🎙️ Weekly Insight #50-Authenticity Can’t Be Auto-Generated

What AI writing reveals about voice and why sounding like everyone else isn’t the same as sounding like yourself

“When you bring a photo of thick, flowing hair to the salon… and they politely suggest working with what you’ve actually got.”

I recently came across an article by Adnan Masood that made me laugh and wince at the same time — because I’ve written some of those phrases myself. Masood, a technologist and AI researcher, laid out the telltale signs of AI-generated writing with sharp clarity.

“It is important to note that…”·
"In today’s fast-paced world…”
“Furthermore…”
“Moreover…”
“Delve into…”



It reminded me of moments — in my own work and in others’ — when clarity gets replaced by formula. AI writing often reads smoothly and clearly, but it reveals just how easy it is to slip into sounding technically correct but smoothly impersonal.

When Writing Sounds Like a Machine

Masood’s piece lays out the key traits of AI-generated writing:

Uniform rhythm (every sentence same length, same structure)
Buzzword-heavy transitions and vague, lofty phrasing
Predictable, formulaic structure (thesis, three body points, conclusion)
Lack of lived experience or emotional tone


If you’ve ever listened to someone speak in monotone, read off a script or PowerPoint, or use the same sentence format five times in a row — you’ve heard the vocal equivalent. And if you’ve ever done it yourself (I have), you know it’s not because you don’t care. It’s because you’re trying to sound competent, clear, and polished. The problem is: sounding polished isn’t the same as sounding real.

What Voice — Real Voice — Actually Sounds Like

I teach people to become aware of their own vocal habits: their breath, their intention, their pacing, their tone. Most of what we think of as “good voice” is not only about resonance or volume — it’s about how clearly a person shows up in what they’re saying.

The same is true in writing. When I read a sentence that breaks the rhythm, that uses a contraction in the middle of an otherwise formal paragraph, or that just says something plainly and directly — I lean in. Because someone’s there.

As synthetic voice and writing tools become more common, knowing your own voice becomes more important. If something sounds off or not like you, it helps to know why. Cadence, rhythm, sentence phrasing, directness — these aren’t just surface features — they’re part of what makes a voice recognizable.

The habits that give voice its character aren’t innate. They’re built, practiced, and refined over time. Most of us can speak naturally when relaxed, but pressure often distorts clarity. When we’re tired, stressed, or afraid to sound wrong, we fall back on safe phrases. AI writing does the same — it smooths over complexity, avoids friction, and substitutes clarity with structure. But friction is often where the truth lives.

My Anti-AI Writing Commitments

Reading that article gave me language for something I’d already been doing. These are now my standing rules for writing anything I want to feel human:

I avoid filler transitions and buzzwords.
I vary sentence rhythm and length — the way a good phrase has breath and shape.
I resist the tidy three-point structure unless the idea demands it.
I keep tone consistent and honest.



These aren’t just stylistic choices. They’re vocal ones. If a sentence doesn’t feel like something I’d say aloud — or sing with meaning — I question it.

AI as Mirror, Not Mouthpiece

The list hit close to home — I’ve written those phrases myself, especially when I’m trying to sound polished. And the truth is, AI is very good at writing. It can offer rhythm, structure, and fluency in seconds. But making it sound like you? That’s not really its job — and maybe it shouldn’t be.

It would be like me walking into a hair salon with a picture of someone with a thick, full head of hair. We all know how that conversation’s going to go. The stylist might smile politely, but they’re also thinking, “Okay… but let’s work with what you’ve actually got.”

The same thing happens in voice work. Someone might want to sound like a famous speaker or singer — but what matters is uncovering what’s already present in their own instrument. AI can offer a template. But it’s still up to you to sculpt it into something that actually reflects your voice — and that takes repetition, discernment, and the ability to hear yourself clearly.

I’ve found that AI, when used well, can be a mirror — not a mouthpiece. I don’t let it write for me. But I do sometimes use it as a reaction surface. I’ll speak aloud, then look at what it gives me back. Not to accept its phrasing, but to notice what feels off — and what helps me clarify.

The editing process is the writing process. I don’t publish my first breath. But I’ve learned not to overedit it either. When you’ve spent years training your ear — whether as a singer, a writer, or a critical reader — the urge to perfect every phrase can be strong. But that version of “perfect” is elusive. Sometimes, the real skill is knowing when to step away. Give it space. Come back later with clearer ears. I’ve found that when I do that — whether preparing a piece of writing or refining a vocal line — I hear it more honestly. That’s something I learned from my mentor Margaret Harshaw: short, focused work followed by deliberate rest. You don’t power through. You pause. You listen. You return. It’s the same idea behind the Pomodoro technique: focused effort, then a reset. And in that rhythm, something real emerges.

Some have described AI as a kind of intern: someone you hand tasks to, expecting quick drafts and rough ideas that you’ll later refine. That’s not entirely wrong, but it misses something. An intern is learning — and yes, I’m teaching — but that happens in any good collaboration. One learns from the other. There’s a hierarchy. But my relationship with AI often feels more like a collaboration — not equal, not reciprocal, but interactive. It gives me something to push against. It reflects patterns I might not see. Sometimes it offers a clean draft that sounds technically fine — but not like me. That’s where I notice the difference. I’m not looking for a stand-in. I’m looking for a foil. A second set of ears that doesn’t know what I meant, but can still help me hear it more clearly.

Real Takes Time

The polish part — AI does easily. That’s its job. You give it something, and it smooths it out. But the “real” part — the part that sounds like you — takes more.

It’s the part where I reread. Scour. Rework. Not just because I want to avoid error, but because I want my writing to feel like something I’d actually say. If I put my name on it, it has to reflect me — just like when I sang student matinees at the Metropiltan Opera or in a recent church recital. It is always my work, and I wanted it to reflect the best I can do.

I think I learned that from my parents, who ran a restaurant. Every meal was their signature. They took it seriously. And I remember feeling something similar in France, watching people clean the streets in the morning, or helping you pick out the right stylo de plume, or pour a proper espresso. It was about personal integrity — about doing something with care because it mattered.

Writing is no different. We tend to think of speech as instinctive and writing as constructed — but both reflect what we’ve practiced. Writing guides how I speak. Speaking sharpens how I write. That discipline flows in both directions. And as Epictetus put it nearly 2,000 years ago:, skill takes training. That’s as true for writing and speaking as it is for any craft — because both carry our voice, and both deserve our care.
“Do you suppose that you can do the things that you do without having learned them? One must know that to play the harp requires skill: shall it be supposed that a man can learn to speak or write well or live rightly without training?” — Epictetus, Discourses 2.9 (trans. George Long, 1877)

Why This Matters Now

We’re surrounded by content that sounds just fine — and feels like nothing. That’s the tradeoff. Whether it’s a LinkedIn post or a keynote or a one-on-one conversation, we’re all looking for the same thing: to feel that someone is actually speaking to us.

So when I read something that’s a little jagged, or unexpectedly funny, or emotionally grounded — even if it’s rough around the edges — I exhale.

What AI reveals — again and again — is how easy it is to sound smooth without ever becoming clear. That’s not a flaw in the tool. It’s a call to pay more attention. To notice when something doesn’t sound like you. And to keep practicing until it does.

Voice — in writing, in speech, in life — isn’t something we copy and paste. It’s something we train for, return to, and keep refining until it actually feels like us.

AI might help you get words on the page. But only you can recognize which ones sound like you.

#DevelopYourAuthenticVoice#VoiceAwareness#VocalPresence#BreathAndVoice#VoiceTraining#AlzheimersResearch#BreathingAndBrain#FarinelliExercise#MargaretHarshaw

And if you're unfamiliar with the legacy of Margaret Harshaw, you can read more about her career and influence here: 🎶 Margaret Harshaw – Wikipedia



#DevelopYourAuthenticVoice#VoiceAwareness#VocalPresence#BreathAndVoice#VoiceTraining#AlzheimersResearch#VagusNerve#NervousSystemHealth#AmyloidBeta#BreathingAndBrain#FarinelliExercise#MargaretHarshaw#BreathWithDrSteele #DrSteeleBreath

Elias Mokole

Keynote Speaker, BA & Beyond 2025 | Voice Presence & Change |

Founder, Developing Your Authentic Voice Newsletter

Subscribe here

 

🎙️ Weekly Insight #49-Breath Isn’t the Fix — Awareness Is

Amyloid. Cortisol. Legato. Three places breath shows up if we let it.

Why Breath Isn’t Something You Master, but Something You Learn to Notice Again

When someone says “breathe correctly,” most people either tune out or get confused. It sounds vague. Clinical. Maybe even a little gimmicky. After all, we all breathe. What is there to fix?

But in voice work—as in life—how we breathe tells us more than we realize.

When Science Follows the Breath

That’s why I was intrigued by a video from Dr. Clint Steele, a self-described brain and nervous system specialist, who shared a 2023 study from USC published in Scientific Reports. The study showed that participants who practiced slow breathing (six breaths per minute for 20 minutes a day) significantly reduced the amount of amyloid-beta peptides in their blood and saliva—early warning signs tied to Alzheimer’s disease.

Let that settle in for a moment: just slowing down your breath for 20 minutes a day led to measurable changes in a biological marker for cognitive decline.

Patterns That Shape the Brain

Steele describes the mechanism this way: when your breath is short, high in the chest, or constantly rapid, it signals to the brain that you’re in survival mode. Over time, that pattern increases cortisol and keeps the nervous system in a heightened state. That’s not just uncomfortable—it’s toxic to long-term brain function. But if the exhale is longer than the inhale, and the breath comes from activating the diaphragm rather than the shoulders and neck, the body receives a different message: you’re safe, you can relax, and healing can begin.

This isn’t new insight to anyone who has trained in voice. But even in voice communities, breath is often treated as background technique—important, but automatic.

“No one can learn what they think they already know.” — Epictetus, Discourses 2.17

Returning Again and Again

It took me years to realize that what I was learning about breath in the studio also applied to how I moved through the rest of my life. Margaret Harshaw was the first teacher who truly pointed me in that direction, and even late in her life—when I worked with her, she was eighty-five—she continued to notice breath everywhere. Whether it was a newscaster on television or someone walking across the room, she paid attention to the way breath shaped presence, speech, and posture. That kind of awareness stayed with her well beyond the operatic stage. And I’ve come to understand why. Breath isn’t something you master and move on from. It’s something you return to, again and again. In teaching, I’ve noticed that even well-trained students lose their breath when a new challenge is introduced. The moment something feels unfamiliar or uncertain, the body responds—tightening, holding, reverting. So breath isn’t a foundation you leave behind. It’s the process you keep revisiting, especially when something is at stake.
Practice or Pattern?

It may feel automatic, but breathing is deeply patterned—and those patterns either reinforce calm or build tension over time. Neuroscience supports this: chronic stress, marked by elevated cortisol levels, has been linked to reduced volume in the hippocampus—the brain’s memory center. Other studies show that breathing with longer exhales helps calm the body and steady the mind.

From Castrato to Bestseller

That shift is encouraged, in part, by the length of the exhale. Breathing patterns that emphasize a longer release help settle the nervous system, a point Dr. Steele highlights in his video and one that aligns closely with exercises I’ve used in the studio for years. One of the most enduring among them is the Farinelli exercise, named for the celebrated 18th-century castrato. As I noted earlier, it was Margaret Harshaw who first introduced me to this approach—the only voice teacher I worked with who taught it explicitly. It was, in many ways, revolutionary—not just for my development as a soloist, but for how I teach. Long before breathing protocols were studied in labs or tracked by apps, this exercise taught the same foundational principles through careful pacing and attention. It’s built around three phases: the intake of air, a brief suspension, and a conscious, extended release. The timing is flexible—you might begin with a five-second inhale, a five-second suspension, and an eight-second exhale. That longer exhalation sends a different message to the body. Whether the breath is used to speak, sing, or simply release tension, the value lies not in the numbers themselves but in the awareness of how each phase feels. Breath that is observed becomes breath that can be shaped.

When I was preparing a workshop for an MBA program, the dean recommended a book his son had recently read: Breath, by James Nestor. It had become a New York Times bestseller, and I did what I often do—scanned through it carefully and took notes. A few details came back to me while writing this. Nestor suggests that the “perfect breath” is one that lasts 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out—an even, steady cycle that supports balance in the nervous system. He also describes how shallow breathing—high in the chest and limited in diaphragm movement—can lead to the high-shouldered, forward-neck posture commonly seen in individuals with asthma, emphysema, and other respiratory conditions. One of the physicians he interviews recommends a breathing technique that closely resembles a modified version of the Farinelli exercise: a measured intake, a moment of suspension, and a gradual release. Once again, what’s presented as new turns out to be deeply familiar—rooted in long-standing traditions that emphasize awareness, pacing, and the link between breath and well-being.

Where It Landed for Me

The Farinelli exercise gave me a new relationship to airflow, one that wasn’t about pushing or controlling but about observing and choosing. In my own singing, I’ve noticed over time how my ability to sustain long phrases has steadily improved, not through effort but through awareness. I recently performed a recital where I was able to manage long musical lines with breaths that served the poetry—never avoiding breath, but taking it with intention. This same kind of breath awareness became especially valuable when I traveled to France to sing Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata. The role is built on extended legato phrasing, something I once found daunting. Years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to get through those lines with ease. But now, I can monitor how I’m using air and decide when to release it. That change didn’t come from sheer willpower or technique alone. It came from sustained practice and a growing awareness of how breath moves through my own body—how I manage it, pause it, release it, and direct it in real time.

In the Studio, Under Pressure

In practice, I’ve seen this countless times in the studio. A client enters in a rush—words tumbling out, breath shallow—and their voice reflects it: a cluster of physical and acoustic qualities that often show up together when someone is stressed, rushed, or unaware of their breath patterns. But with just a few minutes of focused awareness—watching where the breath lands, extending the exhale—their breathing shifts, and with it, their voice begins to open. Their tone becomes more connected, their timing less frantic. They return to a more centered, present version of themselves. And that has benefits far beyond the studio.

Not Something to Fix

This is why I keep returning to the word awareness. The breath can’t be corrected until it’s noticed. You can’t change what you don’t perceive. That’s true whether you’re singing, leading a meeting, caring for a loved one, or simply sitting in silence.

It’s not about fixing your breath. It’s about learning how to notice it.



If you’d like a deeper dive into the Farinelli exercise, I explore it more fully in this earlier Weekly Insight: 🔗 From Breath to Phrase: Weekly Insight #18

You can also watch a short video where I demonstrate the Farinelli exercise here:🎥 Watch on YouTube

For those curious about the neuroscience connection, here’s the original video by Dr. Clint Steele that sparked this reflection: 🎥 Watch on Facebook

And if you're unfamiliar with the legacy of Margaret Harshaw, you can read more about her career and influence here: 🎶 Margaret Harshaw – Wikipedia



#DevelopYourAuthenticVoice#VoiceAwareness#VocalPresence#BreathAndVoice#VoiceTraining#AlzheimersResearch#VagusNerve#NervousSystemHealth#AmyloidBeta#BreathingAndBrain#FarinelliExercise#MargaretHarshaw#BreathWithDrSteele #DrSteeleBreath

Elias Mokole

Keynote Speaker, BA & Beyond 2025 | Voice Presence & Change |

Founder, Developing Your Authentic Voice Newsletter

Subscribe here

🎙️ Weekly Insight #48 -Trained Perception vs. Untrained Intuition

What Epictetus understood about voice—and why it still matters

Learning to hear quarter-tones... and to taste the difference between baguettes. Paris taught me both. So did Epictetus. 🎶🥖☕  

We don’t assume we can play piano without lessons. We don’t pretend to know geometry if we’ve never studied it. But when it comes to voice, many people believe they should already know how to use it.

That belief isn’t entirely wrong. There is something intuitive about how we speak. But intuition alone won’t carry you very far—not if the goal is clarity, impact, or connection.

This is where Epictetus offers something useful. He reminds us that perception can be trained—and that refinement matters.

📘 From the Discourses

In Discourses 2.11.1, Epictetus makes a clear observation. We’re born with a general sense of things like right-angled triangles, half-tones, and even quarter-tones. But we don’t understand them precisely until we’ve studied them.
“We come into the world with an innate conception of a right-angled triangle, a half-tone, or a quarter-tone. But it takes instruction to know what they actually are.” — paraphrased from the original Greek, Discourses 2.11.1

People who haven’t studied geometry don’t pretend to be geometers. People who haven’t studied music don’t usually fake it. But when it comes to communication—especially voice—many assume they already know what they’re doing.

That assumption keeps people from noticing what’s missing. Not because they aren’t capable, but because they haven’t been asked to look more closely.
🎵 Why the Quarter-Tone Example Matters

A quarter-tone isn’t part of standard Western tuning. It’s too small to register for most ears trained on pianos, choirs, or familiar scales. But it’s real—and clearly defined in other musical systems, especially in parts of the Middle East and Asia.

That makes it a useful example. If you haven’t been trained to hear quarter-tones, you’ll miss them—even if you have a good ear.

It’s like taste. When I first moved to Paris, every baguette seemed perfect. They were all fresh, all delicious. But after a while, I started to notice the differences—some were lighter, others had more crackle to the crust, or a deeper flavor inside.

I remember a Parisian friend insisting, “No, I only go to the one by Place Monge. It’s the best in the city.” At the time, I couldn’t tell why. But after a few months, I started to get it. What had seemed identical now had character. I could tell one from another. And I began to know what I liked.

Nothing had changed about the bread. What changed was my ability to discern.

Voice works the same way. You may be expressive. You may be articulate. But without experience and reflection, you’ll likely miss certain details in how you’re speaking—how your breath supports the sound, how tone varies across a sentence, or how phrasing affects clarity and connection.

Epictetus chose a subtle interval on purpose. He’s showing that some things are real, but not obvious. You won’t notice them unless someone points them out. And even then, it takes practice to hear clearly.

🎙️ What This Means for Voice Work

Most people don’t spend time analyzing their own voice. They speak the way they’ve always spoken. And unless something goes wrong, they don’t question it.

Even when they notice discomfort or disconnect, they often can’t explain what caused it. They might say the message didn’t land, or that the moment felt flat. But they’re not used to describing things like breath pressure, tone, or pacing in themselves.

That doesn’t mean they’re not perceptive. In fact, when they listen to others, they often pick up subtle vocal cues without needing to think about it. But with their own voice, that same awareness stays vague.

This is the difference Epictetus is pointing to. There’s a kind of perception that comes from training—where you know what to listen for, and how to name it. Without that, the experience stays intuitive but imprecise.

🔎 DYAV and the Role of Training

Four elements sit at the heart of the Developing Your Authentic Voice framework:

Intention – What are you trying to communicate?
Breath – Is your air supporting the message?
Tone – What’s the emotional contour of the sound?
Connection – Does the voice land where you want it to?


Each of these is like a musical interval. You can get through without much thought. But it won’t hold up under pressure. Skill comes from repetition and attention—not from hoping it works.

🧭Final Thoughts

Epictetus isn’t dismissing intuition. He’s pointing out that our first impressions—what the Stoics called prolēpseis—aren’t enough on their own. They give us a starting point, not a finished skill.

That applies directly to voice. We all speak. We all have some instinct for tone, rhythm, and connection. But most of us haven’t learned to observe those patterns in ourselves.

Refinement doesn’t replace intuition. It gives it structure. It makes the intuitive visible. And once we can see it, we can adjust it—deliberately, not just reactively.

That kind of perception doesn’t come from scripts or memorized techniques. It comes from practice. It comes from listening. That’s what voice work makes possible.

#DevelopingYourAuthenticVoice #VoiceMatters #Clarity #EmotionalIntelligence #LeadershipCommunication #TrainedPerception #StoicInsights #Epictetus #DeliberatePractice #VoiceAwareness

Elias Mokole

Keynote Speaker, BA & Beyond 2025 | Voice Presence & Change |

Founder, Developing Your Authentic Voice Newsletter

Subscribe here

 

Weekly Insight #47 -A Voice That Carries :How Voice Bridges Time, Memory, and Meaning

Bringing words off the page, one voice at a time.

On Thursday, I’ll be singing To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence—a song by Gerald Finzi that sets text by James Elroy Flecker. The title alone has stayed with me, but it’s one line in particular that keeps returning to me: “I send my words through time and space to greet you. You will understand.”

There’s something quietly profound about that line. It isn’t persuasive or dramatic. It’s a gesture of trust—sent forward through time with the belief that it will land somewhere, that someone will recognize something in it and feel spoken to. That kind of voicing—grounded in meaning, not just sound—is what I think about often when I teach or perform.

When we read these words, we receive them. But when we voice them—when we breathe into them, place them in time, and send them out toward others—they become something more. They become a bridge. And sometimes, when we speak or sing words that were never written for us, we find ourselves answering a call we didn’t realize had been made.

🕰️ Voicing Across Time

There’s something remarkable about saying words that weren’t written for you—and yet still feel like yours when you speak them. When I sing this piece, I’m voicing a poem written more than a century ago, set to music by a composer I’ve never met, and now heard by an audience who may not know either of their names. But something still connects.

That’s what I mean when I say it feels like time travel. It’s not just about singing an old song. It’s about stepping into a thread that was already in motion and adding your breath to it. The words don’t change, but something happens when they pass through a living voice. They take on new weight, shaped by the present moment and the person delivering them.

We often think of borrowed words as static—something you quote, something you reference. But the moment you speak them aloud, they start to move again. You make choices: how to breathe, how to begin, what to emphasize, how much silence to leave. In that sense, you’re not just borrowing the words—you’re animating them. And that, to me, is one of the quiet powers of voice: it lets us carry forward meaning that might have otherwise stayed locked on the page.

🎹 Finzi, Hugo, Verdi, and the Space Between

As Linda and I explore Finzi’s setting, we’ve also been drawn to the poems by Victor Hugo—texts that resonate in French as they did in our rehearsal conversations. One celebrates the month of May, inviting us to cherish simple moments: warm sunlight on a loved one’s face, a breeze through leaves, the quiet joy of a summer day. It reminds us that performance isn’t always about grand gestures—it can be about presence.

The other improvises on a scene from Verdi—where a character debates whether to mourn the past or embrace the present. That tension is familiar to performers. The music lingers, urging reflection: should we dwell on what’s gone, or make this moment count? It’s that kind of internal conversation—the pause before a line, the choice of breath—that gives meaning to voicing.

Amid our sessions chez Linda, we spoke of personal memories— sunlit afternoons, moments of deciding to step forward instead of looking behind. And this wasn’t separate from the music; it was woven into it. Every hesitation, every decision to linger, became part of how we’d share the song with others.

This layering of text, music, personal memory, and voice—that’s the quiet power of performance. We’re not just singing poetry. We’re continuing it, carrying its questions and its warmth into the space we share with listeners.

🎤 What Can’t Be Said

One of the things that keeps surfacing for me—especially in this set of songs—is how voice can reach beyond what we can explain. That may be why this line from Cake’s Opera Singer keeps echoing in my head: “I sing what can’t be said.”

That’s it, really. Not every word has to carry a defined message. Sometimes it’s the voicing—the breath, the pacing, the presence—that makes something understandable. The listener may not know the story behind a poem or the life of the composer. But something still gets through.

The song goes on to say, “I sing to Verdi’s grave” and “I will sing when you’re all dead”—which sounds stark, but gestures toward something lasting. These words, these roles, these lines—they keep moving. They find new voices, new ears, new meanings. They carry through foreign lands and different languages. Even if the listener doesn’t know your name, they might still recognize something in what you’re offering.

That’s the strange, quiet legacy of this work. It’s not about being known. It’s about continuing a sound that doesn’t end with you.

🔚 A Voice That Carries

In the work I do—on stage, in coaching, in conversation—this is what I keep coming back to. Your voice doesn’t have to be loud to carry. It just needs to be rooted in something real. When we speak or sing from a place of meaning, we become part of something that extends beyond us. We offer others not just our sound, but the continuity of thought, feeling, and memory that rides on that sound.

That’s what I aim for each time I step in front of others to share this music. The text, the notes—they sit there on the page. But they don’t come alive until someone breathes into them, until the vibration of the voice brings them back. That’s why I work at this the way I do. Not for perfection, but to carry something forward—so someone else might hear what I’ve heard, and maybe even understand.

#DevelopingYourAuthenticVoice
#VoiceMatters
#ToAPoetAThousandYearsHence
#SingingAcrossTime
#BreathingLifeIntoWords
#PoetryInPerformance
#CarryTheVoice#MusicAndMemory

Weekly Insight #46- The Four Pillars of Voice—Intention, Breath, Tone, and Connection

A Practical Framework for Authentic Vocal Presence

“Voice begins long before the first word.”

At BA & Beyond, I picked up a sticker that made me smile:

“Pour me a coffee and I’ll solve your problems.” ☕ 

It was clearly tongue-in-cheek, but it stayed with me.
Not because I want to solve people’s problems—but because it reminded me of something else I value: listening.

In voice work, I don’t start by fixing things.
I start by listening—especially for what’s already there.

Most advice about voice is a grab bag of tips: hiss like this, breathe like that, try sounding emotional.
But without structure, those tips don’t connect.

That’s why I teach voice using a framework I call Developing Your Authentic Voice (DYAV)—grounded in four practical pillars:

🎯 Intention
🫁 Breath
🎨 Tone
🔗 Connection (Message)

Each one plays a role in helping your voice become more than just sound.
It helps it land.

---

🎯 Intention (The Reason You’re Speaking)

People often skip this part.
They jump straight to how they sound without asking: Why am I speaking at all?

Intention isn’t about choosing a tone—it’s about knowing your objective.
What do you want your listener to understand, feel, or do?
That clarity shapes everything else.

In voice coaching, I often ask people to say the same phrase with different intentions—not as an acting exercise, but as a diagnostic.
Try saying: “I didn’t say you stole the money”
—first with curiosity, then with suspicion.
Same words. Totally different outcomes.

That intention shows up—not because you’re performing it—but because your breath and tone follow your thinking.

What most tip lists skip is this:
Intention has to come first.
It tells your breath what to do, and your tone follows naturally.

You don’t need to imitate someone else’s style.
You need to get clear on your own goal.

---

🫁 Breath (The Support System)

Breath supports everything.
But most people overthink it—or ignore it completely.

In voice training, I focus on something I call Restructured Breath:
a way of connecting breath to intention, tone, and meaning—not just inhaling more deeply.

It’s sometimes confused with “diaphragmatic” or “belly” breathing, but those terms oversimplify where and how the breath is managed.
They describe where breath appears to move—not how it’s being coordinated.

Restructured Breath isn’t about inflating your belly.
It’s about coordinating your breath to support your voice—not just your lungs.
When you inhale, you fill your lungs. But other parts of your body respond too.
Voice training means noticing those reactions—and choosing the most efficient ones.

One helpful tool here is the unvoiced “S” sound.
Hissing gently helps you hear the air you’re using—giving feedback about breath pressure and control.
Here’s a short demo of how that works.

The idea of exhaling to “stack” your breath can also be useful—but only in specific training contexts, like the Farinelli exercise, which I teach as part of Restructured Breath.
Out of context, telling someone to exhale before speaking may encourage unnecessary breath loss.

Most people breathe without thinking—because they don’t have to.
But in voice work, you can choose where and how you breathe.
That small choice can change everything.

---

🎨 Tone (The Color of Meaning)

Tone gives voice its emotional dimension—but it’s often misunderstood.
People think of it as something you “add on” to sound expressive.
But tone is more like color: it emerges from how your breath, resonance, and intention interact.

People often focus on tone the way they focus on style: as if it’s something you can apply from the outside.
But in voice work, we treat tone as a result—not a choice.
It’s shaped by what you’re trying to say, the breath behind it, and your awareness of how those things feel in your body.

You can’t fix tone from the outside in.
And trying to “sound a certain way” often makes things worse.
In fact, when people ask how to improve their tone, what they usually mean is:
“How do I make people feel what I want them to feel?”

That’s a great question.
But the answer starts elsewhere.

This is where most tip lists fall short.
They offer surface-level tricks—“lower your pitch to sound confident” or “use more inflection to stay engaging”—without asking what you’re actually trying to communicate.

When intention and breath are clear, tone adjusts on its own.
And when it doesn’t, we work diagnostically—from the inside out.

Try this simple exercise:
Say the sentence: “I didn’t say you stole the money.”

Now try it again with different intentions:

• Curiosity

• Accusation

• Surprise

• Amusement

Same words. Totally different tones.

That’s not acting. That’s alignment.
When your breath, intention, and body are aligned, your tone resonates.
Not because you’re “doing a voice”—but because you’re telling the truth.

Tone is also where our individual vibration lives.
We’re more like string instruments than windpipes—and breath is what plucks the strings.
Each person’s tone is shaped by their body and intention, creating a vibration that feels honest, specific, and human.

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🔗 Connection (Message)

“Warm up your voice” is a phrase we hear all the time.
But what usually needs warming up isn’t the vocal folds—it’s your breath.
When you awaken your breath, your voice becomes more flexible by extension.

But as Margaret Harshaw—my mentor and the great Wagnerian soprano—often said:
Singing (and speaking) is 95% mental. You will the voice to do what you choose.

Vocal variation is a powerful tool—but the how matters.
What intention are you carrying into the sentence?
That affects tone and expression more than pitch variety alone.

When your tone and breath are aligned with what you mean, you create vocal messages that connect.
That connection comes not just from the words, but from the way your voice carries meaning.
It’s what allows people to hear what matters.

When we talk about Connection (Message), we’re talking about how ideas land.
Not just how they’re said—but what gets remembered.

Have I considered my message—and is it coming across clearly and truthfully?

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