Vanessa Van Edwards breaks down vocal mistakes people make on video calls: holding your breath, starting high then dropping your pitch. She recommends speaking on the out-breath and using warmth and smiling to improve how you sound.
The biggest mistake that I used to make that I hear a lot of people make on their video calls or on their interviews is they hold their breath and they wait to start, and then they say their hello. On the highest end of their range, they go, hello. Oh, hi. Hi. And then they go down into their lowest range. So make sure, number one, as you were saying hello, I made sure to speak on the out breath. So instead of, hey, I'm happy to be here, I was, hey, I'm so happy to be here. Those sound totally different, but they both come from me, and that is simply an effect of breath. And the second thing is I also try to bring vocal warmth, smiles, change, change the timbre of our voice. So if I smile all the way with my face, all the way up into my upper cheek muscles, and I say, I'm so happy to be here, it sounds different. So I was keeping that gratitude at the very front of my brain.
