Specialist helps you find your best voice

Kevin Riordan
kriordan@courierpostonline.com
Columnist Kevin Riordan writes about issues affecting South Jersey.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

I can't place the name.

But the voice on the phone is unmistakable.

The mellifluous, engaging tones are those of Nancy Daniels, to whom I last spoke in 1999.

A voice specialist -- not a singing coach, or a speech therapist, but a professional who helps improve a person's speaking voice -- Daniels has certainly been busy in the last six years.

Besides a teaching stint at Camden County College, she's taken her Somerdale-based Voice Dynamic firm national and international via the Web. And she and her husband, Phillip, have produced and are selling a DVD, Voicing It!.

"I realized when I started the Web site that people who were getting in touch with me from all over the world weren't going to fly into Philly," she says, explaining the rationale for the DVD.

Going worldwide

I'm sitting at Daniels' pleasant home. It's where she has her business -- which focuses these days on corporate rather than individual clients -- and where Voicing It! was shot.

Daniels not only sounds great; she's interesting to talk to as well. The mother of two grown sons, she grew up in Maple Shade and lived for 16 years in Canada, where she taught school and began to "work with the voice," as she says.

She moved back to South Jersey nine years ago after a second marriage, to her high school sweetheart.

"What hit me when I came back is the nasal sound here that's distinctive of Philadelphia, not New York," Daniels observes, accurately. (I'll never forget how startled I was by the local accent when I moved here 30 years ago).

Mind you, South Jerseyans aren't the only Americans who speak through their noses. And many people, Daniels says, talk too fast and too loud.

We tend to equate speaking forcefully with volume alone, when in fact what gives a voice presence, resonance and authority has little to do with loudness (think James Earl Jones).

Daniels is not about making everyone sound like they're from Anywhere, U.S.A. -- much less like James Earl Jones, his fabulous voice notwithstanding.

Instead, her sessions teach a person how to find their own best voice.

"Most of my work is not on eliminating the regionalisms in a person's voice," she says. "I want to clean them up -- but (losing an accent) is not why people contact me."

OK, so why do people seek out the services of a voice specialist?

"They don't like the sound of their speaking voice," Daniels explains. "I'm finding that about 40 percent report vocal abuse. They've hurt their voice -- mainly by yelling. They're losing their voice by the end of the day. They're hoarse."

Or, "they're nervous making presentations. They're monotone -- they have no color or life in the voice. They say, "I'm making presentations and people are telling me I'm boring.' "

Use common sense

Typical sessions involve a handful of common-sense techniques.

"Breathing is the most important thing they're going to learn," Daniels says. "And they discover tremendous benefits that don't have anything to do with the voice."

Bart Mueller agrees. The former Camden County Surrogate and current deputy executive director of the South Jersey Transportation Authority, Mueller -- an Oaklyn resident -- heard Daniels speak at a Rotary Club meeting.

"What she presented made a lot of sense," Mueller says. "I took the course and it really helped me, not only to breathe from my diaphragm and project my voice, but it also helps me relax when I have to speak, and believe it or not it's helped with my stress management, too."

Personal image

According to Daniels, 37 percent of the image you or I present -- at least in person -- is the voice, which makes me glad I went into print and not TV.

"A decent-sounding voice is any voice that's going to be powered from the chest, instead of from the throat, the mouth or the nose," she says. "The only way the chest is going to get into the act is if people are breathing properly, and most are not.

"Once we establish the chest as the primary resonator or sounding board, the voice begins to sound better. It's so simple. It's so easy . . . the difficulty is the awareness. It's making (the techniques) a habit."

Besides breathing properly, a person seeking to improve their speaking voice must find his or her "optimum pitch," Daniels says.

Once such essentials are mastered, a person can exercise total control over his or her voice, even in demanding situations.

"My knees may be shaking, but I sound calm and collected," she says.

Unlike Madonna and her ersatz British accent, most people want to sound like themselves.

"I don't want any affectations. I don't want fake. I want your God-given voice," Daniels continues.

A learning experience

Working to encapsulate her five-session course on the DVD with her husband, a transportation manager, was a learning experience.

"I did all the editing myself," Daniels says. "I have hundreds of hours of video. Hundreds!"

Fortunately, each interactive session on the DVD takes far less time.

Voicing It! comes in a clever little kit that also includes a handbook, a reflector and even a candle (for breath exercises).

"I get lawyers and doctors and factory workers. I've gotten people who've asked, "can you teach me to be heard in a bar?' I can teach them to project, but I don't know if they're going to be able to hear the other guy in a bar," she laughs.

One man even inquired whether she could make him sound like actor Vin Diesel.

"I don't make anyone sound like anyone else," Daniels says. "I'm here to show you how to find your own best voice."

Reach Kevin Riordan at (856) 486-2604 or kriordan@courierpost- online.com