0314 – Circumflex Intonation

2021.11.10 – 0314 – Circumflex Intonation

But the human voice is capable of much more intonational gymnastics!

Within some words we can go down … and then up and then down again. Or up, down, and up again. And these intonation alterations give additional clues to the listener as to what we mean.

Down > up > down ( ) This is often a sneery tone, or used to signify uncertainty.

· “I don’t think you doooo!”

Up > down > up ( ) Suggests that we haven’t finished talking , or us used at the start of a contrast

· “I’m not going to Antigua… I’m going to Bermuda”

What circumflex inflections would you use for these phrases, and what would they mean?

· Stop worrying.

· Don’t go.

· Please come back.

· Give me a call soon.

· Stop trying to trick me.

Listen to how you and others talk in every day conversations: “He did what??!!”, “Yeah, su-u-u-u-u-re you do...!”, “aaaaand…”.

Then try and reproduce these techniques on air to make your intonational sound increasingly natural and ear-catching.

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