Unfiltered Thoughts

2022.10.07 – 0645 – Rehearsing Cold Reading
Rehearsing Cold ReadingIt is easy to practice this at home or at work – sight-read stories from the newspaper, or print off the national summary and make yourself sight read it, changing the tone for each story as appropriate. Read loads of material aloud, sight unseen so you can get into the habit of adapting your vocal   will build up your vocabulary, not just the meaning of the words, but also their pronunciation and also the context in which they are used. That way you can better predict where a sentence or explanation is headed for, which helps every part of your read: the tone, intonations, speed, and so on, all elements that we have looked at during this podcast/book.
As well as the words themselves, the more you read the more you will understand the structure of sentences, story arcs in fiction books and, in non-fiction, debates which may be discussed or positions being posited.A note on audio-books which we will look at in more detail later, by their very nature they are books which have been written to be read ‘by the eye’ and not ‘by the mouth’, that is not to be read aloud, conversationally. That means that the grammar is not necessarily ‘speaker-friendly’, making such books sometimes tricky to navigate sight-unseen. So, the best advice for rehearsing cold-reading? Lots of reading aloud and lots of different formats and styles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.06 – 0644 – Script-Reading and Peripheral VisionPeripheral visionIt also helps to be able to read in your head more than a few words ahead of what you are actually saying out loud. If a story has just flashed on your screen and there is no opportunity to read it through fully off-air before you go to it on air (perhaps there is no audio left to play), then you can allow yourself a second’s pause to scan the script for key words to give yourself a sense of what is to come. Then as you read the item word for word, let your eyes dart through to the end of that sentence and the start of the next (a kind of ‘peripheral vision’), so you are more fully aware of what is coming.
That peripheral vision is a bit like a ‘buffer’: your eyes dart through the sentence, the words going into your memory and uttered slower than they are seen. That gives your eyes more time to look further ahead and store more words in your mind, and these are gradually said… and all the while your eyes look to the next phrase or sentence and stores them in your memory buffer too.
And sometimes your eyes may dart back at part of the script you’ve already read, perhaps when you want to check that what you said was what was written, or scanning the page much further ahead to check for any potential pronunciation hazards up-coming. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.05– 0643 – Warming Up To Cold ReadsWarming up to cold readsSight-reading is what many rolling news presenters have to do: pick up a news script and read it straight off, with the correct pacing and intonation so it makes sense to the listener.
One trick is to be able to sense from the first few words of the story what tone you should deliver it in. This can sometimes be tricky: a story which starts “a police officer who saved a woman from a burning house …” could continue, “…has been praised for his heroism” or “…has himself died in hospital”. So, if in doubt, start the story in a ‘standard’ tone, neither light or heavy, so you can move into the correct one when you realise the exact content of the story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.04– 0642 – Sight-Reading Scripts TipsCold-Reading (or ‘sight-reading’ or ‘off-the-page’) This is when you read a script aloud previously sight-unseen. You’ve not had a chance to proof read it, spot any awkward words or phrases and may not even know what it’s about. You won’t have read it aloud before, for example, breaking news, a fast-turn around commercial session or if you are a ‘Voice of God’ at an event. If you are reading an audio-book, you’ll have to read pretty cold too: it simply isn’t time/cost-effective to read an entire book through once, marking it up and rehearsing. The same goes for some longer e-learning reads. You need to be able to read such scripts ‘off the page’ and be able to understand pretty fast what the text is saying, the key message and overall tone.
For commercial reads it may be that the director sees a benefit in recording your very first ‘cold   raw, relatable and real about it, rather than Take 27 that is likely to be more polished… or stale! Such a read may not be perfect (and it won’t be expected to be), but there may be an “I see!” moment of authentic awareness that you bring to the script.
It’s unlikely that a director will use your first take (but they may do!) and will be likely to record more, but it’s often good to get your genuine emotion on Take One – perhaps as a touch point - before your understanding is possibly cluttered with additional ‘advice’ from a control room of, err control freaks. After all, you will never be able to give a cold read to that script ever again, so let’s get it on tape… just in case there’s a valuable vocal nugget. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.03– 0641 – Extracting Distracting Fillers 2 ·        Increase your confidence and reduce your nerves – again, we have looked at this topic together in the past, but this will include factors such as knowing the material, the audience, the studio, the kit, the colleagues; vocal and muscular exercises; vocal health and so on·        Slow down – It may be that your mouth is working faster than your brain and you are running out of words to say and so filling in the gaps with meaningless ones. Slowing down will relax you and get your mind and mouth back in sync. And speaking more slowly help you clear out the filler words, as instead of racing, you have time to think through your thoughts and give yourself time to think of a phrase or an answer to a question.·        The power of the pause - The best medicine for a vocal virus is, nothing. Yes, simply replace the offending word with a pause. VOICE BOXThe Power Of The Pause·        Gives you time to breathe·        Can create drama before a reveal at the end of the … sentence·        To give your listeners time to process the information you’ve just delivered them.·        To startle or surprise the listener – and wake them up! In fact, creating silence is a double-whammy result: you stop the annoying utterance and replace it with a technique to engage the listener instead. You turn from appearing to be hesitant and ill-prepared, to being cool, confident and in-control. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.02 – 0640 – Extracting Distracting Fillers 1 Overcoming FillersNot all filler words need to be cut out, especially if you’re aiming to sound conversational (although it would be odd in a news bulletin, or if you’re sticking to a timed and signed-off script, to insert umms and errs!). And anyway, removing them all from your authentic speech pattern may get in the way of you genuinely connecting with you audience.  Eliminate most of your filler words though and you will instantly sound more intelligent and professional and will be less distracting to your audience. If you want to reduce or eliminate fillers, then:·        Become more aware of what you say and when - The first way to eliminate these disfluencies is to look or listen back to your recordings, or recordings of your lives (this is often called an ‘air-check’ or ‘ROT’: ‘recording of/off transmission’). Note the filler words, where they are and when you tend to use them. It may be in a particular situation or certain part of a sentence – or between them. Only you will know what was happening at the time, both in the studio and in your head, and whatever it was may be the cause of your distraction: possibly a technical hitch that distracted you, or a lost page of notes that you were looking for·        Commit to eliminating them - When you know the word, or words, that you fall back on too often, make a conscious effort to take them out. Better still ask family or friends to pick you up whenever you say it. A bit like Pavlov’s dog experiment, you could have your producer click the ‘talkback’ studio intercom every time you say the word on air. It may be annoying but it’s a good way to get you to notice yourself repeating the old habit that you want to break.·        Increase your prep and knowledge of your topic - Being better prepared is also an answer: know more about the topic you’re talking about; making better notes and using them; not being distracted in the studio and so on. I have given lots of tips about all of these issues so far. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.10.01 – 0639 – Why “Umm” May Make You Sound Dumb
You may not realise you’re using these words, but they could be really distracting to your listeners and the impression they give is that you’re poorly prepared and lacking confidence. “Umm” can make you sound dumb.
You can of course, edit out these words and phrases from a pre-recorded show, but it’s a very time-consuming process and it’s very difficult to then have an impression of natural flow, eloquence, and confidence in the recording you end up with. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.09.30 – 0638 – Do You Like “like”?
Do you like “like”?Many people find the developing use of this word infuriating. Critics say that it makes speakers sound stupid (“It’s like, when you’re, like…”), and there’s even an app, LikeSo[1], which listens to your speech and promises it can stop you using the word. “Like” tends not to, in comparison to “umm” and “err”, have an audible silence either side of it and it is used in many different ways, not just as a ‘filler’[2],[3]:It is used as a verb: “I like the smell of what’s cooking”As a preposition: “This tastes like (“as though”) it was made in a restaurant”. As a quote: “I said, like, that’s delicious”As a discourse marker, to start and to end conversations, or to start new topics or change topics. “What did I do last night? Like, had dinner, hung out” and the related use in the Geordie tradition of finishing sentences with a “like”: “He cooked dinner for me, like”As an adverb to mean approximately, “It was super quick to cook, like 30 minutes”As a noun in reference to social media “I gave it a like on Facebook” “If you say, “He was like, seething about the pasta sauce”, you are quoting someone’s reaction, but at the same time highlighting you are approximating their response, while pausing to highlight that you are thinking meaningfully about this reaction in real time. That one word is doing all those jobs.Sam Wolfson, The Observer, May 2022[4] The number of ways the word is used is actually quite skilfully included in a conversation. After all, the English language is an evolving one and there’s no one ‘right way’ to use it to convey your thoughts and feelings, so the person you are talking with understands you.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/likeso/id1074943747 [2] In 2017, contestants on the UK dating series ‘Love Island’ used the word “like” 76 times in a five-minute conversation – that’s once every four seconds. Hear the exchange here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/4060212/love-island-2017-girls-say-like/ [3] Adapted from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word [4] In https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.09.29 – 0637 – Umm, Err, Well, Kinda Filler wordsIt’s easy for your ad-libs, conversations and questions to be littered with verbal crutches (properly called ‘disfluencies’):·        Sounds - such as “err”, “OK”, “umm”·        Words and phrases - “y’know”, “I mean”, “you know what I mean”, “kind of thing”, “actually”, “basically”, “literally”, “right”, “sort of”, “so”[1] and the like. And indeed, “like”. [2] When Do We Use Filler Words?We use fillers in different situations:·        “I’m looking for the right word or phrase” – you’re thinking as you are speaking and so searching for just the right word to use. ·        “I’m being careful to explain this thought so I don’t offend” – and have several words to choose from and are weighing up the best one to use·        “I’m still holding this conversation; I’m not finished yet” [3]  - a nervous speaker giving the impression of fluency, wanting to fill every silence with sound, any sound, perhaps when they are poorly prepared and trying desperately to think of what to say.[4]
[1] To hear more about the use of the word “so”, especially in starting a sentence, listen to this podcast: Spectacular Vernacular - Lexicon Valley #7: https://recastthis.com/source/335/  [2] Closely related to the ‘fillers’ are the ‘safe standby phrases’ which on the radio may be the same way you come out of an ad-sequence or the news, or the same way the travel news is introduced or a guest is thanked. Brainstorm a way to creatively re-work those verbal crutches and have them as part of your repertoire, even if they are on a written list that you work down day by day to always sound fresh and authentic.  [3] It’s also been suggested by some linguists that what comes after an “umm” is a more complex thought or sentence-structure than what comes after an “err”.[4] https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1519023928425037828 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.09.28 – 0636 – Giving Good ‘Libbing’
Giving Good ‘Libbing’Be aware of adlibbing minefields. You may find yourself travelling down a conversational cul-de-sac unless you are very sure of your territory. So always engage your brain before putting your mouth into gear – think before you speak.
Mostly then our adlibs come from preparation, and what we say just gives the impression of spontaneity. You may look or sound like you are making it up on the fly – but if you really are doing that then you may not so much fly, as fail.
On-scene Ad-libsWorking without an autocue without rambling

• Mentally ‘bullet-point’ your key facts
• Identify three or four items you can see that you can ‘attach’ a fact to that will help explain the story
• Focus in from the general view to the macro view when describing a scene

 Being outside on an OB say, can attract a lot of attention, and may make you feel nervous, with people watching you and what they may do or say. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.