Using Your Voice: Pitch and Pauses

1. Pitch

Let’s return to sound waves for a moment. We already discussed how the amplitude of a sound wave creates a sound’s volume, with a higher amplitude causing a louder sound and a lower amplitude causing a softer sound. Similarly, changes in a sound wave characteristic called frequency can cause differences in a sound’s pitch.

Pitch refers to how high or low a sound is. Pitch is caused by the speed of a sound wave, as you can see in the previous image. If you have ever seen sheet music, each of the notes symbolizes a sound with a different pitch. The higher you move up a scale, the higher the pitch, and vice versa.

terms to know

Amplitude

The measurement of the size of a sound wave. Lower amplitude produces softer sound waves, while higher amplitude produces louder sound waves.

Pitch

The perceived frequency of a sound or note. Higher-frequency notes are higher pitch, and lower-frequency notes are lower pitch.

1a. Pitch for Different Types of Speakers

As a speaker, you want to find a pitch that is suitable for speaking. Generally, you want to use a pitch range that would normally be comfortable for your natural conversation.

We are each born with different voices, and the size difference of our vocal folds varies depending on our sex at birth. Male-female differences in larynx size influence available pitch range.

Adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have larger folds. The male vocal folds are between 17mm and 25mm in length. Adult female vocal folds are between 12.5mm and 17.5mm in length. These measurements vary, however, according to individual circumstances.

1b. Uses of Pitch for Communicating Different Meanings

The pitch or pitch contour in which a syllable is pronounced conveys shades of meaning, such as emphasis or surprise, or distinguishes a statement from a question.

All languages use pitch pragmatically as intonation (or inflection, as is used in some texts) to communicate different meanings—for emphasis, to convey surprise or irony, or to pose a question.

• Rising intonation means the pitch of the voice rises over time.
• Falling intonation means that the pitch falls with time.
• Dipping intonation falls and then rises.
• Peaking intonation rises and then falls.

Consciously or unconsciously, the speaker will use the different patterns of their pitch to convey different meanings to the listener.

Consider the following uses of pitch change:

Here are a few more examples:

• Informational: "I saw a ↘man in the garden" answers "Whom did you see?" or "What happened?", while "I ↘saw a man in the garden" answers "Did you hear a man in the garden?"
• Grammatical: A rising pitch turns a statement into a yes-no question, as in "Are you ↗sure?"
• Illocution: The intentional meaning is signaled by the pitch pattern. For instance, "Why ↘don't you move to California?" (a question) versus "Why don't you ↗move to California?" (a suggestion).
• Attitudinal: High declining pitch signals more excitement than does a low declining pitch, as in "Good↗morn↘ing" versus "Good morn↘ing."
• Textual: Information not in the sentence is signaled by the absence of a statement-ending decline in pitch, as in "The lecture was yesterday" (high pitch on all three syllables of "yesterday," indicating continuation) versus "The lecture was yester↘day" (high pitch on the first syllable of "yesterday", but declining pitch on the second syllable, indicating the end of the first thought).

In public speaking, you can apply changes in pitch not only to a single word, such as an exclamation, "Oh!", but to any group of syllables, words, and even sentences to convey different meanings. You can change the pitch of successive syllables in a word, word groups, or successive sentences. You want to make sure that you use pitch to convey the intended meaning so that you do not drop the pitch, for example, until you have completed an idea.

Additionally, in natural conversation, pitch changes make some words stand out more than others; you can do the same in your public speaking for emphasis. You can use pitch to draw the listeners' attention to words or phrases that are more important than others. When speaking, you will naturally use a range of pitches to convey different meanings.

try it

Here are some tips for speaking in a way that is conscious of your pitch:

1. Avoid monotony, speaking with one pitch tone or little variety in pitch. Make sure to vary the speech as you speak to show emphasis and change in meaning.
2. Practice saying sentences with different intonation patterns to change the meaning. For example, if you make a statement with falling intonation at the end, you can turn it into a question by raising the intonation at the end. Try, for example, "See what I mean" and "See what I mean?"

term to know

Intonation

The rise and fall of the voice in speaking. Some texts use "inflection" instead of intonation to indicate a change in pitch.

---

2. Pauses

Pauses can enhance delivery. A pause may refer to a rest, hesitation, or temporary stop. It is an interval of silence and may vary in length.

term to know

Pause

Pause may refer to a rest, hesitation, or temporary stop.

2a. Efficient and Effective Pauses

You may use a pause to emphasize that the information coming next is important or to give the audience time to process what you have just said.

try it

Consider some of the ways that you might use pauses effectively in your delivery.

1. Pauses enable the speaker to gather thoughts before delivering the final appeal: Pause just before the utterance, think about what you want to say, and then deliver your final appeal with renewed strength.
2. Pauses prepare the listener to receive your message: Pause and give the attention powers of your audience a rest. The thought that follows a pause is much more dynamic than if no pause had occurred.
3. Pauses create effective suspense: Suspense can create interest. The audience will want to find out the conclusion or what happened if you pause before the punch line or conclusion.
4. Pause after an important idea: Pausing gives the audience time to process what you have just said before you continue with your delivery.
5. Pause at the end of a unit: You may pause to signal the close of a unit of thought, such as a sentence or main point.

2b. Filler Words and Disfluencies

Many people are uncomfortable with silence, so instead of pausing to end a sentence or emphasize a point, they fill the silence with empty syllables or sounds such as "like," "um," "ah," or "you know." These are called filler words and people often use them unconsciously. The first step to overcoming your reliance on filler words is awareness.

• Speech disfluencies: Speech disfluencies are breaks, irregularities, or non-lexical vocables that occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech, including false starts (words and sentences that are cut off in the middle), phrases that are restarted and repeated, grunts, or fillers like "uh," "erm," and "well."
• Filler words: Filler words are spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that they have paused to think but are not yet finished speaking. Different languages have different characteristic filler sounds. The most common filler sounds in English are: "uh" (/ə/), "er" (/ɚ/), and "um" (/əm/).

Here are some filler words that are more colloquial, or used commonly and casually:

• y'know
• so
• actually
• literally
• basically
• right
• I'm tellin' ya
• you know what I mean
• Placeholder names: Placeholder names are filler words like "thingamajig," which refer to objects or people whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown.

try it

Here are some tips for speaking in a way that is conscious of your pauses:

• Record yourself. Record a conversation and count the use of disfluencies and filler words in relation to the other words in the speech. See if you can reduce the ratio over time.
• Practice, practice, practice. Remember that as you become more confident and familiar with speaking, it will be easier to reduce the frequency of many of the unnecessary filler words and disfluencies.

terms to know

Filler

A sound or word that is spoken in conversation by one participant to signal to others that he/she has paused to think but is not yet finished speaking.

Disfluencies

Speech disfluencies are breaks, irregularities, or non-lexical vocables that occur within the flow of otherwise fluent speech. These include false starts, fillers, and repaired utterances (correcting slips of the tongue or mispronunciations).

Colloquial

Language that is used in ordinary, casual conversation.