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Nigel’s report for September 2009

Fergus McClelland

‘How to have a better voice with NLP’

Technically this was the longest setup I’ve had at all the NLP-South meetings. Fergus arrived with his team of two helpers, two laptops and his sound system. I arrived with 3 video cameras, my sound system and one helper. This also makes this the techiest report so far too as I have embedded some sound clips along with my cartoons.I hope you enjoy the report at least half as much as we enjoyed the evening with Fergus. He has a lovely voice, (click on his picture to hear him) a host of stories about himself, and about the rich and famous he trains, works with and rubs shoulders with. We also learnt a lot about voice control.

After a brief introduction to voice, tone and words Fergus set about getting us involved, and we were calling out the things we like and hate about other people’s voices. Fergus framed this interaction by asking us to think of someone famous whom we liked, then someone in public life we didn’t like and relate this to what we liked or hated about their voice.

We liked

Tone
Accent
Strength
Clarity
Deeper
Rhythm (Poetry)
Warmth
Pace (right)
Sincerity
Congruence

We didn’t like

Grating
Accent
Monotone
Whiny
Strangled
Pompous
Doesn’t stop
Abrupt -Stilted
Up at end
down at end
 

While writing up our words Fergus provided a verbal accompaniment. This allowed us to confirm that not only had he got the word but also understood the sound or quality behind our comments. In some cases he also added a bit of acting and body language to demonstrate how the sound we liked or disliked was produced.
Interestingly some words appear on both flip charts!
Apparently every time Fergus runs this exercise the lists of likes and dislikes are pretty much universally the same. So given the choice, which list would we like our voice to sound like? If you sound like any of the attributes on the left chart maybe you should be considering some changes, or a quick Skype consultation with Mr McClelland to adjust and regulate your vocal instrument. (Not now, wait until you’ve read the whole report. Contact details are at the end)

(This paragraph has been written with warmth, sincerity and in your favourite tone, just to give you an example of what can be achieved.)
 

After a brief discourse on the negative aspects of monotone voices and their ability to induce sleep in audiences Fergus woke us to the fact that beyond the 7 + or - 2 bits of information the conscious mind can handle at any one moment our unconscious is nonchalantly playing with about 2.5 million operations a second. I’ve discovered I can’t count that fast and whilst attempting to do so nearly missed the fact that Fergus had moved on to the next exercise, involving pen and paper and images from his laptop magically appearing on the screen on the wall, I told you it was a technological extravaganza of a meeting, there’s even more to come in a minute so hold onto your screen.

Time for a test to help unlock our belief systems from what is actually there. Look at the pictures and write down what you see. Apart from the bird triangle these are different to the ones Fergus showed us. I know I had them somewhere on my computer but just now they are proving elusive. So I’ve ‘Googled’ the first one and found this site. Play with it later. NO. Later!

Read this out loud.

How many black dots?

Which red circle is bigger?

Which fireman is tallest?

Is this a spiral?

What do you see?

Can you read this face?

Are the blocks lined up straight?

The purpose of all these is of course to demonstrate that we don’t always ‘see’ what’s really there. 2 the’s in ‘bird in bush’; as many black dots as you can see before you go mad; they’re both the same size; they’re all the same height; no it’s circles; vase or two faces; Billy to his friends; of course they are.

Keeping up the pressure Fergus had us moving on to the next game. (He was attempting to cram a day’s training into two hours!) Dividing into pairs we each took it in turns to be A or B. B closed their eyes and A told two short stories about themselves. One was true and one was false. Fergus demonstrated first and was found out by Carole, amongst others. I’m so trusting I believed every word and was devastated to find out he’d been telling lies! This was quite a short game, though there were some people who had trouble telling a short story, and certainly couldn’t manage two short stories without one of them going on and on and on and on... There was a good proportion who spotted (guessed) the truth from the lie. I didn’t manage to work out who they all were so I’d better stick with the truth at future meetings.

Fergus posed us a question: “Do we have a vocal passport?” remember going through customs into a strange & foreign land, e.g. The USA. As you approach the customs and immigration section should you smile disarmingly? No it makes you look like a drug runner. Should you compose your features in a frown? No Terrorist! How about a blank stare? No smuggler. Whatever you do your ‘guilt’ even though you are innocent (well most of you) causes consternation and confusion in how to look and sound. How do we get past the gatekeepers? Our voices are similarly restricted and Fergus was leading up to the unlocking of the voice. To demonstrate he played us two clips of the same comedienne, early in her career and again later. The difference was clear. Her voice had been unlocked and rang out with subtle tones, vibrant humour and richness.

“Twisted, mangled metal. Generously drizzled with engine oil. Dirty, filthy brick and rubble. Hand carved rotten timber. The creamiest sloppiest clay”

And now for something a little different - a demonstration using a willing volunteer from the audience, or Diana as we like to call her. Listen to the before and after recordings of “Mary had a little lamb.” In between Fergus put Diana through several exercises designed to loosen up her vocal instrument and release her voice. What do you think? Did it work? For more on this, especially if you weren't even there, you’ll have to speak to Fergus directly as I promised to keep this a secret.

This was a really good time to take a break, it being 9.00pm. Yes, we had only been at it for one hour and so much done already. Still by the time I’ve got everyone back in their seats it usually only leaves about 35 minutes before the evening ends.

When we eventually regrouped into some sort of order Fergus continued on with our exploration of our mind, our voice and their connection. He challenged us to clap our hands every time he blinked. This wasn’t really a very fair contest so I’m glad I wasn’t tempted to place any bets on who would win. Apparently we can blink 10 times faster than we can clap. (Unless of course you know differently). How much faster then do we feel or remember when given an auditory prompt? More sound bites. A wailing siren - A clapping, cheering crowd - Laughter. The group agreed  to a woman, and several men, that feeling came first, almost instantly, followed by memories that were appropriate for the sounds. This is because sound is picked up by the limbic system or middle brain, which causes us to react to sound in 5000th of a second. Much faster than conscious thought. Sound therefore drives state. What state are we driving people into with our voice?
Fergus asked us to think of a pin up, someone we really fancy. Imagine meeting them and they have a smooth silky seductive voice. How does this make us feel? Then imagine them with a harsh discordant voice. Sound is our final arbiter of safety and is the first sense we develop in the womb, right after studied helplessness. Our voice development follows this with the 1st seven years being developed by modelling significant others to form an imprint. Between 7 & 14 affected by our peers. 14 - 21 influenced by our socialising with others and by 21 our voice is now holding our history, where we’ve come from and even how we feel about ourselves. Experts can read our voice and place the town of our birth. Teasingly Fergus offered us the chance to listen to some mystery voices but first on a small but relevant diversion Fergus talked about Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink and a scientific experiment (like pelmanism) done with red and blue cards. The ‘subject’ was invited to turn over cards. Each card either offered an amount of money or took away an amount of money. The objective of the game was to build up money. The blue cards only accumulated small amounts positively and only took away even smaller amounts negatively. The red cards paid out higher sums but always took away much bigger amounts when negative. The way to build funds slowly and steadily was by turning over blue cards only. Turning over red cards only was a high risk strategy and resulted in rising losses. When the unconscious mind knew that one colour was better than the other, the test subjects palms sweated when they went for the wrong colour - after 20 iterations.... but they didn't realise what was going wrong consciously and head only for the good cards until after 80 iterations.(Presumably the ‘subject’ was suitably wired up for this to tell the unconscious signals.) Building the suspense over ‘the mystery voice’ game we were asked to choose which of four images, shown on the screen we were drawn to. 1) A Flow chart; 2) A woman golfer; 3) A kitten; 4) The word ‘Emotion’. I realise this doesn’t really work without the pictures to look at so here is my version of them. (Fergus has now sent me the originals, so I’ve included them too!)

Then at last it was time for the ‘mystery voices’ game. Splitting into groups of about 6, this is a team game, we listened to a couple of mystery voices and then in our teams discussed their sex,height, weight, job, background, where they grew up, their education, age, hair colour, emotional state, what they had for lunch and the name of their spouse or their sexual preference. Well perhaps not quite all that. With practice we got better and  got more things right, but had to stop after only two ‘cos time was up. You see we just don’t get nearly as much done after the break.

So, which one grabs you most? (Those present on the evening may note some slight differences between these pictures and the ones Fergus showed us, his appear below)

Fergus introduced us to the ‘Rule of three’. After a slight false start, which no-one noticed, Carole demonstrated the power in this rule.

Phew! What a lot we got through. Thank you Fergus for bringing us such a fun packed full session. Thank you too to Ben, Business Manager  and Anita, head of Creativity, R&D for Vocaltrademark, Fergus’s support team on the night.

To find out more about Fergus, his Skype one to one voice training sessions, his work with corporations and to get on his mailing list for useful tips on how to make more of your voice go to his website right now.

Before

After

This is Jo Brand, join her on Facebook

Fergus then proceeded to read out some more of these for us to listen to and do sums and stuff to prove we really had listened, but not necessarily heard! Except for Marian (who had done these before) no one got them all right, not even me. But then I was rather distracted by manning the video camera. The point is we all get tricked by our own assumptions and often are guilty of premature closure. (Peter Young Feb 2005).

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Sorry about the background hum here, I think Carole was doing something to the microphone. Oh Carole!!

(Answers at end of this report.)

Answers to listening questions.

Answer 1

Answer 2

Answer 3

Answer 4

Answer 5

Answer 6

O.K. So the word is the same but the other pictures are the ones we saw on the night. Seems kittens have a hard time, either being strangled or eaten! Which picture attracts you? 90% of people choose the kitty or the golfer, 9.9% the word and the rest like the flowchart.

What’s that all about?

When read by Emma Clarke

it sounds good enough to eat.

An example of vocal overlay. As used in commercials to make you buy the right brand of soap powder or your children will hate you. As used by politicians, con artists and even Barrack O’Bama. Who has a team of 15 behavioural psychologists helping write his speeches. All this can be yours too, once you have been trained by Fergus.