use itfor or against. I worked for
Joanne Lockwoodhost
bank. It was Coots Koots and Co, the bank of the Royalfamily. And. The Upper Royal Bankers. Yeah, and I wasin Beverly Hills, in Rodeo Drive, and they had asmall, little office there. Not really a bankencounter, but just where their clients could come in and meettheir relationship manager. And when I was there doing some It work,they sort said, would you mind recording our answer phone message for us? Iwas like, they wanted a posh Bush'saccent for their Bodes message.I'm guessing they've erased it by now, but, yeah, must have run foryears. That's brilliant. Yeah.
Jamie Readguest
So that the idea of voice print, that idea of who am I? What's myvocal identity? That's what kind of ties it all together, really, andwho do we want to present ourselves as out to the rest of the world?
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And on that note, Jamie, I'd love to dive into singing. I'd love to beable to sing. I'm one of these I know I can sing, but I justhaven't found the right note yet.Amazing. Honestly. That was a truly entertaining andinspirational conversation we just had. So how could people get hold of you? Because I'msure everybody wants to find out more.
Jamie Readguest
So I'm prolific across most social media. I encourage people.If you're listening to the podcast, come and connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm oftenon there. My LinkedIn profile is just the normalLinkedIn.com, and then it'sJamiereadvoice, so really easy to find. JamieReedvoice. I'm also on Instagram and onFacebook and on Twitter and quite active on social mediachannels. And I just kind of love having a chat to people about where theyare, just answering quick questions on things. Sodon't feel that it's going to be a sales call or something horrible. I'm notthat guy on LinkedIn. Just kind of reach out and make contact and, yeah, I'malways happy to speak to people. Fascinating.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
And every time we've spoken, I've come awayinspired. So, yeah, I'm sure people will take you up on that. So, thank youso much. And also a huge thank you to you, the listeners, fortuning in, for getting this far. If you're not ready, please dosubscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion BitesPodcast that's B-I-T-E-S. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues,share the love. I have a number of other excitingguests lined up that I'm sure you'd be equally inspired by over the next fewweeks, months, of course, if you're listening and you'd like to be a guest or,you know, someone who would like to be, get them to make contact. And Iwould also welcome any feedback and suggestions on how we can improvefuture shows, if that's possible, please email me Jodot Lockwood at SEE Change Happen dot codot uk. And finally, my name is Joanne Lockwood andit's been an absolute pleasure to host this podcast with you today. Catchyou next time. Bye.
In this captivating episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood invites guest Jamie Read to explore the fascinating world of breath and its impact on our voice and inclusivity. Joanne and Jamie debunk common misconceptions about opera singers, shedding light on the fact that their power lies in resonance rather than physical size. They dive deep into the extensive training opera singers undergo to manipulate their voice and project it without the need for amplification. The episode explores how voice and breath are intertwined with identity, highlighting the experience of feeling like your voice doesn't represent who you are, which is not limited to the trans community. Misgendering over the phone and the struggles faced by non-binary singers in finding their voice are also discussed, emphasizing the importance of inclusive language and understanding. Joanne and Jamie delve into the influence of gendered differences in pitch, pace, inflection, and breath on how one's presence and command in a space is perceived. They also bring attention to the power of strategic pauses in captivating an audience, while cautioning against overusing them. Throughout the episode, Joanne and Jamie provide valuable insights on how breath plays a vital role in vocal strength and control. They explain the significance of taking in a big breath, the impact of different speaking techniques, and the process of anchoring to stabilize the voice mechanism. With thought-provoking discussions on societal conditioning, regional dialects, and the biases surrounding accents, this episode delves into the challenges and opportunities that arise in creating an inclusive communication environment. The key takeaway from this episode is that our voices, breath, and accents are deeply connected to our authentic selves and emotions. By embracing diverse voices, challenging preconceived notions, and creating space for inclusion, we can foster a more inclusive society. So, tune in to The Inclusion Bites Podcast and join Joanne Lockwood and Jamie Read as they unravel the power of breath, voice, and inclusivity. You'll gain a fresh perspective on the connections between breath, emotion, and identity, and discover powerful techniques to ensure every voice is heard and celebrated.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
