PLACEMENT

this is a line from later in this video

if you can improve your placement you

will immediately sound more natural

every time you speak English I’ve been

making videos on American English on

YouTube for 11 years and this is

probably the most excited I’ve ever been

about a video there’s one thing that

affects the sound of the voice when a

non-native speaker is speaking American

English more than anything else and

really affects whether or not someone

sounds American its placement maybe

you’ve never even heard this word before

not many teachers talk about it and I

will say it’s one of the hardest things

to teach but today we’re gonna talk

about it we’re going to use a mixing

engineer and a scientific paper to

understand what is placement here is a

taste of what we’ll explore hi I had the

mixing engineer change the placement

thank you send I’m Mike we’re going to

get to the details of all of this but I

want you to know that almost all of my

students need to work on their placement

it doesn’t matter what your native

languages by the end of this video

you’re going to understand what

placement is and be able to change your

placement to unlock a more natural

American voice within yourself and

please remember if you like this video

or learn something be sure to like it

and subscribe with notifications thank

you guys several months ago I asked you

to send in videos of yourself saying a

dialogue so I could use your examples to

teach here on YouTube thank you all of

the examples in this video including the

one you already heard came from you guys

and by the way if you didn’t see last

week’s video that is a great one where I

use your videos to teach about American

English pronunciation be sure to check

it out placement affects the overall

quality of the voice almost all of my

students placements are too high it

doesn’t matter the native language

Chinese Japanese Korean

enemies Thai Arabic Hindi Spanish

Portuguese French and so on the natural

production of these languages is

different than English so I found a

mixing engineer here on YouTube who

could play with the formants of the

voice in a minute we’re going to talk

about what that means but first I just

want you to hear the difference so he

took the person we listened to whose

native languages Chinese and changed the

formants hey what do you want to do

tonight

the first one is her voice as she

recorded it the second one has a

different quality because Mike played

with the formants of the sound what

would you want to do tonight

what did you want to do tonight then he

took my voice and he did the opposite

we’ll call the student that were working

with here Z he took these voice and

played with the formants for it to have

a more American quality then he took my

voice and did the same thing in Reverse

to try to make the quality of my voice

reflects the quality of her voice what

do you want to do tonight what do you

want to do tonight

changing the formants really changes the

quality of the voice doesn’t it listen

to my whole mini conversation with that

formant shift I feel like just watching

TV

sure so what is a formant and how does

it change your voice so much it’s not

the pitch the pitch or the fundamental

frequency is the same the vocal cords

vibrate at a pitch those are two

different vowels on the same pitch why

did they sound different because of the

shape of my mouth my tongue position was

different my lip position what the vocal

cords were doing didn’t change the pitch

was the same but the quality of the

sound was affected by the shape of the

vocal tract which affected the sound

part of the sound called performance

formants are free

seas of sound above the fundamental

frequency that’s the pitch if this feels

kind of technical stick with me the

payoff in this video what you’re going

to learn to do with your voice is going

to be huge okay so the vocal cords make

the fundamental pitch and the shape of

the vocal tract makes the formants the

formants are what make different sounds

like oh as my pitch stays the same but

they can also affect the quality of the

vowel so you can either sound very

natural speaking American English or not

very natural depending on what’s

happening with your vocal tract so you

may know exactly the tongue lip and jaw

position for an American vowel but if

the rest of your vocal tract your throat

isn’t shaped right you’ll never be able

to get the American quality of that

vowel so we can change the formants of a

sound by changing the shape of the vocal

tract in a minute we’re going to tell

you what you want to do to sound more

American but we can also change the

formants by recording a voice and having

a sound mixer play with it I’m gonna let

sendai Mike explain this more he’s the

recording and mixing engineer in Seattle

then we’re going to get into a lot more

real-life student examples so you can

start to find the right shape of your

own vocal tract most y’all are probably

familiar with pitch shifting pitch

shifting especially going would just

become really popular in hip-hop and rap

music so pitch shifting is when you

change the fundamental frequency of your

voice and we will talk about using that

to sound more natural in this video but

at the moment let’s hear about formant

shifting now formal shifting is similar

to pitch shifting but the difference is

when you form it shift audio B note and

I mean the keyboard stays the same but

they can gets deeper depending on which

direction your opponent sitting so if

you’re forming something you can

seeing a constant note and it would stay

in key as you form it shift up and down

ok he did a lot of formant shifting and

that’s what he did earlier two V’s voice

and my voice so we could really see how

it affected this sound and it either

made the sound thinner or heavier and as

we’ll see in the students that we’re

going to study most people have the

sound of it’s too thin I’ve been in

touch with a few students in my Academy

who’ve mentioned recently the idea that

they had to use a different voice which

I would say is a different shape to

their vocal tract in order to speak

American English one student said one of

my American friends told me that my

presence and my voice doesn’t match for

American people my natural Japanese

voice is pretty high so the pitch of

American English is often a little bit

lower than what my students want to do

and the placement the quality of the

sound affected by the formants is also

lower another student said your advice

to keep low placement in mind to sell to

me a lot my native language is Russian

we came to the u.s. seven years ago and

unlike me my son picked up the American

accent very quickly every time he heard

me speaking English he asked me why I

was changing my voice to the higher

pitch and I didn’t I just used my

Russian voice coming from the front part

of my mouth and it didn’t sound very

good

so she was making all the sounds of

American English tongue position lip

position jaw drop but the rest of her

vocal tract was in the shape of what she

would use for Russian so that made her

American English sound higher and

thinner because in American English we

have a lower placement so how can you

get a lower placement let’s look at a

scientific paper I’m going to put the

full name of the paper and the authors

in the video description to understand

this paper let’s do a very quick anatomy

lesson for the voice this will help you

picture what you need to change in your

throat in order to sound more American

the vocal chord

are here they’re what vibrate and make

the fundamental frequency or the pitch

when your air comes up from your trachea

your pitch changes as your larynx which

is this bigger thing moves in ways that

make the vocal chords change in tension

or thickness this kind of thing think of

it as a guitar string it makes a

different sound depending on where you

put your finger on it when you pluck it

as you affect the length of the string

so the air comes up from your lungs

through your trachea vibrates your vocal

chords and creates your fundamental

pitch but the key to changing your sound

is knowing that your larynx here also

called voice box can be moved by the

complex series of muscles in your neck

that attach it to the bones it can be

moved up or back down it can be moved

forward it can be moved backward and all

of these things affect not the pitch

because that’s the vocal chords but they

affect the formants the other sounds

above that frequency and those formants

are what will give you an American voice

or not so in order to have the right

shape of the vocal tract to sound more

American you want a lower larynx or

voice box your native language may have

your voice box in a slightly different

place in your throat that will change

the way you sound so if you think of a

wide-open neck I think that helps my

students release the muscles in their

neck which then helps the larynx or the

voice box drop down and that gives your

vocal tract the right shape for the

American placement since we’re here

let’s just talk about a few other things

that can affect your sound we have these

open cavities in our mouth and then our

nasal cavity and an open cavity is where

sound will vibrate and it will change

the quality so in American English

none of our vowels are nasal vowels that

means here’s our hard

at our roof of our mouth there’s also a

soft palate and when that’s raised it

prevents air from going up into the

nasal cavity but when it’s down air can

go up and it can change the sound so ah

becomes a so the soft palate being

closed or lifted is also very important

and where your voice vibrates where your

placement is we want to avoid nasal

vowels in American English but the main

takeaway of the paper is your larynx

should be in a lowered relaxed position

in order to give your throat the right

shape for American English you want to

let go of the muscle tension in your

neck to try to let your larynx lower and

find that right placement with arrays’

larynx a sound with this same

fundamental frequency will sound thinner

and less resonant and that’s not what we

want to match the american quality we

want it warmer and more resonant the

main reason for this perceptual effect

is that larynx raising can cause a rise

in the frequency of the formants which

gives the sound a different quality so

in your own native language you have the

pitch the fundamental frequency that’s

natural for your language you have your

articulate errs tongue teeth lips that

you use to shape and create the

different sounds of your native language

but then you also have the shape of your

vocal tract that affects the formants of

the sound and therefore the quality of

the sound and most people when they’re

learning English learn about and think

about just the articulator x’ tongue

position lip position for a sound but if

you don’t change the shape of your vocal

tract of your throat and you use the

shape that’s natural for your own native

language then you’ll never have a truly

American quality to your voice and

that’s why we work on placement right

away in Rachel’s English Academy because

why work on all the sounds if you

haven’t first worked on the overall

quality of the voice so that’s what

we’re gonna do here today we’re going to

work on the overall quality of your

voice

it affects your sound every time you

speak English

if you can improve your placement you

will immediately sound more natural

every time you speak when I work with a

student on placement what I do is this I

have them say something in English

anything and then I try to imitate them

I imitate their placement and I

alternate between that and a more

American placement and I talk about what

I’m changing what you need to do as a

student is this use your ears to notice

the different qualities of the sounds

and then play with your own voice tense

and places relaxed and places think of

being wide and low try to find as many

different kinds of voices as you can

okay let’s jump in with the students

we’re going to go back to V we’re

actually going to come to the desk so

that we can watch these students

together I feel like just watching TV I

feel like I feel like I feel like I feel

like I feel like I feel like I feel like

one thing I want to say is we should all

be imitating together try to imitate the

students and try to imitate me imitating

the students and try to imitate me when

I am putting in a more American

placement imitating and playing with our

voices and trying to match things is the

best way to find a new placement I think

I feel like I feel like I feel like I

feel like I feel like I’m trying to

place that really high here I feel like

I feel like to do that one of the things

I do is I bring a little bit of extra

pressure here to the front of my throat

I feel like I it helps me throw it into

this part of my face more i-i-i-i-i I

feel like I feel like and if I let that

go there then it lets me lower my

placement I feel like now I do want to

say I think her pitch is a little bit

higher than what would be more natural

for American English I feel like can

I’d be I feel like I feel like just

watching TV so my pitch is lower now it

used to be when I was working with

students I would say don’t worry about

your pitch its placement it’s the sound

of the formants but then I realize that

yes there are two separate things but

often lowering their pitch their

fundamental frequency helped with the

overall tone because all of those

frequencies were also lower gave them a

warmer tone and that’s really what we

want also I do think in general a lot of

people’s natural pitch for American

English is a little bit high so lowering

the pitch can bring the fundamental

frequency somewhere that is a little bit

more natural but then it also has that

nice effect of warming the voice more so

try that try recording yourself saying

something just listen to the phrase and

listen to it so many times that you have

the melody in your head and then try to

bring the pitch down a little bit I feel

like I feel like I feel like I feel like

you can do a sliding thing down to try

to find a lower pitch and you know go as

low as you can

I feel like I feel like you’re probably

not gonna speak from there but the more

range you find the more you’re gonna be

able to play with your voice and find

something that’s comfortable okay so for

Vivian I had to try to release some

tension in the front of my neck I can’t

say that that’s exactly how she is

producing that sound but I do know that

if she thinks of a wide open neck and

let’s things sort of sink down that that

will probably help okay our next

students native language is Hindi I feel

like just watching TV just watching TV

just watching TV just watching TV just

watching TV just watching just watching

to me the place where this can resonate

is very narrow just watching

just-just-just just watching just

watching it it’s all here and if I let

my throat and neck relax it opens up

this part down here and it allows the

voice to come down and it just lets

there be more room for resonance so

again a lowering a releasing of tension

higher up in the throat I feel like just

watching TV that lets the placement

lower another thing that I tell my

students in the Academy is a couple

things you can actually think of your

mouth being here or I have one exercise

where I have them feel like their chest

is actually a speaker where the voice

comes out and that they don’t have a

mouth but by lowering in your mind with

your imagination where your voice is

coming out can also help let go of the

tension above that point so that could

be an exercise for you to try lay down

close your eyes visualize that mouth

there take a breath in and then speak

and really in your mind’s eye see that

happening from this mouth you may find

that it helps you release some tension

that you didn’t even know that you had

in your neck our next students native

language is Russian Hey

gonna do tonight hey what do you wanna

do tonight hey what are you gonna do

tonight hey what do you want to do

tonight hey hey hey

again it feels very narrow all of the

places in my body and my throat that

could vibrate it feels like I’ve

squished that down hey hey hey

and it feels forward in the face in the

nose hey and just really small that way

we want to open that up hey hey one

thing that I tell my students sometimes

to do this hey hey opening up is really

think of releasing the muscles in the

back of the neck sometimes I almost I’ll

tell them to almost even think of there

being like a heavy weighted blanket sort

of pulling things down anything to

counteract tension and pulling things up

huh hey hey hey hey are you practicing

along out loud try to find both of those

sounds hey hey

it’s not just about the jaw drop but you

might be noticing that I am dropping my

jaw try it try whatever you can just see

if you can find those two different

sounds the pitch is the same this sounds

are the same it’s the formants in the

throat in the rest of the vocal tract

that is making them sound so different

our next students native language is

Ukranian I feel like just watching TV I

feel like just watching TV I feel like

just watching TV I feel like just

watching TV I feel like just watching TV

I feel like just watching TV TV TV TV

for that I’ve sort of got a little

pocket of resonance here and then also

one in my nose TV TV I want this column

of connection through everything TV TV I

want to always feel like everything is

connected down to this anchor root here

this is what is where the voice is being

produced

I mean it’s being produced in the vocal

in the vocal cords here the voice box

but we want to use our imagination to

bring in more of the body lower it down

get that warmer residence resonance TV

TV TV TV you know when I imitate other

students I often have to tense things

visibly in a way that they don’t to try

to get the tension inside and so this

can be something that you can play with

even just it you know just trying to

loosen things up find that things are

really relaxed TV TV because what is

causing the attention mostly is internal

things that we can’t see not external

things like the articulator x’ and I

found that when we’re talking about

relaxing these things that we can’t see

and that we don’t know very much about

it just works well to use your

imagination like I said the mind’s eye

of the mouth here I have a couple

exercises in the Academy where I walk my

students through a guided relaxation

exercise just to sort of try to find

that place where you can reset you know

sometimes when students are practicing

on something they’ll get tense and the

more tense things are the more the

placement gets out of whack and so just

to take a moment and to relax and

release and think low and open and sort

of reset to that spot can really help

with their placement our next students

native languages Mandarin Chinese and

her placement is nothing like Mandarin

Chinese she’s obviously done a lot of

work on finding something new but it’s

still not quite right but let’s listen

to it and talk about it I don’t know I

feel like just watching TV I don’t know

I feel like just watching TV I don’t

know I feel like just watching TV I feel

like I feel like just watching okay so I

think her pitch is lower than it would

have been and she’s bringing in this

breath

in an effort to change the quality of

her voice and Bravo she has done it you

really do not sound like a typical

Mandarin speaker speaking American

English however it feels to me like it’s

gone a little bit in a husky direction

and that is also not completely natural

for speaking American English so let me

listen to it again I don’t know I don’t

know so for me to try to get that sound

I am sort of pressing forward here in a

way that’s trying to cause more opening

higher up in the throat I don’t know but

really what we want is thinking down low

and open not high and open I don’t know

so instead of thinking that you’re

finding something here what would happen

if in your mind you let that go and you

brought it down and you like imagine

some well or some lake here in your

chest I don’t know and then think oh my

voice is attached to that and that’s

what’s coming out that might help

release and find that low open placement

but the thing I love about what this

student has done is they’ve found

something completely different she’s

really played with it and tried

different qualities of the voice and

that’s so important as you work play

with it finds new things find new sounds

because often students will try to

change something and they’ll need to

change it this much and they’re

comfortable changing it this much or

this much and I try to get them note you

got to do it more and so playing with a

wide range can help you find the right

spot where you want to be the right

place for your voice you know here’s a

tip if you can find a video of an

American speaking your native language

and hopefully with a very thick American

accent

watch that person and think about why

does it sound so strange or look so

strange and then think whatever that

sound quality is is what I need to do

when I’m speaking American English right

so maybe by hearing an

Americans speak Chinese for example and

with a thick American accent maybe you

can identify the sound by hearing it in

your own native language that you need

to try to find in American English so it

could be interesting if you can find a

native speaker of American English

speaking your native language to imitate

the way they speak your language that

might help you find a new placement and

you know what if you find a good video a

good example of someone of an American

speaking your native language with a

thick American accent please put it in

the comments below with the time code to

the best part of that video so other

students can watch that and can imitate

that and find another way to use their

voice let’s look at a few more examples

next we have Brazilian Portuguese hey

what do you want to do tonight hey what

do you want to do tonight hey what do

you want to do tonight hey what do you

want to do tonight hey what do you want

to do tonight okay so to me this is a

little bit less pinched to then some of

the others but it still feels like where

the voice lives and is vibrating is

maybe here hey hey hey what do you want

• what do you want - boom and we want to

bring it down hey hey what do you want

to do tonight hey we want to open it up

and lower it down

all right let’s listen to another

student her native languages Korean hey

what I want to do tonight hey what I

want to do tonight hey what I want to do

tonight hey what do you wanna do tonight

hey what do you want to do tonight

okay a couple things first I would say

do try lowering the pitch hey hey

hey hey hey what do you want to do

tonight see what you can find by

lowering it hey why do you wanna do

tonight but again it feels like it’s the

resonance is really high up in my

cheekbones hey hey hey it’s almost like

I’ve drawn things up with this tension

here in my neck

hey and then I have the opposite shape

it’s like in my mind the shape when I’m

imitating you is sort of like a triangle

with it with the white part up top but

then when I want my own American

placement the triangle flips so that the

narrow part is on top and the wider part

is on the bottom hey hey and just

imagining that helps me find a lower

placement another thing I wanted to say

is sometimes when I imitate students

with a higher placement I feel like

something in my neck that I’m holding

here opens up and folds down and relaxes

like that you know it’s like we have to

use imagery here to try to guide you

playing with things but also imagery

playing with sounds but also using

imagery to try to find different sounds

so maybe you can feel like there’s

something up here in your throat and you

just picture it opening and relaxing out

and down and see if that helps you open

your throat in a way that shape changes

the vocal tract in a way that brings in

a more American placement we’re gonna

listen to another student now who’s a

native languages Spanish I don’t know I

don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I

don’t know I don’t know I don’t know oh

again it just feels like I’m not

utilizing any of this space for the

vibration no no and it’s just brought on

by a little bit of tension here I think

it has to do with the base of the tongue

where that attaches to the throat and

just really letting that go

[Music]

another thing that you could picture is

you know we talked about thinking about

releasing the back of your neck by kind

of imagining something really heavy on

it like your skin gets this really thick

heavy paste on it you could also think

of that happening with the front of your

throat like the outer kind of just gets

this the outer part of your neck just

gets this sort of heavy not strangling

feeling but just like a nice downward

tug they can help you find that kind of

quality in your voice now we’re going to

look at a couple of examples of students

that I think did a nice job finding a

low placement and we’re going to talk

about something called the vocal fry so

this is something that actually just

happened in my voice as I said that the

vocal fry fry fry that quality of the

voice at the end of a phrase as the

energy of the voice is starting to

diminish the breath is starting to

diminish and as the pitch comes down it

will happen that at the end you may find

your word or two that ends up having

that kind of quality quality quality

quality you would never want to talk

like this all the time that actually

hurts to do that so you would never want

to do that all the time but Americans

men and women do it all the time towards

the end of a phrase without thinking of

it

and I think it is a side effect of the

placement being so low and the starting

pitch

maybe being lower than what you’re used

to so if you notice that that’s

happening to your voice at the end of

phrases that can be to you a good sign

that you are lowering things all right

let’s listen to a student his native

language is Brazilian Portuguese I don’t

know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t

know I don’t know I don’t know no no

there was a little bit of a popcorn

quality in his voice and I just felt

like it was resonating down here all

right we have another person to listen

to this guy speaks Dutch sure sure sure

sure sure

again do you notice a little bit of that

popcorn quality the pitch is low that is

the fundamental frequency

the resonance feels low and warm which

means the formants are not higher and

thinner I like it okay so you have lots

of different ways you can play play with

different placements and play with

immitating as many of these students as

you can you know try to find what

they’re doing try to place the voice

where they’re placing it and then try to

find something else see how wide you can

get with your range of what you can do

you could take any vowel ah ah so there

I changed the way it sounded not by

changing my articulate errs they stayed

in exactly the same place not by

changing the pitch the fundamental

frequency that was the same in all of

them but they were three dramatically

different sounds because of what I was

doing with my vocal tract try that take

a vowel try to get as many different

sounds as you can without changing the

pitch these are the things that you can

do and the ways that you can play to

figure out what in your neck makes what

sound and to keep in mind that the

American sound is low wide-open

vibrating in the chest it’s not really

up here it’s not narrow but it’s deep

what did you think of this video was it

super confusing I hope there was at

least one thing that helped you think

about placement in a new way thank you

so much to all of the students who

submitted a video for me to use again

check out the video from last week if

you haven’t already that shows all of

the student videos in full now the next

thing I think you should watch is this

learn English with movies playlists

really keep in mind placement and this

idea of low and open as you are

listening to the American speaker and

then trying to do it yourself

imitate them pause the video imitate

them focus on placement see what happens

Rachel’s English