Voice warm-up exercises for clearer speech

What is diction, and how is it different from articulation?

Diction is how clearly and correctly you pronounce words when you speak. Articulation is the movement behind it: the lips, tongue, jaw and palate shaping each sound. A third piece, voice production, covers breath, resonance and volume. Good diction depends on articulation and voice production alike.

Diction tends to slip for a handful of reasons:

• nerves;
• speaking too fast;
• a tense jaw;
• tiredness;
• mumbling with your mouth barely open;
• a microphone set too far away, so you push the voice louder instead of speaking more clearly.

This guide is for adults preparing to speak or record. If you are worried about a child's speech development, that is a job for a speech therapist.

How do you warm up your breath and voice?

Start with the breath, before any other drill, in the position you will speak in:

1. Sit or stand tall with your shoulders down, and put one hand on your belly.
2. Breathe in through your nose for about four counts. Your belly should move, not your shoulders.
3. Breathe out on a long, even sss for as long as is comfortable. Repeat three to five times.
4. Hum on mmm with your lips closed and feel the buzz in your lips and nose. Slide the pitch slowly up and down.
5. Do lip trills, a loose brrr like a child imitating a motorboat, across a comfortable range.
6. Finish with a big yawn and a sigh to release the throat.

Which exercises train the lips, jaw and tongue?

Do each drill slowly enough to feel the movement. The repetitions are a starting point:

1. Jaw: open your mouth slowly and close it, 5 times. Then massage the jaw hinges, just in front of your ears, in small circles.
2. Smile and pout: a wide smile, then lips pushed forward, 10 times.
3. Oo-ee: alternate the two vowels with exaggerated lip shapes, 10 times.
4. Lip pops: p-b-p-b, crisp and quick, then m-p-b.
5. Tongue circles: with your lips closed, run your tongue around the front of your teeth, 5 times in each direction.
6. Tongue clicks, then press your tongue into each cheek in turn, 10 times.
7. Consonant chains: pt-pk-tk, bd-bg-dg, tl-dl. They make you switch quickly between the lips, the tip of the tongue and the back of the tongue. Say them slowly, then faster.
8. Vowel run: use the vowels of the language you will speak in. For English, try a slow ee-ay-ah-oh-oo. In Latvian, practise the short and long pairs a-ā, e-ē, i-ī, u-ū and hold the long ones clearly longer, because vowel length changes the meaning of a word.

The cork exercise makes your lips and tongue work harder than usual:

1. Hold a clean wine cork, or a pencil, lightly between your front teeth.
2. Read a paragraph aloud slowly for about a minute, working your lips and tongue as hard as you can.
3. Take the cork out and read the same paragraph again. You will hear the difference.
4. Keep the sessions short, never put anything deep into your mouth, and stop if your jaw hurts.

How do you use tongue twisters properly?

A tongue twister helps only when you say it precisely. Rattling one off at speed and blurring half the sounds just practises the blurring. Take each one through these stages:

1. Read it slowly, exaggerating every sound.
2. Say it at normal speed.
3. Say it fast, without dropping a single sound.
4. Whisper it, which makes the consonants work harder.
5. Say it again, stressing a different word each time.
6. Record yourself and listen back.

Pick lines that target the sounds you find hardest. These traditional English ones cover the usual trouble spots:

• r and l: Red lorry, yellow lorry.
• s and sh: She sells seashells by the seashore.
• th: The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.
• p and k: A proper copper coffee pot.

You can also write your own. Put the sound that trips you up into a short sentence three or four times, then take it through the same stages. If th is your weak spot, try: Thea thinks three thin threads are thicker than that.

What should you do in the 10 minutes before you speak?

This routine joins the drills above into one sequence. Do it in a quiet corner before you step on stage, before a podcast recording or before you film a course:

1. 0 to 1 min: loosen your shoulders, neck and jaw.
2. 1 to 3 min: breathe, with long, even sss exhales.
3. 3 to 5 min: hum, then do lip trills.
4. 5 to 7 min: lip and tongue drills, then consonant chains.
5. 7 to 9 min: two tongue twisters, first slowly, then at normal speed.
6. 9 to 10 min: read the first paragraph of your script aloud at the pace you will record.

Before a recording, drink water at room temperature and avoid long stretches of shouting or whispering. Keep the script in front of you, so the warm-up runs straight into the first take. If you will also be on camera, speaking on camera with confidence covers the rest.

How do you improve your diction in the long run?

A warm-up prepares you for one session. Clearer speech for good comes from small daily habits:

• 10 to 15 minutes of drills a day;
• 5 minutes of reading aloud with exaggerated articulation;
• one recording a week, compared with the first one you made;
• speaking a little slower by default;
• opening your mouth more than feels natural.

Look after the rest of you as well: good posture, enough sleep, enough water, and rest for your voice after long sessions.

A professional microphone picks up mumbling that a phone smooths over, so a studio recording shows clearly what to work on. You can record your voice in a studio to hear it for yourself, and recording a voice-over explains the narration side.

Some problems need a specialist. See a speech therapist for a lisp, a sound you consistently cannot make or a stutter, and a doctor for hoarseness that lasts for weeks. The drills in this guide do not treat any of these. If you want a teacher to listen and correct you, group and individual diction courses exist as well.