Keeping your voice fit is an important part of radio. In order to sound clear, confident, and credible, radio presenters need to keep exercising their vocal chords. This is because how you sound on radio can be just as important as what you say. Therefore, as part of their ongoing training, RX Radio’s Child and Young Reporters joined The Voice Gym for the second time.
Helping us keep our voices fit and sounding great was Marianthi Dickie from VoiceWorks. For another two-day workshop (9th and 10th of January 2018), Marianthi taught us a number of different exercises for training our voices and keeping them ready for radio.
On the first day, we all learnt about what makes an effective radio voice. We learnt about pitch, pace, volume, and tone – all of which play an important role in making radio presenters sound captivating and interesting. With lots of deep breathing and belly laughing, we also discovered that relaxing your muscles and breathing correctly can improve your tone of voice and prevent you from running out of air when you’re talking. We then wrapped up the session practicing some tricky tongue twisters to prepare us for the next day.
On day two, Marianthi took us through some more tricky tongue twisters and other vocal exercises before teaching us about the importance of using varied speech patterns. In order for presenters to not sound boring on the radio, they must practice a more varied flow of speech by changing their pitch, adjusting their pace, and making use of pauses. To practice this, all the RX Radio Child and Young Reporters read aloud a news piece and a script – focusing on the lessons they learnt and emphasising different words and phrases.
Our two days at The Voice Gym helped many of the children at RX Radio further develop their voices and taught them many different exercises that they can try out at home. We’re sure that at the next live broadcast, each and every one of us will be practicing our breathing and going through the different vocal exercises.