Finding my voice

I've had two promising job interviews recently, so I'm not quite as depressed as I had been about the job search the last week or so. And I think I'm in a good place, in that while I'm quite pleased about these two prospects, if neither of them works out I feel confident that I can find something else worthwhile. It may take me some time, but I'm hanging in there.

I've also started some voice lessons. I feel like my lack of control over my speaking voice is hurting me in job interviews, since a good phone presence is a prerequisite for many jobs, so I'm thinking of this as a worthy investment of time and money. It's not very expensive, and although my first lesson was only today I'm already feeling better about my speaking. At my interview afterward, I felt able to sustain a clear speaking voice with much less effort, and my throat didn't hurt as much as it usually does when I speak for a period of time.

What I've taken away from my voice lessons so far is the feeling that my problem has been trying to use my chest voice before it's ready. It's something like moving into a new house while the foundations are still being laid; not only is it uncomfortable and awkward but you risk damaging the structure. So I'm being more gentle with myself, and while I'm practicing using my chest voice when it's available to me, I'm not going to try to force it when it isn't.

It also helps my confidence that I got called "young man" today when I wasn't using my chest voice.

The other parts of my problem are:

Not opening my throat sufficiently (i.e. raising the palate)
Speaking from the top of my chest
Breathing from the top of my chest
Not projecting the energy of my voice

These are things I'm working on by recording myself doing the voice exercises assigned to me, singing (I'm taking voice lessons just for speaking, but if I can learn to sing eventually that will please me immensely), and reading aloud. I've found that I can produce a very eerie head voice which sounds like a cross between the stereotypical "professional female speaking voice" and a male castrato. When my chest voice is entirely absent, in fact, this is my clearest reading voice. Needless to say I'm not completely in love with it, but it's been interesting to play with. The main thing I need to get this is to raise my palate a lot and open the resonating chambers in my head, and let the voice emerge from them very gently. It will be interesting to see how this openness and resonation affects my chest voice when it comes in more fully.