***If Your Voice Is Nasal, You Do Not Sound Professional

Getting a job is not easy with today’s high rate of unemployment. It is certainly to your advantage to not only have the right education and experience but also the best presentation skills as well. When you think about the image you project, what does your voice say about you? In order to answer this question, however, you must base your answer on the voice you hear on your voicemail or answering machine and not the sound you hear in your head. What you hear in your head is distorted sound, vibrating in the solid and liquid of the brain, and is not similar to your voice traveling through air waves, which is how everyone else recognizes you. If what you hear on recording equipment is excessively nasal, you might consider voice training in order to eliminate that whiny sound. Excessive nasality is not just found in the 5 boroughs of New York. It can be heard in many areas throughout Canada and the United States. To see if you are nasal, gently place a finger on each side of your nose – no pressure, just graze it – and say the word tea. Did you feel any vibration? If you did, then you need to learn to drop your jaw and enunciate your words along the floor of your mouth. In the past, you have been sending some or most of your vowel sounds up through your nasal passages. Unless the vowel sound is in a word containing an n, an m, or an ng, there is no reason for it to be whining in your nose. It does not belong there. When you say the word Maine or lean, for example, there will be some vibration but it should not be excessive. Even in this case, I would advise you to send your words along the floor of your mouth. Trying to avoid your nose in speaking is what you should be striving to achieve. Trust me, if the word you are saying is a nasal, meaning it has an n or an m in it, it will still vibrate to some degree. The problem with nasality is that it tends to raise the pitch of the voice. If you are a woman, that can mean a shrill or strident sound. If you are a man, on the other hand, the raising of the pitch of the voice could make you sound too young. Your competition is tough. Don’t let excessive nasality ruin your chances of getting the job you want.