Giving a speech soon?

Your text is almost there… Captivating opening, a few smart writing techniques and bridging towards your audience.

Good. Not great.

What makes a good speech great? Simple. Your prosody. What? Your pro-so-dy. It’s the emotional superglue for making a speech stick.

3 vocal tips from Morgan Freeman

In short: prosody is voice magic. It’s about your intonation, stress and rhythm.

Morgan Freeman for example, warns that most people speak with a tense throat (too high) and advises you should yawn more to relax and deepen your voice.

‘Speeches of Note’

In his book ‘Speeches of Note’ Shaun Usher compiles a broad variety of speeches, 75 to be exact. Ranging from Justin Trudeau to Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and many more.

The storytelling techniques shimmer through. A captivating address, the power of three, repetition, climax and contrast. You know the drill. But what strikes me even more is the difficulty to make it come alive, when not put into sound right.

Master your voice

Before addressing your audience with that finely written speech, take your time in taping your practice runs. Become aware of your rhythm, the power of the pause and lower your voice.

Curious to see if Emmanuel Macron pulls it off today in his big European dream speech.

Geert

Ps: Want to fight your inner Mike Pence? Need help with the story outline and with the power of prosody? Drop me a line.