Mastering Vocal Impact: The 5 Ps of Public Speaking on Camera

The Five P’s of Vocal Quality

1. pitch
2. pace
3. pause
4. projection
5. pronunciation

Your voice is your greatest weapon when you speak in public, but are you using your voice in the most impactful way possible when you speak on camera?

When you present in public, you have to unlearn the way that you might talk naturally in a normal conversation like this and understand how to really enunciate, reflect, and be intentional about the way that you talk and use your voice.

Here are five things to watch out for. Pitch, pace, pause, pronounciation, projection.

First up, pitch.

You’re more monotonous than you think you are. Every time that you speak, you need to understand how you’re using the pitch and the tone of your voice. When you go from one segment to the other, naturally vary the pitch and the tone so that you’re giving the audience an audio clue. I’m done with this. I’m going to be moving on to the next one.

Pace.

You also speak faster than you think you do. Slow down, but don’t just slow down. Understand how to vary up the speeds at which you talk so that you can be a little bit faster, not too fast, when you want to convey energy and excitement. And you can slow down when you’re talking about something that has more gravitas.

Pause.

Every time you pause, you’re telling the audience: This is where I want you to stop and reflect on something for a second. You’re also telling people to sit up and pay attention. Oh, the speaker stopped talking. What happened?

Projection.

This is a tricky one. A lot of theatre actors, for example, are taught to project their voices so that the last person in the audience can hear them. But now when you speak on camera. You no longer need to project. So this actually might be something you might need to dial back. Otherwise, you might come across like a newscaster.

Pronunciation.

This is my favorite one. Your accent is lovely. You don’t need to change it. But what you do need to do is learn how to enunciate. Each time that you pronounce and enunciate words deliberately, you’re projecting more confidence. The audience has more clarity on what you said, and you’re really taking your time. So you’re automatically slowing down and you’re automatically building in pauses.