Ever feel like you're either too loud or not loud enough in court? This episode is all about finding your volume sweet spot—and learning how to intentionally use volume to move, engage, and persuade a jury.

Learn how to adjust your vocal volume based on room size, proximity, and emotional content—without straining your voice or triggering vocal fatigue.

LISTEN HERE...

🎧 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. How to adjust volume based on your environment and proximity to the jury

2. Why keeping your volume “steady” might be unintentionally sending the wrong message

3. How dynamic volume helps jurors feel your case, not just understand it

4. The difference between compressive and expressive breath—and why it matters for vocal health

5. How to avoid vocal strain and throat clearing by breathing more strategically

6. A “secret formula” to create emphasis using pitch, pace, and volume

🛠️ Free Resource Mentioned:

🎁 Pace & Pause: The Perfect Pair – A free guide to help you find your ideal pacing and pausing rhythm using neuroscience-backed learning principles. Includes real opening statement examples.

💬 Episode Quote to Remember:

"Volume is dynamic. If you keep it static, you’ll accidentally downplay the danger and dull the impact of your client’s story."

📣 Ready for More?

Be sure to grab your free copy of the Pace & Pause guide at fostervoicestudio.com/paceandpause.

📩 Connect with Me:

Join my mailing list for free vocal tips delivered to your inbox weekly: www.fostervoicestudio.com

Follow me on social media:

1. IG: www.instagram.com/fostervoicestudio

2. FB: www.facebook.com/fostervoicestudio

3. LI: www.linkedin/in/fosterthought

And don’t forget—next week we wrap up the 5 Building Blocks series with Tone—the building block that carries emotional truth.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hellloooo! Hello Foster Fam! haha! I'm getting a little ornate in my greetings. Or as we say in my family "Oh sure, now you're just getting fancy." So, yes...we're fancy today. Why? Because my taxes are DONE! Every year I think "I'm totally gonna get them done the first weekend of February" but nooo! Every year, I'm right at the deadline. And, mine aren't even all that complicated. I mean...I'm organized and keep good records throughout the year. They're simple enough that I can do them myself. i HAVE an accountant, but he's more of an advisor who helps me know how to plan, but I do them myself. Anyway...I'm done!

The cool thing though, if there IS a cool thing about doing your taxes, is that it gives me a chance to reflect on the previous year because I go through all my receipts. So, I get to remember the fun dinner I had with a friend, or a show i saw, or a trip I took.

But my receipts also tell a story about how I invested in myself. I see the fast food receipts when when i was on-the-go or decided to stray from the plan I made for that day. For instance, last year was the year I discovered just how delicious KFC biscuits are. I'm not sure why y'all had to gate keep that, or why it took til I was 51 years old to find out, but here we are. So, yeah...there were a fair amount of THOSE stories being told. But...less than the year before. So...yeah!

I also got to see, though, the story of how I went all in on myself. In my first year full-time in my coaching business, I see the receipts for the courses I took, the workshops I attended, the business coaching i received, the PERSONAL coaching I received. 2024 was a year of doubling down on myself as a vocal coach and trial consultant.

Being reminded of that, "hearing" that story again as I reviewed my receipts, was actually really encouraging. I know not EVERYONE has those cathartic moments when doing taxes, and heyo! paying that tax bill is a good jolt awake, but...the question is still a good one to revisit, maybe a couple times throughout the year...how are you investing in YOURSELF? If you have a staff that relies on you, or a family, or if you're a solo firm or solopreneur like me...YOU are your biggest asset. So, how are you doubling down on your investment in yourself this year?

Okay, now before we get into the 4th vocal building block of Volume today, I have to do a quick follow up on the Pace & Melody discussion from last week's episode. Cause AFTER recording it all, I thought "Okay, Kristi, maybe they would appreciate having a way to PRACTICE their pacing and their pausing. Is there some kind of tool you could GIVE them to start making headway on this?"

So I created a free guide called Pace & Pause: The Perfect Pair. You can get it at fostervoicestudio.com/paceandpause all one word. paceandpause. I'll link it in the show notes as well. But it includes some opening statement snippets and instructions for how to determine if you're speaking too fast or too slow based on the principles of cognitive overload and neuroscience guidelines for learning.

I think it's pretty cool. I actually timed myself to see where I was, and...I was pleased to say I was right in the zone. So, pick it up for yourself. It's free. just go to fostervoicestudio.com/paceandpause and I'll send it right to you.

Today, let's talk about VOLUME. How do you decide on how loud you should be? What guides your choice? And how do you create volume without blowing out your voice and causing strain? Or maybe you only have one volume setting—your dial is fixed in place. We need to get curious about that and give you some strategies so you can diversify a bit.

So, what factors go into deciding your volume? (And I DO mean "decide." I'm all about helping you communicate ON PURPOSE. We're not gonna just let our voices happen by chance. Not on my watch.) So how do you DECIDE on your volume?

First, consider the room that you're in. The bigger the room, the louder you need to be in order to project and make sure everyone can hear you.

Think about how you speak to a co-worker or a client in your office. Now think about taking that same conversation to your car. Even though you maintained a totally appropriate volume in your office, suddenly taking that same volume into your car might be too loud, right? A smaller, more closed in space doesn't require as much volume.

But now let's reverse that. Take that more individualized conversation from the car and now put yourself in the courtroom. Too soft, right? It's still the right volume to talk with your co-counsel or aide at your same table, but not loud enough to project to the Judge, to the court reporter, or to the jury.

Which then takes us to the second factor...proximity. So, you need to speak louder in bigger spaces, but as you move closer to the jury, you need to adjust. The closer you get, the softer you can go, otherwise they'll FEEL like you're shouting at them and be alarmed or defensive.

So, being in a courtroom requires some nuance. You don't want the jury to think you're yelling at them, but you still need to speak loud enough for the court reporter to hear you even if your back is to them.

It's harder for people to HEAR you when they can't SEE your face. So keep that in mind too. I sat in on a trial at my local courthouse not too long ago, and the court reporter had to keep asking counsel to repeat themselves. They were not talking loud enough for the space they were in. AND they were talking too fast. They could have used my free Pace & Pause guide. Just sayin'.

But, I just felt bad for them, because they were letting their inattention, or maybe their inability to adjust their volume, get in the way of their flow, their rhythm. They had a hard time driving a point home and getting momentum because they kept getting interrupted and asked to repeat themselves. I died a thousand deaths for them, and with them.

So, the size of room your in, the proximity to & the direction you are to your audience, those are two determining factors. But a third factor is your content, and, maybe more on the nose, your INTENTION for your content.

When you are telling your client's story, if you don't change your volume, if you don't elevate it and get louder in the urgent and emergent moments, you will fail to capture for the jury the danger of the event. Steady, even, middle-of-the-road, talking to a client in your office volume nonverbally communicates "this was no big deal." Your jury will think of the event itself as steady, even, totally normal and fine.

Now, you don't need to whip them up into a frenzy either. But you need to accurately represent the critical moment of impact. You need to capture the crash, the fall, the chaos, the out-of-control moment. And you do that with volume.

Not just louds, but softs too. Volume is DYNAMIC. When you keep it STATIC, without adjustment, steady-as-you-go, you will not successfully give the jury permission to FEEL for your client. You'll accidentally downplay the event that brought you, and them, to the courtroom and dismiss & invalidate their inclination to sympathize with your client.

So, HOW do you create and control volume without causing muscle strain or feeling out of control yourself? Have you ever experienced that feeling of talking to loud and getting that pulled, scratchy feeling in your throat? What happens immediately after that?

The brain senses the vocal trauma and says "Ah-ha! I will save you! I will send phlegm to lubricate and soothe the effected areas." Great! Now you're dealing with constantly clearing your throat to deal with the phlegm issue and you're nervous system is caught in difficult cycle.

So, let's avoid that when we can, okay? Instead, the controller for the volume pedal is your BREATH.

How you breathe, and how you USE your breath will determine how loud you can go without straining and without compromising control of your nervous system.

So, let's do a little breath review, or maybe this will be new to you, in which case, YEAH!! I'm excited for you!

There are two types of breathing for communication: COMPRESSIVE and EXPRESSIVE.

When you speak at a lower volume, you COMPRESS your air and dole it out evenly. If you didn't, (demo breathy) you would just be collapsing on yourself and losing vocal clarity through breathiness. That doesn't work.

(demo level 2/3) But if you talk soft, without whispering and without being breathy, but by keeping your abs engaged and managing a steady stream of air...when you talk soft and compress your air, you can actually talk for quite a while without needing to refuel.

Now, you don't want to just ramble on without pausing, but you don't need your pauses to re-breathe. You just need to pause for clarity and comprehension.

On the flip side, as you increase volume, you begin to EXPRESS your air. Use MORE breath to get louder. Typically, you're not going to have to sustain extreme louds for long. Again, louder volume is really useful for urgent or emergent situations or in your story, or when you become impassioned in order to drive a point home.

(demo level 9/10) The truck driver didn't see the stop sign, so he proceeded into traffic, and CRASH! Miss Johnson SLAMMED into the side of the tractor-trailer, getting WEDGED underneath. There was no WAY she could stop in time.

Hear how you can effectively use volume for bursts of energy? Can you FEEL the urgency of the moment? Can you picture it in your mind—watching it all play out like a movie?

When you jury can feel something about the situation and can visualize it internally, make it their own, connect it to other memories of crashes they've seen either in real life or in movies...THAT's when the information has effectively made it from the information gathering place in the brain, to the decision-making part of the brain. THAT'S when you've prepared them for deciding a verdict for your client.

But USE your air. EXPRESS it for louder volumes so you (demo) avoid constriction and abuse to your vocal cords. Hear how I just cut off the breath? Keep the breath coming! Then, COMPRESS your breath for softer volume so you (demo) sustain the energy and you don't collapse into breathiness.

Last week, I teased that I would be sharing a "secret formula." This is the perfect time to share it in our series of The 5 Building Blocks because the formula involves 3 of the components we've talked about so far.

This is when we get to really play, or rather, really develop strategic and purposeful use of INTERPLAY between the building blocks.

(demo) Using various combinations and levels of Pitch, Pace, and Volume will help you create EMPHASIS and REALLY infuse meaning.

So, I just demonstrated it. Did you hear it? I'll do it again.

"Using various combinations and levels of Pitch, Pace, and Volume" (So far everything's normal. Nice and even.) "will help you create EMPHASIS" (EMPHASIS. I'm lowering my pitch, I'm lowering my volume. EMPHASIS) "and REALLY infuse meaning." (REALLY. I'm lifting my pitch. I'm lengthening the duration of the word. That's pace. REALLY infuse meaning.)

Can you hear it now?

So, there are 3 ways to create emphasis: suddenly change pitch, change pace or duration of words, or change volume. AND, you can mix & match to just use 2 of them or use all three.

This is how you draw out descriptive words and modifiers. For example, you're talking about a tracker-trailer (or we call them semi-trucks here in the NW) but this truck is 80,000 lbs, that doesn't really mean anything to me. I'm not very good with weight measurements and I don't have anything to compare to. Like, I have no idea how much my Honda CR-V weighs. I know it's less than a semi, but hearing a non-emphasized "80,000 lbs" has no MEANING for me.

But if you say that the semi-truck weighed (demo) 80,000 lbs, now you FEEL something right? You can imagine it. It has meaning, even without context and even without comparisons. I SENSE that it is REALLY heavy and poses a very serious threat on the roadway.

"80,000 lbs." I'm emphasizing it and infusing meaning by raising my pitch (80,000 lbs. using my middle voice), lengthening the word (80,000. I don't have to say it that way. I can say it without changing pace, but I'm communicating ON PURPOSE so i'm going to choose to play with pace), and I'm lowering my volume and compressing my air.

Can you hear all three building blocks at play?

So, next week we'll wrap up our series on The 5 Building Blocks by talking about tone. Tone carries emotion so you don't want to miss that episode.

Remember to pick up your free practice guide for Pace & Pausing at fostervoicestudio.com/paceandpause and until next week, keep fostering your voice.