Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
71
Who we are?
PERFORMANCE
Fall 2019
OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
Part of the job of being a good broadcaster is to look and sound good on the air.
This is an audio class so I’m going to focus on sounding good.
There is a big difference between speech pathology issues and performance issues. We will not be doing any speech pathology here, but everyone has their own hang ups and verbal obstacles.
Hopefully we can clean up some of the easier issues.
PLOSIVES
P sounds, F sounds, and certain consonant sounds create a varying degree of air movement. Think of how the sounds come out of your mouth when you say: Two Bits, Four Bits, Six Bits, a dollar.
Some of those words would create pops on a recording especially if you were not using proper mic technique. By speaking at a 45 degree angle we let air pass by the mic and not into it.
With time and experience you may learn to adjust your lips and train yourself to speak this words clearly without create the force of air common with plosives but for now rely on this technique and always check for filters on the mic.
HOW DO YOU SOUND
Do you sound high pitched? Too young? Too quiet and mousy? Monotone? Maybe you have vocal fry?
There are solutions for all of these problems, and we will go over some of the simple ones you can implement to help improve quickly.
BREATHING
BREATHING
This helps both with pacing and performance.
Do you find yourself running out of air when you are trying to read your copy? How about gasping for air when you do breathe? There are a couple of reasons for this.
One, it could be your writing. If you are writing long, complex sentences or ones that are poor grammatically you might be running yourself into a trap when it comes to your breathing.
Two, it could be you just don’t have the wind in your sails. Luckily we can help with this too.
TIPS
Breathing exercises can help open up your ribs and allow you to expand your lungs more and frequently. They help warm-up the voice and free up the articulators like your teeth, tongue and jaw. It will also help with your energy.
Breathing exercises not only help with your ability to get through copy, but also allows you to trust your voice to perform the copy rather than deliver it.
Try: Panting and blowing out the candle
TIP
MONOTONE
MONOTONE
Think of reading copy as a performance not a task.
Like an actor with a script there are certain elements of a story that require delivery rather than recitation.
If you find yourself being monotone with no inflection or even sing-song where you get in a pattern it can be off putting for your audience.
TIP
Try reading your text in different characters.
This helps you step outside of your delivery and forces you to try on the hat of someone else. This aids in running you and the script through different pitches and tones and might help open you up to areas where you can better deliver the copy.
Some characters to try on: Bugs Bunny, a cowboy, a southerner, an opera singer. Get creative.
TIP
VOCAL FRY
It is a sound you are all probably familiar with even if you don’t know the name for it.
Vocal Fry is the lowest register of your voice and is characterized by a deep, creaky, breathy sound. It can sound like sizzling or a frying sound hence its name.
It is normal for vocal fry to creep into your everyday speaking voice but not to exclusively use it.
VOCAL FRY
TIP
Try a lip trill, humming, or even meowing.
Yes meowing.
All of these help place the voice forward taking it from the back of the throat and using the teeth, hard palate, and sinus cavities to resonate your speech.
TIP
DELIVERY
Everyone has certain groupings of consonant sounds that may trip them up.
What bothers me, may not bother you.
Everyone usually has problems with tongue twisters so avoid obviously difficult phrasings.
HARD WORDS
HARD WORDS
When it comes to particular problems we each may encounter you have two courses of action to try and fix it.
1. Pay attention to where your articulators are at when you are pronouncing a difficult grouping of words. Is your tongue sluggish? Are you not hitting your teeth hard it enough with your tongue? If you can work on these issues once you identify them then you can try to correct them.
2. Alternatively, you can just avoid them all together. Rewrite scripts for ease of reading or swap in similar words or meanings.
EATING OUR WORDS
EATING OUR WORDS
Another issue is eating words or consonant sounds.
What this means is can’t sounding like can or liked sounding closer to like.
This means you need to take better care following through on words. Same as before applies. Think about where your articulators are.
Is something not following through or too hard when next to certain words?
THE TWO Ps
THE TWO Ps
PACING
PACING
Reading quickly is fine if you can be understood, but that’s more acceptable in commercial radio. For public radio we want a slower more conversational tone and pace. Slowing down will help you if you eat words and limit mistakes.
Think of your reading as if you were making your way down a street. If you are running down that street and you trip on something you will crash pretty hard or take a tumble. However, if you were walking down the street and tripped you would be able to catch yourself. We tend to make more mistakes and noticeable mistakes when we read quick less so when we slow it down.
TIP
A way to help slow you down is to make sure you are following through with your grammar.
Every time there is a comma, period, question mark, semi-colon...that is your chance to pause and take a breath.
If you don’t, it’s the equivalent of blowing through stop lights. You are eventually going to get into trouble.
TIP
PROJECTION
PROJECTION
When we are recording ourselves in the booth or going live in a studio we are often in a setting where it seems weird to project.
This doesn’t mean shouting or trying to be heard in an auditorium. What it does mean is having a conversation with an audience that is not sitting directly next to you.
Projecting will help shake some of the youth and mousiness out of your voice.
TIPS
Stand up. We tend to sit down in a studio because we are editing a lot of the time but most audio performers deliver their lines standing up. This open up your body and prevents constricting the diaphragm. You can sing from a chair but most of your favorite artists are belting it out standing up.
When we are by ourselves in a booth it is hard to imagine that we are speaking to a large audience. We may want to whisper or keep to ourselves. If you have a hard time connecting with the audience in your imagination, bring in some visual aids. Put a picture up or draw a smiley face on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall. It may sound silly but with a focal point to talk to you might find that you have an easier and more successful time performing your copy.