Neil deGrasse Tyson is amazing because he's an astrophysicist and people love to hear
him speak. And if you think back to your high school science class and how bored you probably
found yourself, that is a true testament to his skill as a speaker.
Today we're going to analyze his most powerful tool so that you can learn how to make totally
mundane topics extremely fascinating, and if you're the type of person who struggles
to make even really interesting stories captivating, this will help too.
Just a reminder, if you're a long time viewer of Charisma on Command, you might have seen
a similar video. We're actually updating the old ones in the Throwback Thursday series
to make those old videos more punchy. So, let's go ahead and get started by breaking
down Neil deGrasse Tyson's voice.
What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the universe?
The most astounding fact
The first thing to notice that Neil deGrasse Tyson has a beautiful, silky, smooth baritone
voice, and there's part of this that is impossible to copy, but everyone can learn to create
a lower and more resonate tone, depending on how they train themselves to breathe and
speak. Deeper more resonate tones come from breathing deep and contracting the diaphragm
when you produce sound, and that means that the expansion occurs in your belly and low
back rather than in your chest when you breathe in.
So let me show you what the two sound like.
This is what it sound like when I breathe deep and speak from my diaphragm.
This is what it sounds like when I breathe shallow
and contract more from my throat. So the slower you speak, the deeper you breathe, the lower
your voice is going to sound. And, you'll notice that the beginning of my videos, mine
intends to get pinched because I speak so fast for the YouTube audience to try to make
people stay. That makes my breath more shallow and my voice higher pitched.
Anyways, I'm going to link to a good exercise below that's going to help you condition your
voice, but, for now, let's continue with how Neil uses silence to create tension.
The most astounding fact is the knowledge
that the atoms that comprise life on earth,
the atoms that make up the human body
are traceable to the crucibles.
So you're going to notice two big things here. One, the first thing is how that silence gets
you hanging because he places it before completing his thoughts, and this gets you leaning forward,
in a way, saying go on, go on. It is fantastic for capturing attention. Now, I don't use
it a whole lot on YouTube because clicking away here on YouTube is a lot easier than
walking away from someone in real life, and the attention spans here are very, very short.
But, in your normal speech, play around with slowing your cadence down, and see if that
gets people listening more attentively.
The second thing here is his range. So let's listen again to that last phrase.
are traceable to the crucibles
To the crucibles has such a breathy quality. This is something you'll start to see a lot
from Neil. He has incredible vocal range. Now, I don't just mean that in terms of pitch,
but I mean that in terms of style. He shouts, he speeds up, he emphasizes certain syllables,
and he whispers.
In fact, you'll notice that when someone has your full attention, builds it up to a big
point, and then, whispers, it drags you in even more. You could see in the next part
how he actually plays with these pauses, and, sometimes, he even rushes through the end
of a sentence. He actually blows right by periods as he does in this next part when
he says "these stars."
they cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core, under extreme temperatures
and pressures. These stars are high mass ones among them.
You see that? He actually shifts the speed and the rhythm. He doesn't always pause after
his periods, and he doesn't always connect words right next to one another. Sometimes
he adds a giant pause in the middle of a sentence. That makes his speech much more interesting.
So just watch now how he plays with the cadence, the rhythm, and the style in this next clip.
when unstable in their later years. They collapsed and then exploded, scattering their enriched
guts across the galaxy; guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and all the fundamental
ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas clouds that
People talk about speaking in monotone and that's when you talk like this the whole time.
It's the same tone it puts people to sleep. What they don't realize is that you don't
want to talk in mono anything. You don't want to talk mono speed, and always talk at the
same pace. You don't want to be mono rhythm, and pause only at commas and periods, and
you definitely don't want to be mono style. You want to experiment with breathiness and
punctuated syllables. That variety is what makes a good style. Now, I can't play this
entire clip, but you get the idea of how a mix of these different elements is going to
create Neil deGrasse Tyson's unique style and unique voice. But you shouldn't just copy
his style. You should simply pay attention to how he uses each of those elements for
different effects.
Think of it as kind of colors on a palette. Your own speaking style will be determined
by how you use those different colors. You just want to make sure that you have access
to the whole palette. So alter the speed. Alter the tone. Alter the rhythm. Alter the
volume. Alter the breathiness and the style. Each of those, when compounded and added together
is going to give you 10 times more expressiveness in your voice, and help you to command the
attention of rooms full of people, no matter what you're talking about.
Anyways, I hope that you guys have enjoyed this throwback video. I'm going to include
a link to an exercise that I love from Elliott Hulse. It's going to help you speak more from
your diaphragm, as well as a link to the original video, because Neil's answer here is really
very beautiful. Both of those are going to be in the description. Now, if you like this
and want to learn more about speaking with confidence, we actually have another video
set up that's going to help you to do that. It covers an exercise that you can do before
any big event, whether that's a presentation that you have to give for work, or just speaking
to someone that you want to impress at a job interview or a date. So, if you want to see
that exercise that increases confidence in about one minute, go ahead and click the annotation
here or the link in the description. It's going to take you to a page where you drop
your email and get immediate access to that video.
For the rest of you, let me know if you want more throwback videos on Thursdays in the
comments. I know that some of you may have seen the original, and I only want to continue
to do these if they're genuinely helpful, so please, let me know what you think.
If you're new to this channel and haven't already, please make sure to subscribe. You're
going to get notifications whenever we release a new video so that you don't miss anything.
I just get really excited at the speed that the channel is growing, and it means a lot
to me. So I hope that you all have enjoyed this and I will see you in the next video.