Unfiltered Thoughts

0136 – Why English Is Such A Tough Language To Learn VOICE BOXOur Strange Lingo[1]
The Chaos I take it you already knowOf tough and bough and cough and dough?Others may stumble, but not you,On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,To learn of less familiar traps?Beware of heard, a dreadful wordThat looks like beard and sounds like bird,And dead: it's said like bed, not bead— For goodness sake don't call it deed!Watch out for meat and great and threat(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).  A moth is not a moth in mother,Nor both in bother, broth in brother,And here is not a match for thereNor dear and fear for bear and pear,And then there's dose and rose and lose —Just look them up - and goose and choose,And cork and work and card and ward,And font and front and word and sword,And do and go and thwart and cart —Come, come, I've hardly made a start!A dreadful language? Man alive!I'd mastered it when I was five!

[1] Quoted by Vivian Cook and Melvin Bragg 2004, by Richard Krogh, in D Bolinger & D A Sears, “Aspects of Language”, 1981, and in “Spelling Progress Bulletin” March 1961. Attributed to T S Watt, 1954. “Brush up on your English with Hints on Pronunciation for visiting Foreigners”, from The Manchester Guardian. http://spellingsociety.org/uploaded_misc/poems-online-misc.pdf
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0135 – Pismronunciation Errors Some speaking errors may be because of a lack of understanding of the language (maybe if English is a second language), not having seen it written down, or having seen it but not heard it.[1] [1] A colleague once pronounced the English city Middlesbrough as ‘middles-BRUF’ as they’d never heard it said before (it’s ‘MIDDLES-brer’). ==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0134 – “Where’s My Demmyster?” PRONUNCIATIONYou may have superb articulation, with every twist of the tongue and every placement of the palate and location of the lips perfect in every way, but how you say an individual, specific word is incorrect.[1] Pronunciation is linked with articulation, but also includes the subtleties of the light and shade of stress and intonation within a word (which we’ll help you with in a later chapter). And as we will see, better pronunciation is also affected by your ability to read and understand what a script is about. A mispronounced word can be embarrassing. It can make you look stupid (even if you are far from it) and you and the business you work for may lose credibility and listeners or viewers.  I’m sure we all have a friend who we silently (or perhaps openly!) laugh at because they always mispronounce a word. Perhaps we even deliberately start a conversational topic in the hope that they will say it. I was once on a marketing course where the presenter, a late-middle aged man, kept referring to the car-maker ‘pyoo-zho’.[2] When I was a young child, a teacher with our class of 8-year olds, asked us where on a car the ‘demmy-ster’ was.[3] There are many examples.[4] Speaking as a witness to the first two examples, I can vouch that the credibility of both of those people suffered a bit of a dent as they were unable to realise their mistake.
[1] ‘Pronunciation’ is how a individual person might say a single word. ‘Accent’ is more the style of pronunciation of almost all words. [2] You may know the company better as Peugeot – more commonly pronounced at ‘PER-zho’.[3] If you haven’t got it yet, the teacher had mispronounced the word she was reading, which was actually de-mister.[4] Ee-moo?! NPR’s ‘absurd’ pronunciation starts new emu war in Australia dlvr.it/RfDCnP  ==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0133 – Verbal Fluidity Verbal fluidityA little fluidity in your speech sounds more melodic than the almost-stuttering caused by giving stress to very single letter, down to, literally, the last ‘t’.  The Prime Minister said she wanted to go ahead, but we don’t know the President’s response. You would be unlikely to sound the ‘m’ in “Prime” as doing so would cause a stop between that sound and the following sound, also an ‘m’. So, run them on to say “priminister”, but not “pry minister”. One is ‘articulatory fluidity’ the other is ‘articulatory sloppiness’. You are likely to sound the ‘t’ in “wanted” for intonational reasons (it seems as though this is new and important information, and careful pronunciation helps to highlight its significance), but “but” and “don’t” are likely to lose their specific ‘t’ sounds. These deliberate ‘slurs’ of some sounds and misses of others (‘elision’), helps smooth and speed the flow of syllables. The way we speak and what is ‘acceptable’ and understandable has changed over the decades: sounds have become looser and the style more informal. But the main thing to remember again is that if you want to communicate or to appear credible, you need to be understandable.
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
 You need to have the ‘articulatory capabilities’ to sound letters where they help make sense of the meaning – so you are really communicating, but have the sense to drop them to achieve conversational melody and fluidity. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0132 – Diction For Communication Diction for communicationTimes and expectations change, so exacting and over-clear clarity of every single syllable is usually unnecessary. It can make you sound at best old-fashioned and at worst pedantically petulant. Heck, even the Queen has changed how she speaks![1],[2] So even though there are few calls nowadays for a cut-glass pronunciation such as Celia Johnson in the 1945 film “Brief Encounter”[3], appropriate diction is still important for successful communication. How often do you hear of “N/A chess”, “hoe-moaners” and “pea-stalks”?[4] What about when the amount of money spent on the London Underground is cut and we are told that the “investment on the chewb has been re-juiced”? And what day comes after Monday? Is it, as you often hear, “Choose-day”?  Some people may insist that you pronounce a word ‘super-correctly’ but it’ll be up to you or a studio director or producer to decide whether you have been sloppy or simply moved with the times if you say “FEB-you-ree” rather than “FEB-roo-arry”. I’d personally go with the former, although I do wince when I hear “kloze” for “clothes” and “nooz” for “nyooze”. It’s also the case that some people don’t fully pronounce the k in “asked” so rather than “arse-k-t” it comes out more as “arsed”!==

[1] https://www.english.com/blog/queens-english/  [2] A fascinating article on how American English has altered since WW2, especially amongst broadcasters: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/that-weirdo-announcer-voice-accent-where-it-came-from-and-why-it-went-away/395141/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E79g3robJWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oEw--3QdXM [4] If you haven’t worked them out, they are ‘NHS’, ‘home-owners’ and peace talks’ – but you would be forgiven for not understanding given the way some people talk..!
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0131 – The Voice Over Wannabe Who Faked His Audition Tape
“I’ve been chewing a lot of gum, and I’ve only found one with an all-day flavour … pop it in your mouth in the morning and it’ll be pepperminty right through til nightime. The name? ‘Five Gum’ – find it in a cool black pack. Five Gum – for all day flavour.”
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0130 – Overcoming Articulation Issues Some articulation issues may be because of a physical problem with the tongue or palate. Winston Churchill, actors James Stewart, Julia Roberts, Bruce Willis, and James Earl Jones, and singer Carly Simon all had similar problems which they overcame.[1]
Whether it’s rhotacism (unusual pronunciation of the letter r, or too much emphasis on this sound), a lisp (the sound produced when s and z are pronounced like a soft ‘th’ sound), stutter (repeating sounds frequently when attempting to pronounce them), or cluttering (running words together rapidly), you can usually overcome them and reach your goals with the help of a good therapist, time and concentration. Or use it to your advantage (such as the UK TV and radio personality, Jonathan Ross).
Once again, how you sound is unique to you, and adds to the rich texture of conversational sounds. How awful if we all spoke the same way with no nuance. But you personally may feel that you may be better understood or accepted if you lose some of the sharp corners of how you speak… or indeed may want to add some of these ‘diction tricks’ into your style to give more colour or characterisation, or when acting on stage or in an ebook narration, or when speaking to a certain audience.

[1] Famous people and speech differences: http://tinyurl.com/msfw53   ==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0129 – More Of The Most Common Articulation Alterations Distortions – either in vowels or consonants, sometimes down to a regional accentOmissions (or deletions) – when certain sounds are not includedSyllable errors - weak syllables are left out of the pronunciation
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0128 – Some Of The Most Common Articulation Alterations Here then, are some of the most common ‘sound-alterations’ to ‘standard English’ articulation.  Substitutions - Swapping sounds (or, when reading, ‘letters’) for other soundsAdditions - Including extra sounds, where they don’t existAffectations – ‘putting on’ a pronunciation because of a misplaced sense of ‘coolness’ or ‘authority’, and sometimes those pronunciations becoming recognised new words or spellings.
==
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

0127 – The US Waitress Who Didn’t Understand My UK Accent  VOICE BOXIt is well acknowledged that we often adapt our diction or pronunciation to fit in with those around us. If you’ve ever spent time in another country or another area of your own you may have started to speak in a similar way to those who were born and raised there.  A friend of mine who moved to the north of England speaks with a southern accent until she talks about the bathroom, when ‘barth’ is replaced with ‘bath’ with a much shorter vowel.  Most of us may change diction or pronunciation even just for a few minutes or hours, to fit in with a social group. The way you speak to a manager may differ from how you speak with your friends in a bar. And on other occasions you may have to put on a fake pronunciation to be understood. When in a restaurant in the U.S, a waitress asked me if I’d like a pre-meal drink. I asked for water in my ‘BBC-English’ accent. She didn’t understand and asked me again, and then a third time before I realised what the problem was. When I deliberately pronounced it “wah-ler”, she understood… Research commissioned by Santander in 2020 found that nearly half (46 per cent) of people questioned admitted they changed their voice to make themselves sound more well-spoken. 30 per cent of people changed their voice on the phone because they wanted to sound intelligent, and over a quarter (28 per cent) just wanted to make themselves sound posher.  For just under one fifth (17 per cent) it does not seem to be much of a choice as their regional accent comes through more on the phone and over one in 10 admit their voice changes depending on who they are speaking to. Brits seem to be putting on their phone voice for anyone and everyone, including strangers (18 per cent), clients (16 per cent) and even work colleagues (12 per cent). Although over a fifth automatically do it if they answer a number they do not recognise.  When it came to best celebrity voice, David Attenborough was voted the favourite, closely followed by Joanna Lumley and then Idris Elba.  Scots are the people most likely to change their voice on the phone to others with 46 per cent of Aberdeen residents admitting to doing this, closely followed by Brummies (45 per cent). People in Sheffield seem happiest with their normal accent, as 60 per cent say they do not change the voice when they are on the phone. People in Norwich feel the pressure to sound intelligent the most, as 52 per cent of people here who change their voice admit that’s their intention, whereas the lovely people of Sheffield feel proudest of their roots as 21 per cent say they try to sound more local on the phone.  The research also revealed that 46 per cent of people use their fingerprint to access banking and payment services, but less than one in ten (9 per cent) use Voice ID – despite your voice being as unique as your fingerprint.  
=
Through these under-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.
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 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Beauty Flow" 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/5025-beauty-flow License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  "Envision" 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/4706-envision License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Limit 70" 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/5710-limit-70 License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Rising Tide" 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/5027-rising-tide License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license "Wholesome" 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/5050-wholesomeLicense: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.