Breath Support at the Ends of Phrases

You need even more breath support (ABS!) at the ends of phrases than anywhere else, especially to avoid falling into vocal fry. 

Breath Support and Phrase Endings

I had a question  about breath support, especially related to the ends of phrases, the way that phrases, especially in American speech, will really really commonly drop off at the end. And the way that they just die off. And in fact many people, when they talk, it's almost almost as though they are done talking before they're done talking, so it just becomes right at the end where they're done, maybe a couple of words before they're done, even that.

Vocal Fry

And often times this goes into vocal fry, that Henry Kissinger voice - if you have any idea who Henry Kissinger is. But it's that vocal fry that's becoming more common. And there are studies that are saying that especially women view it as a sign of success, so it's in many ways becoming a bigger issue as time goes on. So the way the voice just sort of craps out at the end, that dive at the end.

What happens is that you have this level, where when you fall below that, in this intonation. That's where you go into vocal fry. So that's where you get below the necessary flow of breath that will keep your voice working at a, in a regular way, in a regular way, where it sort of craps out. Okay? So that breath, that vocal fry as it's commonly called is when you drop below that threshold.

Phonation Threshold

Now when you drop below that phonation threshold there, what you can do is either pitch up to do it, which I've heard some people coached to do before, but that's really problematic, because then everything that you say has to go up there and quite frankly you'll learn to fry anyway. Even when you come down, so you'll drop below the line. What you can also do is you can lower the line. You can take the line down further, and the way to do that is to use breath support.

Breath Support

Basically abs. You want to get your abs engaging, specifically your transversus. Again more details in another post but on this one the point that I want to make is you need more breath support at the end of a phrase, for American speakers especially, than you do anywhere else. When you get to lower pitches your vocal folds are working slower you need more air flow instead of less. And most of us kill off the energy at the ends of phrases, instead of actually increasing the work at the ends of phrases.

What that'll allow you to do is to finish off on your voice, on tone, instead of finishing off tone or going into a whisper or vocal fry. So you need that extra support right at the end. So if anything, right at the end is where you need the work because that's what's going to keep you on your voice, and allow you to fill out the richer, deeper tones that you'll tend to hit when you hit the end.

So I know that was a lot of information thrown at you, but the basic idea is you need more work at the end of a phrase than you do anywhere else.