0256 - Weight And Pitch in Intonation

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice

English - September 12, 2021 23:01 - 2 minutes - 1.84 MB - ★★★★ - 4 ratings
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Previous Episode: 0255 – Intonation Definitions

Next Episode: 0257 – My Guide To Reading Out Loud, Naturally

2021.09.13 – 0256 - Weight And Pitch in Intonation

An Introduction to Intonation

Intonation is, then, the weight and pitch one puts on individual words or phrases that draw attention to their significance and thereby communicate the overall message.

Correct intonation leads a listener through a story, with the reader an interpreter or trusted guide of the facts about what ‘makes the story, a story’.

The reader of a newspaper is led around the printed page by its layout. Television approaches this with its graphics and strong visual element, but in radio the layout is invisible and sometimes inaudible. Stories are separated by pauses and there is only the reader’s voice and the writer’s ability to help the listener tell where one story ends and the next begins.

Peter Stewart - “Broadcast Journalism” Routledge

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Broadcast-Journalism-Peter-Stewart/dp/1138886033

Intonation is what we naturally do when we ad-lib a conversation. The trick is to work out what we do then, so we can do it when we read the written word out-loud, so we sound conversational in that situation too. We ‘lift the script’ so we appear to be ‘saying’ it, rather than ‘reading’ it.

If you’re reading something on air and you want the listener to think that you’re ad-libbing, you have to sound as if you’re processing what you’re talking about and sound conversational.

Most books on voice and public speaking omit training in intonation. I have been on one-to-one and group courses on presentation skills and again, and barely a word on this key skill. And you can hear the result of such lack of understanding on radio and TV stations, up and down the dial.

This is not one of those books.

Through these around-5-minute episodes, you can build your

confidence and competence with advice on breathing and reading, inflection and

projection, the roles played by better scripting and better sitting, mic

techniques and voice care tips... with exercises and anecdotes from a career

spent in TV and radio studios. If you're wondering about how to start a

podcast, or have had one for a while - download every episode!

And as themes develop over the weeks (that is, they are not

random topics day-by-day), this is a free, course to help you GET A BETTER

BROADCAST, PODCAST AND VIDEO VOICE.

Look out for more details of the book during 2021.

Contacts: https://linktr.ee/Peter_Stewart

Peter has been around voice and audio all his working life and

has trained hundreds of broadcasters in all styles of radio from pop music

stations such as Capital FM and BBC Radio 1 to Heart FM, the classical music

station BBC Radio 3 and regional BBC stations. He’s trained news presenters on

regional TV, the BBC News Channel and on flagship programmes such as the BBC’s

Panorama. Other trainees have been music presenters, breakfast show hosts,

travel news presenters and voice-over artists.

He has written a number of books on audio and video presentation

and production (“Essential Radio Journalism”, “JournoLists”, two editions of

“Essential Radio Skills” and three editions of “Broadcast Journalism”) and has

written on voice and presentation skills in the BBC’s in-house newspaper

“Ariel”.

Peter has presented hundreds of radio shows (you may have heard

him on BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, Virgin Radio or Kiss, as well as BBC regional

radio) with formats as diverse as music-presentation, interview shows,

‘special’ programmes for elections and budgets, live outside broadcasts and

commentaries and even the occasional sports, gardening and dedication

programmes. He has read several thousand news bulletins, and hosted nearly

2,000 podcast episodes, and is a vocal image consultant advising in all aspects

of voice and speech training for presenters on radio and TV, podcasts and

YouTube, voiceovers and videocalls.

The podcast title refers to those who may wish to change their

speaking voice in some way. It is not a suggestion that anyone should, or be

pressured into needing to. We love accents and dialects, and are well aware

that how we speak changes over time. The key is: is your voice successfully

communicating your message, so it is being understood (and potentially being

acted upon) by your target audience?

This podcast is London-based and examples are spoken in the RP

(Received Pronunciation) / standard-English / BBC English pronunciation,

although invariably applicable to other languages, accents and dialects.

Music credits:

"Bleeping Demo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License