A speaker’s voice is of course an essential part of the arsenal a speaker has to move an audience to action.  A great voice can carry a speaker far; a weak voice can kill a speech – or a career. 

President Obama’s voice scores high in the three areas a great voice needs:  resonance, presence, and authority.  Check the voice out here during the inauguration:  http://tinyurl.com/7cdnq7. 

Resonance comes from breathing – it’s the quality that makes a voice pleasant to listen to.  Using your diaphragm to breathe (also known as ‘belly breathing’) fills your lungs with air and gives your voice a full, round, easy-to-listen-to sound.  Like Obama’s. 

The right breathing is important because when you stand up to talk to a crowd, adrenaline surges through your system, and many people have a tendency to take short, shallow breaths as a result.  This is good for having the air necessary to flee a predator, but not good for public oration.  You have to fight the tendency by breathing deep from the stomach. 

Presence is the quality that allows a voice to be heard – and it involves just a touch of the nasal.  Actors and singers call this using the ‘mask’ of the face.  Americans especially have a tendency to swallow the voice, pitching it from the back of the throat.  That placement gives the voice a guttural quality, and puts a strain on the vocal chords.  Try to pitch the voice forward, in the front of the mouth, like the French do, and up in the mask of the face to give it carrying power.  Hillary Clinton has a little too much presence – her voice is ‘hard’, pitched to carry to the back of the hall.  As a result, it often sounds like she’s shouting.  That tone wears us out quickly.  (She’s better when she’s more conversational.)    Obama, on the other hand, has just the right amount of presence.  You can hear him clearly, but it’s not like a dentist’s drill. 

Finally, and most important, President Obama uses his voice authoritatively.  That means that his voice describes an arc:

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

Check out the video and notice how his voice rises and falls with the phrase and the sentence.  Rising tones indicate passion and conviction.  Falling tones indicate authority – at the ends of phrases and sentences.  President Obama has the voice down perfectly, and it’s a big part of how he conveys that solid, easy sense of authority.  Almost as though he was born to be president.