Voice and Accent Expert Patrick Munoz

Is it really possible to change your accent, to change your tone of voice. Speaking? The show about effective speaking in public, to the media, at work and in life. Speaking with TJ Walker. The first thing I do in every media training or presentation training is record people speaking and have them listen to it and make notations of what do they like, what do they not like. It's frankly rare that people don't dislike their voice. They don't like their tone of voice. They don't like how it sounds, nasal quality, you name it. People don't like their voices. Now, I've always cautioned them, time out. Your voice isn't that bad. Let's focus on actually saying something interesting. That's relatively an easy problem to solve. Vocal problems. Accent issues can be hard and difficult, but they can be worked on. They can be improved. My guest today is an expert. I'm not an expert on changing people's accent, changing their vocal qualities. My expert, my guest today is an expert on that. Let's dive right into the interview in just a moment. But remember, as always, we take all of your questions here at Speaking With TJ Walker. Any questions to do with public speaking, speaking to the media, crisis, communications, all you have to do is send them to me tjediatrainingworldwide.com or on Twitter J. Walker. Now let's hop into my conversation with Patrick Munoz, expert out in Hollywood. He's trained some of the top stars and he has a new book out I wanted to bring to your attention. It's called Accent the Complete Guide to Speaking the Standard American Accent. Patrick, thanks for joining us.

TJ thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and to talk to you.

I've had clients over the years say, tj, I want to change my accent. I'm really worried about it. My standard advice has been focus on having an interesting speech first. And as long as people can understand you, that's the bigger issue. But there are some people who, let's face it, are just hard to understand. They need to get better. How do you start with them for.

Those people who are just very difficult to understand?

Yes.

First off, I just want to kind of piggyback on what you said, which is completely true. As far as accents go, I think the richness of accents, the richness of different sounds and the way people carry what their experience is, where they're from, hugely helps the interestingness of people. An easier way to say that is having an accent. It's a great thing. However, there are people who are so Kind of encumbered by the accent that, that they have to just attack those sounds that are giving them the biggest trouble. So what I'd like to do is just. We always do a diagnostic in the first lesson. I go through, talk to them, give them a few pieces to read the course contract. And then what I do is make all those marks about the sounds they have to work on. And if we have time, we really kind of go through all the sounds so they can see what their accent is and then what the standard American accent is and start to incorporate that. However, we really want to kind of do a triage thing, right? So if it is, there is really this difficulty in being understood, we just go right to those sounds, practice them. I show them how to make the sound. For instance, if it's an L sound at the end of a word and we're saying the word fall or well, and they're not making that full action, they're saying fall well and they're not touching their tongue, I show them what to do. I get the mirror out and say, look yourself in the mirror and look at my mouth. Repeat those sounds over and over again. And then we'll put them right in the tongue twisters. We'll take phrases that they need to work on, we'll look at the book, we'll go through those exercises. And that's the easiest way to get them to feel comfortable and confident in knowing how to make the sound. Because really some people as they, you know, maybe English is their second language or they're from different parts of the country, they have done a really good job of doing the sound reproduction on their own, just kind of hearing it and they're kind of like, it's kind of like guessing they're doing it great naturally. But what I like to do is get it so it's really specific. And they go, oh, I see, this is what you do. This is how I do it. Repetition, repetition, practice. Five, ten minutes a day and they're starting to speak way better.

How much is the ability to have a neutral accent or any sort of accent you want a function of having a so called good ear, the way you think of a great musician and how much of it is simply the discipline of working, placing your tongue in the right place, recording yourself. Is it something anyone can do if they are motivated?

The ear ability, the God given ability that your ear can hear things, that you're able to imitate things, is a huge help, is huge. And it can be like that. If that's the case for those of us whose ear is good, but we are not quite sure, it takes some time. Anybody, if they work at it and they have an open mind and they spend five to ten minutes a day really addressing it on their own because we can work for a 50 minute session, but if they work on it every day, anybody can get better now or more standardized accents. Then again, we have the range of people who are coming from other countries that are so strong anybody can get better. But it really, the gift is if you have an ear for it, however, just kind of rigorously going at it and looking at it kind of like a mathematical equation or like going to the gym and doing that same repetition of a pull up or a push up and all of a sudden you have the muscles, it's the same thing for the musculature of your mouth. So anybody can do it. In terms of the end result, anybody is going to get better. Some people are able to conquer it fully. Some people have a huge jump in their understandability, intelligibility, accent, and for them, even the rewards that they get in terms of their own local power, their sounds are going to pay back in work and in their personal relationships and in their overall confidence in life. So good question. Definitely the ear is key and people who can work on it and get better.

In a moment I want to dive in a little deeper and go into some of the nitty gritty of your book Accent the Complete Guide to Speaking the Standard American Accent. But I have to hop in with something else sooner. When friends and family of mine found out I was interviewing you and some of your top Hollywood clientele, they said you've got to ask him. Why is it a so called movie star like Matthew McConaughey always sounds like Matthew McConaughey. Arnold Schwarzenegger always sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Aren't there enough actors in Hollywood who can do any accent that producers don't have to rely on? People who can't seem to, I won't say can't act, but can't do any accent other than their own.

Well, there you go into the. It's kind of celebrity versus the actor as a craftsperson. So you have actors who, let's say Australian actors, Hugh Jackman, Hugh Laurie or American actors, Meryl Streep.

She can do anything.

They can do anything. They're really actors, they're stars. And yes, and Meryl Streep is a celebrity, celebrity, star, actor. But those are. We have the celebrities. Imagine McConaughey, he pretty much keeps to his Texas accent.

Is that a function of just laziness, he doesn't want to learn? Or is it that what Meryl Streep does is so wildly difficult that even if he spent 10 hours a day, he wouldn't get any better at it?

God, that's a good question. So Matthew McConaughey. I don't know. I don't know. I've never worked with him. It certainly does suit him. And he certainly does do things for the role where he is an actor. I mean, he. His. The weight that he loses for the Dallas 40, Dallas, Dallas club, Dallas Buyers Club. That is amazing. He's an amazing actor. He does tend to kind of keep in the range speech wise. And Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't think he can do anything or he cares about it. I know I had Penelope Cruz is one of my clients. And I don't think for her it mattered in the end so much. She really wanted to work on it, but it's about that kind of what each person kind of feels is important for themselves. Like, what is it for her? It was important, but at a certain point, I think she just wanted to get her voice to be stronger, which actually, after we worked together, one of the reviews in the New York Times for one of her films was, her tone is stronger, her voice is stronger. But it really is interesting, tj, that actors, some actors, that's who they are. You're going to see them play the same part in. In every role. That's who they are. Cary Grant always had his English accent and whatever role he was in and he made it happen for himself. So it is a kind of thing like, this is who I am. This is who I'm gonna be in every role. And that's what I bring to my character. And there are some actors who are like, I'm gonna be a Leonardo DiCaprio and I'm gonna work with Timothy Monica and I'm gonna have a different accent in each of my roles. And that's part of it. So it really is kind of their own sort of sense. And are there actors who could play the role that would have the authentic accent? Yes, there are, but we need people who are. Producers need people who have names who can get that out there. So the advice to actors who are. My advice to actors, I was an actor to actors who are in their formative years or even going on in their career, is to have the ability to change. I think most actors want to do it because they're excited to play different characters. So if you can only do one accent, then you're kind of limiting yourself. And if you can do all kinds of accents and then make it not be about the accent, make it be about the connection you have as the character to the other person and to the telling of the story, then you're in great shape.

Let's switch gears away from Hollywood. Let's imagine that someone is, let's say, an up and coming executive, whether they are from the south, from the Northeast, but they are a professional person. They are well educated, but they're self conscious about having either a southern accent, an outer borough, New York accent, Brooklyn or New Jersey accent. They want to soften the edges and get to the point where people can't really tell where they're from. How do they use your book? How do they work with someone like you to get to that point?

Perfect. So in the book Accent American, you just open it up and you start to do the exercises that are in the warm up. So it starts off and it's very organized. It's simple. I did it purposely as a very thin book. So it's kind of like a primer or a primer, however you want to say that. But it really gets you started in, first of all, developing your voice. I have a lot of executives, authors, founders of organizations, companies, and people who are really successful. And they know a lot. And so at a certain level, tj, you know, you coach people in public speaking and as you said, just have your message be important, have the speech be important, have what you are saying, have a passion for them. So for a lot of my people who come to me, they want to work on the accent, they want to work on their intelligibility, they want to work on the power of their voice. So what you do is you start with the book, open it up and start. And it says how to use the workbook. And basically it says on how to use the workbook go some simple things by opening your mouth more than you're used to. Practice speaking in a flowing way. But the big thing is identify which sounds need improvement and put your focus on those. So what you'll do first of all is go through the first section of the book, which are the warming up your voice, articulation exercises, tongue twisters, so you feel confident in your speech, you feel really like you have more power in your voice. Then to go through and find out what those sounds are for yourself. I do consultations on that with people online and I'll give them a rundown of what the sounds are. They need to focus on. And then download the audio from the book, which is included in the purchase of the book, and start to go over those sounds. Put your headphones on or just turn it on your desktop. Get your iPhone or your smartphone out and record yourself repeating after you hear my voice. And then go back and say, because that's the important part. Oftentimes our ear doesn't hear the way we're talking, but when we hear it objectively on the iPhone, on the smartphone, and. And you can hear yourself in relation to what you're hearing from me, then you can say, oh. This whole time I thought I was saying fill, but I was saying feel, feel. Oh, I need to say fill, fill, feel. And give yourself some time again, 10 minutes a day, just to kind of practice to get those sounds in your mind and just say like, oh, it's that single sound, I as in fill, that I tend to go feel. And if I can just remember as I read through this, going through these single vowel sounds that fill is a single vowel sound. There is no movement. Then I'll go from saying this diphthong feel to fill. And that's what you do. And then there's also some work in there for sentences.

I apologize for interrupting, but I have to ask you from one trainer to another, and we do have a large part of our audience, trainers, people in public relations fields who are working with executives who are self conscious about their accent issues. What percentage of people will actually record and listen to their own voice on their own if you're not there standing over them? Because that's the bane of my existence. I can help people all day long become better speakers, better media communicators. When I'm there in the room, I don't give them the option. I record it, play it back. We do that a dozen times. But when I try to encourage people to go to my own online programs, public speaking, I always say, record yourself speaking. Upload it here. Far, far fewer than not 1% but 1% of students ever do that. So I'm just wondering if you have a better track record.

I can't say that I do. I can think about myself when I took piano lessons. So I took piano lessons as a kid and then took a big break from when I went back in my 30s. I started to train again in piano. And I was always. It was the same story. Same story, T.J. okay, so I'm seeing him Wednesday as my daily day, you know, for my weekday to study. So we do it Wednesday. Like, I am motivated. I'M gonna practice the next day.

Thursday.

Oh, I have to go do. I'm hiking. I have to go do some work here. I have coaching. Saturday, Sunday. Okay. I'll practice for 10 minutes. Yes. Follow through is super difficult and especially about getting the feedback. So what I do, most of my clients, especially the clients who get the best results, are the ones probably this is yourself are the ones that I see every week. And as far as how many people are actually doing the work. Some people are hard workers. They're so motivated. It's interesting. They are like type A's and they're going to, they're going to work on this. Other people are type A's but don't have the time or the discipline. So in answer to your question, I couldn't give you a statistic. I can say that it makes it a heck of a lot easier. I know for myself. Tj, in terms of doing my business, I have an assistant come once a week. We work for five hours. We focus. I need somebody, I admit it, I need somebody to coach me. That's what I like, to provide for other people. So in terms of them doing it on their own, you need to get somebody, whether it's me, whether it's you, for voice, particularly for this.

Well, it's not me. I definitely cannot help their accent.

So let me clarify that to the world.

I do have clients ask about it from time to time. Here's my experience. About a third of my clients, they come in for a day of public speaking training or media training. I always record them first, ask them what they like and don't like. I would say about a third of my clients, which is fairly representative of a professional, successful population, about a third of people hate their voice, think that their voice is dramatically substandard. Whereas in all the years I've done this, more than 30 years, probably 10,000 clients, I really only remember one client who truly had an awful, awful voice. I always tell people, you may disagree. I'd like to hear your opinion. There's basically three types of voices in the world. There's the top.0001%, where their voice is so distinctive, so melodious, so pleasing that they can roll out of bed at noon, tape a voiceover commercial, get a million dollar check and go back to bed or go to the beach. There's the bottom 0.0001% of people. Their voice is so irritating, awful, screechy. People would rather jump out a window than have to listen to them. And then there's the other 99.99% where our voices aren't so fantastic, people are going to give us money. It's not so awful. People are going to leave the room. They're just voices that help us communicate. I'm interested in your own take of those. Those two perspectives, your perspective of your clients, how they rate their own voices, and then how you rate that spectrum of great, normal, and awful.

I love it. So in terms of how they rate their own voices, because I'm a voice and speech coach, and because many of my clients are coming to me for beyond just the accent work, coming for vocal power, things like that, a lot of people come to me, not a lot, and they think, what would I say? I would say about 30% of my clients who come to me telling me they don't like the sound of their own voice, I say, listen, you actually have a really nice voice. And sometimes it's because there's tension there. There's tension that they just let it relax. All of a sudden, they get this kind of comfort. So in terms of the people being. People who come to me tend to be a little bit harder on their. Themselves, because for whatever reason, it's feedback that we've gotten from the world, from our teachers, our parents. I have one student whose brother is a. Is a speech pathologist and kind of always gave her a hard time. I have another about her voice. I'm like, well, did he ever help you? No. So we get these loops for ourselves and even for myself. Tj, I. When I was growing up, I had a nice. I think my voice was nice, but my speech, I can still start to go so fast. That's where my natural pace is, to go so fast. And so by doing all these exercises over the years, again, like you, 30 years of doing work that I've controlled with my voice. So I would say many people who come to me are more critical of their voice than they need to be that I would tell them to be. And as a professional, you and I, we can say to them, your voice is great. Embrace it. Embrace it. But I think, what happens? So that's the one part. The answer to the second question. I totally agree with the 0.999% about the people being this wonderful, melodious voice. They walk out and you go, wow. Every once in a while you hear that, you just think, oh, my God. And. And they said oftentimes, if they're not actors, they'll say, you know, well, I've told my speed I should do something about my voice. Well, yeah, you should. But it's a naturally. It's a natural attractor. It's great. So that's that. As far as most people, I think their voices work pretty well. I would give it a much higher percentage of people who use their voice to their disadvantage. To their disadvantage. Now, that would be the nasal voice. Voices who are nasal, that kind of, like, type voice. That voice that's kind of high pitched and it's coming right from the throat. The people who are very quiet.

That was a good Mike Tyson impression, by the way.

People are very quiet and can't be any kind of louder when they're talking. And again, all of these things have, like, psychological ramifications, not from them, but from the other person. So if you are speaking very quietly, it really does in a way, in the kind of opposite way, kind of commands attention. You have to really scoot in to listen to somebody. That's a little bit tiring in terms of. I just was talking to somebody this week I met. I was on a little vacation, and they spoke in that manner. And I was. I mean, I put so much effort into it. I was tired. I thought, I don't really want to talk to this person anymore because it's taking too much effort. It wasn't somebody who was a good friend. In that case, I would say, could you speak up? But that's one of the cases. Too lightly, too fast. A lot of people out here, you're in New York, it's a different situation. But in California, we have a lot of women, young women, who have that Kardashian phase. It's called vocal fry. For me, it'll sound like an old man, but their voice kind of goes like this when they finish their sentences. And it's all. So I would really rate. I'm going to say you're kind, but I think most of your clients who are coming to you, tj, are public speakers. So already they're at the level that the voice is coming to their consciousness and they. They want to get better. Now at this part, they're putting it all in the frame and painting the picture for me. I noticed just in the. In the number of people I run into on the streets, the people my clients overall listening on tv, that there is a high percentage of people who are using their voice in a way that does not sound good. That is off putting. Maybe it's not off putting to everybody, but it's off putting to the people who. If they had a voice that was more pleasing in some way or more full or more resonant, they could really advance in their personal lives and their careers and the way they felt about themselves.

Our special guest is Patrick Nunoz. For more information on him, you can go to his website. Just spell out the name P A T R I C K M U N O z dot com. Switching gears, Patrick. Speech impediments. How big of a problem is it for adults and how hard is it to overcome? We're recording this during political season with major presidential conventions going on. So it brings to light a number of top politicians with speech impediments. Rudy Giuliani has a lisp. John McCain has a lisp. There are several commentators on MSNBC and other networks with lisps, for that matter. Churchill, Winston Churchill had a lisp and a stutter. How much does it matter if you have a compelling message, number one? Number two, if you are an adult, let's say you're over 30 and you already have a good career, how time consuming is it not just to change your accent, but to actually overcome or fix an impediment?

Great question. So a quirky voice. By quirky, I just mean that it's a voice that has, let's say, an impediment or an obstacle is a little bit different. So a lisp stutter, maybe. Not saying. There are. It's an interesting. It's, it's fascinating, T.J. because if it's part of who you are and you own it and you're in the middle of your career and you do it and this is the way you speak and you're out there and you're doing things and people say, oh, you shouldn't have that list. But you're like, but you, you're okay with it. You're okay with it. You do it and you're like, yeah, I have this, but I'm not going to work on it. I say the more power to you. I mean, as a voice and speech coach, I could be very like, this is the way you should do it. It's about for me, I know it's about for you because you just said it a moment ago. It's about communicating. That's all it is. It's about communicating. So as far as people who have impediments and they embrace them and they can do it, and it's not detracting from their advancement in their own personal life. I think it works out more power to them. A lot of people who have impediments, as an adult, I've had people come to me in their 20s and they couldn't say their ahs. And so it was very difficult to say their ahs. And it wasn't a New York thing, it was just they couldn't say their ahs. And we tried to get. Tried to do was very disheartening for my client. I'm thinking of young twenties, young man in his twenties. And in fact, when I talked about how that, you know, certain sound, sound like the Boston accent, he said, well, I could just say I'm from Boston. And I said, you could. And we could work at a Boston exit. But for him it was a little bit challenging. But by working on it, it got better. It got better. And because he's a good looking man, he's a good looking man who did modeling. He's going into a profession where he's going to be a salesperson at a higher end and he wants it. I'm not telling him what he has to do, but he wants to be able to speak in a way that sounds more professional. He can work on it. We met once a week. We did over the course of 12 weeks, 12 sessions, his Rs got much better. Were they perfect? No, but they were much better. And he did it. I've had girls, I've had a woman who was an actress who had a lisp. And as an actress she has a better ear perhaps and a more compelling reason to get rid of that lisp. And we did it in six sessions. The lisps are oftentimes easier to take care of. The R sound is very challenging. The stutter is about relaxation and about exercises. Oftentimes when they start to sing, that stutter goes away. But I was watching this show on tv, Bloodline, and apparently he was on something else before. I don't know the actor's name, but he played the DA and he has his Aww. Probably he doesn't say his ahs right, but he has a major role and this is what he plays when he's playing these roles. So. And I've watched, I was watching an off Broadway show a few years ago and this woman had a lisp. It's like, it was like a thick S, he would say, but she works all the time. It is such. I'm so glad. We live in a world that if you have something and you believe in it, you can make yourself. If you believe in yourself and you're doing this and you have some feedback from the universe that this is all working, go for it. But like all of us, I know for myself I've had my own fears and my own obstacles to get over. And by doing that, by facing it, that fear and getting over that obstacle, I feel so much more in my life, so much more whole. And I want to get better and better as I get older and as I teach and I learn from my clients. So for those people, it's doable. Do they have to all of a sudden go away from their life and spend all their time working on it?

No.

If they spend a few minutes a day identifying it and they have the discipline to do that with a coach, do it for six weeks, 12 weeks, see what happens. And from that they can see. And if they think this is impossible, at least they faced it. But to walk away from something and say, I'm not going to do it because I'm never going to say my ahs. Well, that's the only impediment to actually learning is saying no. You say yes, let me try, then you can go from there. So in a long answer to your question, all my answers are long to your questions. And that is, that's okay.

This is the program, this is in fact the program for really in depth answers to questions about speaking. So if anything, I want them longer. I would be remiss if I let you get away without weighing in on one other. What I see as a major controversy regarding voice, use of the vocal vocal cords and that is with respect to women, every six months I see some article by some putative expert saying women aren't respected as much as men because they don't speak in as low a voice and if they just spoke lower, they would be more respected, get more promotions. I have a particular theory on those theories, but I want to hear from you first.

It's interesting. So we have in communication, I've been working with the call center recently, working coaching for them and the tone of voice. So on a call, tone of voice and what you say, what you say part is I think 12%. It was a study done by a UCLA professor years back. And tone of voice, what you're saying, the way you say it, that's like 80% or 88% of what you're communicating the words about 12% for this kind of communication that we have. I see you, you see me, body language is 50%. I'm getting the statistics wrong. But that's a large part what I say, 20% and the tone is 30%. So this goes back to the tone of the voice. Right? Because if it's a high pitched voice, then that can be taken many ways. So women's voices, we all have our own little attitudes and our own beliefs, how we react to different voices. Some people, I've had women come to me and say, my voice is too high, I need to get it fuller. Well, oftentimes, and here's my take on this, TJ is that most of us, I would say 90% of Americans and 70% of the world are making it up, don't use their voice fully. Right? Especially Americans, we all talk from our throat right here. This is where we talk from. This is where the sound comes from. So how can we really use our voice fully if that's what we're talking from? We don't have any kind of impact from our body, our resonators. So I think they're doing a disservice to themselves. And I'm not going to point out just women. I'm going to say men and women are doing a big disservice to themselves when they're not finding out that they have this bigger, fuller, stronger voice that can last them for their life. Women, their voices are higher in excitement. When we get excited, men and women, we can start, Our voice can start to pitch up. So as a woman, if my voice is high or, you know, again, some women have higher voices, some have lower voices, but if I'm starting from a platform, my voice is already a little higher, then I get excited and then it starts to go up here again. Some people, that's fine, they love it. That's great. For some people, if you've been in a restaurant and there's a table of young women and they start to get excited about something, all of a sudden, the voice, as all of us like this, it's like very high now. It's a very terrible impersonation. And all of us are not going to be, you know, be accused of being sexist. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that as a, as a woman, you keep. We have to kind of look at life as life is and life is changing. Luckily we have more opinions and more open mindedness and realizations of only our own power. And having said that as a woman, to be unfairly branded as, oh, they're screechy or they're this. I think that's completely chauvinistic. But I do think that they can, they are doing a disservice to themselves if that's the only voice they know. Because oftentimes, TJ We've been conditioned to speak in a certain way, either consciously or unconsciously. We, we've gotten this feedback like, oh, boys don't cry. Boys don't cry. Boys don't cry. So men, we don't. We hold and so we don't show emotions perhaps, and suddenly we're losing part of our communication, which is some sort of an emotional voice. Now, some people are not emotional. Some people are more. I want you to be who you are, but as a woman and as a man, to develop your voice and have that whole range is really going to do you well. Now, there was one politician recently that some of my students, interestingly enough, have said to me, if you could only coach her. We really want you to reach out to her and coach her because that voice gets kind of screechy and other people say, oh, and a few people say, that voice of hers is so wonderful. She has such a strong, commanding voice. So again, it gets to the range of opinions. I will say this, and I know for sure, having a voice where you breathe and it's relaxed and it's open and that's your base, you'll be in good stead in whatever situation. If your voice goes high, that's great. It will most likely then come back down. And even more important than that, it will last through these. It's the week of conventions. The week of conventions when you have to be out there talking loudly or when you're on the campaign trail and you're speaking all the time. You want to have a dependable voice. So working on your voice will always be to your benefit.

The book is Accent the Complete Guide to Speaking the Standard American Accent. It's available at Amazon.com, finer bookstores everywhere. The author, Patrick Munoz, you can find him. Talk to him about personal coaching sessions. If you're interested in any aspect of improving your voice accent, go to patrickmounoz.com P A T R I C K M u n o z.com Patrick, thank you for being our guest today.

It has been a pleasure. Thank you. TJ.

Speaking with TJ Walker is the number one rated daily streaming TV and radio show devoted to all aspects of speaking and communication. If you received value from this show, then please subscribe to it@mediatrainingworldwide.com Please review the show, leave comments and share it with your friends and colleagues today.