Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team of LifeHacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Alice Bradley, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker.

And I'm Jordan Calhoun, LifeHacker's deputy editor.

And today, Jordan, we are learning how to improve on our sacred instrument.

That's right. We're learning how to improve our speaking voices

with help from Hollywood vocal coach, Denise Woods.

And the ability to speak truth, your truth, your situation, your circumstances in the way

that people get you is a responsibility that I feel all of us have.

Denise has been a professional vocal and dialect coach for over 20 years and has worked with

stars like Will Smith, Halle Berry, Rachel Weiss, Jessica Chastain, and Maharshala Ali.

She's also coached numerous TV news anchors, professional athletes, and top executives, and

is a faculty member at the California Institute of the Arts.

Her new book is called The Power of Voice,

a Guide to Making Yourself heard. Alice, is it true that as a young adult, you took voice lessons?

You took some professional lessons for your instrument? Why, yes, I did indeed. Thank you for asking.

Yeah, you spoke like you were counting down the ones and twos on B98.7, smooth jazz.

That's how I wish I spoke. What did you learn from voice lessons?

So I took, I was classically trained throughout high school by my coach, Lois Hunt, who was a Metropolitan Opera singer, retired, but she was, she was wonderful.

And yeah, I was a soprano, which seems surprising now, because my voice has dropped, and I'm like,

let me, let me give you a tune. I can't imagine doing like coloratura soprano stuff. But basically what it did is taught me to breathe because

you know that's kind of the primary thing you learn is is you breathe most of us breathe shallowly

through our chest and you're supposed to breathe through your diaphragm and i'm using your quotes

...