Celebrant Success
Not many celebrants or ministers are lucky enough to have professional voice-and-communication coaching as part of their training. I’d have thought that would be a basic part of what they’re taught, but apparently not.
Having a pleasant-sounding voice will give you an edge over most of the celebrants (and ministers) working these days. But an even greater advantage is to have first-class communication skills.
Not everybody’s ready for what I teach: which is aimed at enhancing those skills I’ve just mentioned. We have mirrors and cameras everywhere, so we’re familiar with what we look like; but we have to make an effort to check on how we sound. Because of that, it’s easy to turn a blind eye (deaf ear) to it. A lot of people, not prepared to make the effort, put this work into the too-hard basket, and then wonder why they don’t get many ceremonies. They don’t stand out from the many other average-sounding celebrants.
You’ll almost certainly be reading your ceremonies. And 99 percent of celebrants sound like they’re reading. One of my specialities is to show people how to sound like they’re not reading when they clearly are. This skill makes all the difference as to how you come across to an audience/congregation.
Many celebrants don’t listen to any of their livestreamed ceremonies, or record themselves from time to time at home – so they have no idea if they sound like they’re reading or not.
I’ve worked with experienced celebrants, ministers, actors and radio presenters who assumed they’d been doing their ceremonies as well as they possibly could. They’ve been staggered at the huge difference that the application of a few simple techniques can make to the quality of their work.
These days, I begin the training by asking the person I’m about to work with how good do they want to be. I like to get an idea as to how committed they really are. I they put the work in, they’ll blossom.
What I teach isn’t rocket science.
It’s straightforward to understand, but like any other new or improved skills, they have to be practised until they become second nature. And I find with some of my students, that when they’re on the nursery slopes of these techniques,
that that’s enough to take their presentation skills to above average – at which point, after a little praise, they develop the blind eye/deaf ear I mentioned earlier. It’s always my hope that they’ll stick with their practice, so that rather than being satisfied with being pretty good, they go on to excel!
Here’s a little flavour of my reviews:
Overflowing with techniques, vocal exercises to explore and with a great sense of humour, training with Paul was fun, enlightening and incredibly beneficial for developing my skills as an effective communicator and celebrant. (RCS)
Paul taught me how to confidently deliver those ceremonies – how to use my breath, how to infuse emotion, how to make the script appear as if it is just occurring to me, truly a skill I did not know I needed, but it has made such a difference to my delivery. (MK)
My work with Paul has been phenomenal. I knew I could read fluently, but now I realise there is so much more to do, to be able to ‘communicate’ well, especially as a celebrant, but also for life in general. I understand that by working on my voice and communication, and investing time and effort, I can both improve and prolong it. I think I took my voice for granted… it’s unseen, it just happens, but actually, it deserves a whole lot more attention. (LH)
I’m happy to chat about what I teach by phone or email.
paulyrobinson@outlook.com 07469 965 199 Paul Robinson Voice Coaching – Voice Coaching