How tone of voice affects communication

The most important aspect of communication is how confident you are at communicating your thoughts to people. There could be nothing that owns the power of replacing the confidence in your communication. And the only thing that you can use the most to showcase your confidence while speaking, is your voice.

While speaking in public we all have at some point in our lives, forgotten our recitation line and frozen up on the stage to be made fun of. There’s, of course, no shame in that, we all have been there.

However, over the years we have learnt and are still learning how to control our fear of being judged while speaking with confidence. Although communication is not just about speaking skills, they do play a vital role in it. Voice modulation or the tone of voice that you speak in determines a big chunk of how good your communication skills are.

Moreover, in this age of technology, a lot of communication happens over phone calls letting us with the only option of hearing a person speak without being able to have a glance at their expressions while they speak. While that happens, we can only hope that the tone of our voice plays out well and the message is delivered correctly.

Other important factors that determine the quality of communication are:

1. Pitch of the voice: One needs to be very careful while dealing with this aspect. While a high pitch can make you sound shrill and unpleasant, a very low pitch can ruin the show by making your voice barely audible. An average female generally has a higher pitched voice than an average male. This should be kept into consideration while communicating to make the process effective.

2. Clarity: Everything that you do about your speech is going down the gutter if there is no clarity in your voice. What you say must be delivered clearly to the listener, to facilitate a clear understanding and proper communication.

3. Emphasis: You need to be sure about what you say and how important are the words that you put forth. Only then you can correctly know the pressure required on a particular word to deliver its meaning in the truest sense.

The tone of your voice defines the character of your speech. The tone that you say something in, or how you say it holds much more important than what you’re actually speaking about. Like fingerprints, the tone of an individual is also unique. Everybody we meet and interact within our day to day life has a specific tone limited only to themselves. Some people are humble and polite while others appear aggressive or arrogant, why? Just by the way they speak, they are judged all the time by everyone who witnesses them speak.

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We will discuss a few categories of the tone of a person’s voice and how that plays an important role in their daily communication.

In our daily life, we come across a lot of people and a lot of situations and thus, our tone cannot and should not be the same all throughout. We definitely need variations in the voice to convey a particular message or mood. That is the purpose of the tone of voice, to convey the background or mood of a particular conversation.

Tones can be classified broadly into the following types:

Funny and serious: We all know how different a funny conversation is from a serious one. One cannot mix and match these situations. In case, one does, it’ll only generate unnecessary confusion and chaos among the listeners and the whole process of communication falls at stake.
Formal and informal: No way can these two be brought together. You can never talk to your boss like you speak to your best friend. This not only puts you at the risk of losing your reputation but also marks you as ill-behaved in the society.
Respectful and irreverent: Although respect should be shown to everyone that you are communicating to, there has to be a difference in the degree and kind of respect you have for the person.
Enthusiastic and technical: Now, again these are two different tones. Enthusiastic is the one which puts forward the excitement in an individual about something. However, a matter-of-fact or a technical conversation is sure to involve much more authority and emphasis on particular points to convey a technical message. Enthusiastic conversations need not be about anything, in particular, they can be about anything and everything and are generally light-hearted communications.

We also have times of outrage and frustration where the emotions are clearly let out by the way one speaks. Sarcasm is like the salt of communication: use it less, use it wisely.

The tone of the voice of a person determines how much he or she is listened to, and how much importance is given to the speech that the individual is delivering. The following are the factors which are essentially determined by the tone of an individual.

Human character: The tone of an individual is what marks them human. This is something that we still have not been able to properly develop in robots or AIs. The human tone is markedly different from any other beings too. No other organism is as well equipped as us to convey emotions by modulating their voice.
To make a cut through in the mind of the listener: To properly convey and register a message in the mind of the listener, a correct tone is necessary. There is no use of communication if the that is not achieved.
To establish authority: Your authority over what you say should be reflected in how you say it. For this, you need to have it well planned as what you’re going to say before you say it.
Focus: To make sure that you’re being listened to, it is important that you modulate your voice accordingly.
Differentiates the speaker from the rest: As we have discussed earlier, the tone of one’s voice is what differentiates the individual from the rest. It is important that you take care of the tone that you speak in.

Coming to the conclusion, you should also remember that you can never be taught to tone your voice. You are needed to pick it up from the surroundings and work on yourself so as to make it better. Not to forget, practice makes a man perfect and to perfect your tone, you need to practice.