Belly speaking is a useful technique to master if you want to practice ventriloquism or if you want to prank your friends. Successful belly speaking depends on your ability to process your voice so that it sounds as if it's from a long distance away, while keeping your lips and jaw still unnecessarily. You'll also need to use nonverbal cues to distract the listener from observing you for a different focus. This guide provides the information you need to know to master this technique.
Step
Part 1 of 3: Training Remote Effects
Step 1. Inhale
Take a deep breath, and inhale as much air as possible.
- The practice of speaking with your belly voice is also known as the “distance effect”, as it makes your voice sound as if it came from a great distance away.
- To speak in a belly voice, you need to rely on the pressure that results from the act of compressing a lot of air out through a narrow passage. That's why, inhaling as much air into the lungs is the first step you should do.
- Practice taking deep breaths without being too visible and audible to others. Take deep breaths without making a sound through your nose, as the sound of holding your breath will be more pronounced if you do it through your mouth.
Step 2. Raise the tongue
Position the back of your tongue so that it almost touches the soft palate inside your mouth.
- The soft palate is the part of your palate that feels soft, which is located near your throat.
- Use the back of the tongue, not the tip of the tongue. Your tongue should be positioned near the soft palate, but not touching it.
- This movement will keep most of the slit throat closed. The gaps that are still open then need to be narrowed, to produce the compressed sound effect you need.
Step 3. Apply pressure with your diaphragm
Pull in your stomach to tighten the diaphragm and apply pressure under your lungs.
- The diaphragm is a muscle located just below the lungs. This muscle plays a role in the process of inhaling and exhaling, and the deeper you inhale, the more your diaphragm will be used.
- Because the diaphragm is located just below the lungs and around the upper abdomen, tightening or tensing the abdominal muscles will also tighten the diaphragm.
- Applying pressure under the lungs will narrow the passage of air from the lungs to the mouth and nose. This narrowing will give you more control over your voice and will allow it to "get stuck" in your throat.
Step 4. Make a growl sound
Exhale slowly, making a growling sound as the air moves out of the throat.
- By maintaining a narrow airway, you trap your breath in your throat cavity. The growl is locked in your throat and sounds as if it came from a long distance away.
- Practice your growl in this manner several times until you are comfortable with the remote effect of the growl. Take a deep breath at a time, and tense your muscles in the same way, but rest your throat if you start to feel tired or sore.
Step 5. Make “aaa” sound
Repeat inhaling and tensing the muscle you used to control the growl. Now, don't make a low-pitched growl anymore, but instead make a simple, open sound, like "aaa".
- This “aaa” sound should be quite long. Start exhaling as you exhale, and continue until you've pushed all the air out of your lungs.
- However, note that this sound need not be too loud. All you need to make sure is that this sound sounds compressed, because this is what will make it sound as if it came from a long distance. As you continue to practice, you can work to increase the volume. But for the initial stages, you just need to focus on trapping the sound in your throat.
- Continue practicing this technique, making a "aaa" sound, until you feel comfortable doing it. Stop if your throat feels hot or hurts.
Step 6. Replace the “aaa” sound with “help! Once you are comfortable with making an “aaa” stomach sound, repeat the breathing technique and tense your muscles, then replace the “aaa” sound with words, such as “please”.
- “Help” is a word commonly used in the art of ventriloquism, as belly sound shows often feature dolls trapped in crates or boxes. However, you can also use other words like “get me out” or “here”. You are free to choose any words, but it is recommended to keep them fairly simple, as speaking in a stomach voice will tire your muscles.
- Repeat these words as often as you need, until you are comfortable with the sound they produce.
Step 7. Limit the duration of your workout
Each training session should last no longer than five minutes.
- Stop as soon as you feel severe pain or fatigue in your throat or lungs.
- Your vocal cavity, vocal cords and throat will move and be used in unusual ways. In order not to break down or get too tired, your training sessions should be short and focused.
- As you become more experienced, you may be able to practice a little longer, but these training sessions should still be fairly short.
Part 2 of 3: Hiding Mouth Movement
Step 1. Control the movement of your lips
There are three basic lip positions that are used when speaking with a stomach voice, namely the relaxed position, the smiling position, and the open position.
- Create a relaxed position by slightly parting your lips. Keep your jaw relaxed, so that your top and bottom teeth don't touch each other.
- The smiling position is common in performing ventriloquism, but is not used as often as the relaxed and open positions to produce the remote effect. Create a smiling position by holding your jaw and lips open rather than in a relaxed position. Use the muscles in the corners of the lips, so that the lips are pulled into a thin smile. The lower lip will widen slightly more than in a natural smiling position.
- The open position is great for expressing surprise, but tongue movement can be seen in this position. Keep your mouth open, so that the opening between your upper and lower jaw can be seen. Keep the corners of the lips slightly raised, resulting in a more open version than in the smiling position.
Step 2. Practice with easy sounds
Easy sounds can be produced with little or no jaw movement. Practice each of these sounds in front of a mirror until you feel comfortable with them and don't make unnecessary mouth movements.
- The vowel sounds "A, E, I, O, U" in the short and long versions are among the easy sounds.
- The consonants "K, S, J, G" in soft and loud versions are also easy sounds.
- Other easy sounds for example are "D, H, J, C, L, N, Q, R, T, X, Z".
Step 3. Practice with difficult sounds too, using the “front pressure” position
These more difficult sounds are called “labial” sounds, which means the sounds produced using the lips. But in this technique, you need to use the tongue position instead, which is a position called the "forward pressure" or "pull" position.
- Usually, you make consonant sounds of "B" and "M" with your lips pursed for a moment, but this movement will certainly be clearly visible and make it difficult for you to convince the audience that this sound is not coming from your mouth.
- With the "press forward" position, your tongue serves as a substitute for one of the lips.
- Touch your tongue briefly against the back of the teeth, applying light pressure. Do this movement every time your lips will automatically close when it will produce a certain sound.
- Use this technique to make "B, M, P, F, V" consonants sound. Note that these sounds won't sound exactly the same as if you made them out using a natural motion, but this alternate version is the closest option you can make without moving your lips.
- Don't apply too much pressure and don't touch the tongue to the palate. If you do this, your “B” will sound like a “D” and your “M” will sound like an “N”.
Part 3 of 3: Practice Distraction
Step 1. "Look for" the voice
One way to distract an audience who is listening to you is to pretend to be looking towards the source of the sound, just as they would.
- Contrary to what it may seem, speaking in a belly voice doesn't mean that you can "cover" your voice and make it sound from a specific location. A careful observer will clearly find that this sound is coming from you, even though you may be very good at this technique.
- The success of belly speaking depends on your ability to temporarily convince your audience or listener to pay attention to other focal points to find the direction of the sound.
- Humans have a natural tendency to pay attention to the direction of view that is noticed by others. By giving the impression that you are looking for the source of the sound, you can get many other people to follow your gaze and attention, and effectively search for the source of the sound.
Step 2. Focus on only one sound source waypoint
After you've finished "searching", a good way to keep the audience or listener's attention distracted is to stay focused on the waypoint of the source of the "trick" sound.
This action relies on the same diversion principle you used when you pretended to be looking for the source of the sound at first. Human nature's curiosity makes it look in the same direction that other people are looking. By keeping your gaze fixed on a particular object or point, your audience or listener will naturally follow your gaze towards that object or point. If you persist, they may eventually look back, but their first reaction will be to look in your direction
Step 3. Use nonverbal communication cues
Amplify this impression by responding to your stomach in a normal voice, making it appear as if you are conversing with someone else.
- If you say something surprising, make a gesture that conveys that feeling. Raise an eyebrow, cover your gaping mouth with your hand, or slap yourself on the forehead with your hand as if you can't believe what you just heard.
- Similarly, if you hear words that should make you angry, cross your arms, turn your back so that your back is facing the direction of the source of the deceptive sound, or use gestures or facial expressions that convey anger.
