0315 – The ‘Question Intonation’

Get A Better Broadcast, Podcast and Voice-Over Voice

English - November 11, 2021 00:01 - 4 minutes - 2.63 MB - ★★★★ - 4 ratings
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Previous Episode: 0314 – Circumflex Intonation

Next Episode: 0316 – Hearing Your Own Intonation

2021.11.11 – 0315 – The ‘Question Intonation’

Those who have a ‘sing-songy’ voice which goes unnecessarily up-and-down in tone (the ‘sea-sick syndrome’), can come over as patronising. It may sound ‘up and bright’ to them but to the listener it sounds cheesy and as though the presenter is on ‘auto-pilot’ without a care for the content of the message. Other presenters go up at the end of every sentence? Like this? Whether it’s necessary or not? Are they really asking a question? Or have they got into the habit … of really annoying their audience?

This is called ‘up-speak’, everything becomes a question and can make you sound insecure, and insincere, that everything you say needs validation. Some people use it too much, as though they are constantly asking questions, and that affects their authority.

Incorrectly using a ‘question inflection’ triggers confusion in the mind of a listener: the sound of what you are saying is contradicted by its content. Doubt about your delivery disrupts the effectiveness of your message.

So if you are a presenter encouraging phone calls or a YouTuber requesting comments under your video, you need to use a rising inflection… where appropriate.

A question will engage your audience more than using a straightforward statement.

Statement: “Many people are struggling today by not making enough money as an entrepreneur.”

So turn that into a question: “Are you as an entrepreneur, making enough money in your business?”

Or: “are you one of those entrepreneurs who…?”

A question draws people in, it involves them much more than a statement.

A question creates attention.

Hmmm do you always go up at the end of a question? No!

So called ‘interrogative’ Yes/No questions (those which can be answered with one of those words) are often ended with a down-tone: “So, you’re going to go by train?” Usually, so too are those to which you already know the answer: “Our reporter Peter Porter was in court, can you tell us what happened?” – it would be odd if Peter replied “no!”!

Another situation is when you answer your own question: “Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo? I know I have…”

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

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo