Significance of tone variation skill for spoken word artists

Changing the pitch in spoken word art is something that takes practice and skill. It involves adjusting the frequency or tones of your voice — switching between high, medium, and low tones — to turn spoken words into an emotional and captivating performance. This technique serves as a way to express feelings, helping the performer highlight important words and guide the audience through their emotional experience.

During a performance, pitch variation helps to prevent a dull and emotionless "monotone" delivery. Usually, high pitches express excitement, urgency, or intensity, while lower pitches convey authority, seriousness, or deep thought. It's important to learn how to change pitches at the end of sentences to emphasize them, creating a crescendo effect. This works best when practiced along with varying volume and speed to add drama.

Artists choose connection words — some emotionally powerful words — and use exaggerated pitch, volume, or speed to make them pop. It's crucial to understand that using pitch variation properly keeps the audience engaged and allows them to feel the poem instead of just hearing it.

Great performers do vocal warm-up exercises every day to train their voices, which helps them glide between low and high pitches to improve their vocal flexibility. They also practice the 'Pitch Ladder Drill' technique, where they repeat a sentence starting in a low tone and gradually go higher, or the other way around, to get better at it. 

To deliver a great performance, hours of practice and rehearsal are needed before even a short 1 to 3 minute spoken word presentation in front of a big crowd.