There are six characteristics of speech, all of which are vital to speak effectively. In this section we'll look at each of them separately. These speech characteristics are basically important to you and your manner of speech. If you are not completely happy with the way your voice sounds, you may need to work on some of them. Remember that although we are going to talk about each characteristic individually, they must ultimately blend into a compelling articulate speech. Let's list them, they are 1)pitch, 2)inflection, energy, 3)duration, 4)tempo, and volume.
Pitch is simply an 5)acoustical property of the voice having to do with its frequency, high to low. The pitch of your speaking voice is determined by a number of factors, including whether you're male or female. Early environment has its effect. If the people around you spoke in high pitches most of the time, chances are that you'll use primarily the upper third of your pitch range. Since Americans prefer voices pitched in the lower third of their range, speaking in such a high pitch voice, should be corrected. Genetic inheritance must also be considered. If father had a very deep voice and sang bass in the church 6)choir, then you, his son, may also sing bass and speak with a deep voice when it has lowered after puberty.
Female voices change during 7)adolescence just as do men's voices although not as noticeably. An adult female's vocal chords normally vibrate about twice as fast as those of an adult male. As a result, her pitch is about an 8)octave higher than a male's pitch. An interesting 9)aside though, contrary to popular opinion, a person's height or weight does not, as a rule, affect the pitch of the voice, or its volume. When you meet a large or tall person, with a tiny high pitched voice, it usually comes as a surprise. And once upon a time it was thought that an opera singer had to be overweight in order to sing with force, not so.
You should usually speak at a comfortable vocal 10)register. That's called your 11)optimum pitch. Your habitual pitch on the other hand is the pitch range that you use most frequently, and a caution is in order, if you speak at too high or too low a pitch, some or most of the time, you may strain your 12)vocal cords. That habitual pitch that you spoke of should not be constant though. Expressive speech requires that pitch be varied. Variety is also the spice of speech.
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