The microphone is your friend. It can help you communicate with large groups. No matter how big your voice, there are audiences that are bigger than your voice alone can handle. If you want to be a communicator, you have to learn to use the microphone.
The only problem is that most microphones you encounter in banquet halls, church halls, schools, community centres and other such venues are absolute crap. Even if the sound system is of the correct quality and design for the room and installed by an acoustical expert (rarely, if ever), that was two years ago and since then people have been intent on doing severe damage to the system. They have no idea of the trouble they cause when they hit the microphone, run wheels over cables, play with the amplifier dials, randomly flick switches on and off and drop delicate speakers. All you can do most of the time is hope the damn system lasts long enough for you to finish communicating what you need to say to the audience.
There is one solution that is practiced by professional communicators. A professional comes early and checks out the system. The professional asks that someone be there who knows how the system works. A paid professional insists that someone be there to manage the system when in use. Good luck with that.
If checking ahead is impossible, try to watch from the back of the room while someone uses the sound system. If, for example, you hear popping, screeching, breathing and the voice tends to boom, the speaker is probably too close to the microphone. That is a common error and is easily corrected by stepping back from the microphone and speaking over it, not directly into it. And do not forget that the mouth is the most visible part of facial expression. Do not let the microphone hide it.
And, for goodness sake, do not touch the microphone. Only professionals use hand microphones. Unless you are going to spend many, many hours practicing holding it properly, keep your paws off it. You need both hands for your notes or full speech. You need your hands for emphasis.
(If it is one of those cheap directional microphones—they are small and have a flat grill face—try talking directly into it from at least eight to ten inches away.)
The macho speaker who listens to previous speakers and claims they do not need that microphone is kidding nobody. If they keep it up, they will do irreparable harm to their voice, lose all inflection and tone of voice for emphasis and annoy people in the front rows because of shouting at them. It is a lose, lose, lose situation.
If you know it is a bad microphone, it is not the best course to see how fast you can talk and get out of there. Many of these bad microphones—positioned properly—will do the job if you speak clearly and distinctly and enunciate every word.
It is critical that you only speak when you are looking at the oldest person (who is a little deaf) in the back row. If you do not hold this person’s attention, you might as well cut your talk short. You are not communicating.
– 30 –
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]