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Presenting: Finding your voice 1

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TIMECODE NAME Dialogue

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00.00.01 NARRATOR This is the BBC Academy Podcast, essential listening for the

production, journalism and technology broadcast communities,

your guide to everything from craft skills to taking your next step in

the industry.

00.00.13 KRIS Hello and welcome to this week’s BBC Academy Podcast, I’m Kris

Bramwell, now neither I nor the rest of my team at the BBC

Academy are trained presenters, so this week we’re doing

something different, we’re getting trained. For one week only

we’ve got five presenters and only one guest, Zayna Shaikh, Jack

Burgess, Roxy Ebrahim-Khan, Charles Miller and I booked ourselves

in for some voice coaching. We turned to Elspeth Morrison, a

voice and presentation coach for help developing the way that

we present these podcasts.

00.00.51 We’re letting you be a fly on the wall at our coaching sessions so

that you too can learn to sound more natural, breathe properly

and sound interested, you’ll hear the task we were set and how I

and my colleagues got on. Take a moment to devour the golden

nuggets of advice that Elspeth gave us all. I started by asking

Elspeth what her job was and who she works with.

00.01.15 ELSPETH Well I’m in fact an ex BBC producer who ran away from the

corporation and did an MA in voice studies, that’s my specialist skill

of working with people on voice in all sorts of areas to make their

voice fit for purpose for whatever they’re doing. So that could be

actors who need to learn an accent for example, or its presenters,

broadcasters, reporters, podcasters anybody who needs to use

their voice in a lively and interesting manner to attract attention

lets say.

KRIS Okay, in terms of attracting our attention now what’s the one

biggest pitfall that everyone falls into?

00.01.58 ELSPETH The biggest pitfall that people tend to fall into in podcasting is

sounding like they’re reading out, “hello and welcome to the

show, it’s great to see you all, it’s really nice, you’re all here”.

Instead of, “hello and welcome to the show this afternoon, great

that you’re all here in the studio today”, so you’ve got a little bit

more warmth and animation to your voice, that’s the biggest one

to get round. People naturally fall into like reading out in school

assembly or a wedding, funeral or church in some way and

people go into an “I’m reading out” voice.

00.02.37 ELSPETH So what we’re trying to do is make people sound a little bit lively, l

like I’m unscripted at the moment and this is how people should

sound, is a little bit lively even if its scripted.

KRIS Now that we’ve got a bit of background about Elspeth it’s time to

hear our session, this was the task she gave us.

00.02.53 ELSPETH What I’d like you to do with this, imagine this is a real podcast and

the topics going to be something we just found online about Bob

Dylan winning a Nobel Prize and what I want you to do is in your

own style, do a little intro, about 30 seconds or so and maybe take

us to a guest or a clip that you’re going to go to, but the crucial

thing is that you write to your style, not anybody else’s, whatever

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that means to you do that thing, for this [odcast.

KRIS So off we went to write the scripts to our voice.

00.03.31 ELSPETH It’s very quite in here; do you remember one of the things we were

talking about when I said writing for speech, what was one of the

things I said about writing for speech?

ROXY Talk it out loud?

00.03.43 ELSPETH Yes, crazy I know, some of you will want to get through to the end

before you speak, but some of you might want to speak from now,

that’s the only way you’ll find out if it works, I promise you.

KRIS Scripts written, practised the voice session began and I was first up.

00.04.01 KRIS I’m Kris Bramwell, hello and welcome to this BBC Academy

Podcast. Well it does appear that times they are a changing in

the literary world; Bob Dylan’s won the Nobel Prize for creating

poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

Dylan’s been praised for his extremely skilful rhyming aspects

putting the best words in the best order, I’m joined now by

someone who always puts his best words in the best order, it’s the

President of the Bob Dylan Appreciation society, Jim Downie, Jim

welcome, was this expected.

00.04.41 ELSPETH Cool, thank you very much indeed, how did that feel for you on

the breathing front because I know before when we had our little

sessions you were a bit worried about breathing in the wrong

place?

00.04.49 KRIS I felt a bit nervous which I don’t usually feel; actually, I don’t know

why that was.

ELSPETH It’s possibly because we’ve got a roomful of people here.

KRIS Maybe.

ELSPETH Normally you do it on your own, but I thought your pacing was

much better there from what I’ve heard before.

KRIS Okay.

00.05.02 ELSPETH And you sounded friendly and you were breaking up the rhythm

more than you were before, it wasn’t quite as I’m going up and

I’m going down.

KRIS That was me you know writing on the page, things like smiley faces

and you know reminding myself to take pauses and underlining

words for emphasis and just trying to play that out really.

00.05.27 ELSPETH Top student, well done, it’s not a thing you can just do overnight,

changing that habit, it’s just getting used to it and marking up

scripts in a way that alert your voice that it has to do something.

KRIS Next was my colleague Zayna Shaikh

00.05.42 ELSPETH Now a lot of people get nervous before they go on the

microphone because there’s something about capturing the

speech in the moment and it staying alive for a long time, mostly

when we speak it just disappears and it’s gone. So one of the

things to do very simply is just to take a breath in, right okay, so not

a breath we can hear and not a breath through the nose, a

breath through the mouth because when we speak we’re mouth




breathers, but quiet mouth breathers, with a nice relaxed jaw, just

let your jaw relax.

00.06.12 Silent breath in and what I’m going to do, I’m going to put my

hands on my ribs and when I take the breath in I’m going to let the

breath move my ribs outwards, just reminding my body that my

breath goes, those lungs are big rascals and I don’t have to just

breath as far as my chest, I can get that breath all the way in,

okay and my shoulders are, are your shoulders nice and relaxed

Zayna?

ZAYNA Yes now they are.

00.06.35 ELSPETH Yes now they are, because I was watching that and I could see

your shoulders creeping up and if your shoulder really creep up this

is what happens to your voice, it sounds like something from

Halloween. So it’s better just to have them in a nice relaxed place

so you’re nice and relaxed.

ZAYNA Now I’m relaxed.

00.06.51 ELSPETH Okay I’m going to ask you a question before you start, how

interested are you in this?

ZAYNA Very interested.

ELSPETH Correct and that’s the only response that you ever have to

anything you’re doing on air, you don’t have to like it, or not like it

you just have to sound like you’re interested, right go, when you’re

ready you’ve got your breath in a nice place you’ve got your

shoulder in a nice place.

00.07.13 ZAYNA Hi everyone and welcome to this week’s BBC Academy Podcast,

with me, Zayna Shaikh. The 2016 prize, the 2016 Nobel Prize for

literature has just been awarded to a songwriter for the first time

ever, who you ask, 75 year old rock legend Bob Dylan, he received

the prize for having. – he received the price for having created

new poetic expressions within a great American song tradition.

The last time an American won the prize was in 1993 and it went to

novelist Tom Morrison, so quite the achievement for the artist and

actor. Let’s hear from long time Bob Dylan lover, Kanye West.

00.08.00 ELSPETH Okay and this is journalistically true isn’t it.

ZAYNA Yes of course.

00.08.03 ELSPETH Excellent, lovely work. Right when you hit it, you hit it brilliantly,

when you had things like the first time ever, how did that feel doing

that, it was really nice?

ZAYNA It just felt like that’s how I would say it.

ELSPETH It was like a big bold statement, so when that worked for me is

when you really liked what you were saying and then there were

other bits you were just kind of driving through a bit kind of, oh I’ve

just got to say this, so I’ll just say it [yeah] and so there were little

gabbly bits, because I think the writing wasn’t quite right, and this is

just something to work on because you’re new to this, so this stuff

comes with practice. But you had some lovely elements of when

you slowed down and just sold us certain bits, it was great,

absolutely great so just work on boosting your confidence around

the writing and getting really on top of that, doing bold things like




the first time ever, it’s the sort of thing you’d say when you explain

something to your friend [yeah] about something.

00.09.00 ELSPETH Oh amazing, it was the first time ever, this thing had happened,

really excited about it. But you didn’t sound too kind of over the

top and crazy with it. So well done, good one.

ZAYNA Thank you.

KRIS The next contestant Jack Burgess.

00.09.16 ELSPETH So Jack when we worked together earlier on what did we decide

your starting place should be?

JACK Oh right smiling, yes that’s a big thing for me.

ELSPETH Okay let me just play that back to you, alright smiling, did we hear

any sort of form of smiling there?

JACK No.

00.09.32 ELSPETH Okay so do you remember we talked about you didn’t have to be

actually the Cheshire cat, it brightens the tone of your voice, it

adds treble to your voice because we can really hear when

people are frowning. Yes I’m just frowning now, we can hear

when we’ve got concern and nodding, and we can also hear

when there’s just a little bit of brightness [yeah] and so that’s your

starting place.

00.09.50 JACK Okay. Hello and welcome to this week’s BBC Academy Podcast

with me, Jack Burgess. The times they are a changing, they

certainly are, US singer Bob Dylan has just been handed the 2016

Nobel Prize for Literature, this makes him the first songwriter to win

the award, and few experts expected the Academy to extend the

award to a genre such as folk, rock music. Former Poet Laureate,

Sir Andrew Motion has praised Dylan’s lyrics calling his songs work

as poems.

00.10.21 ELSPETH Smashing, what does the rest of the team think is that how he

normally sounds, Jack, or did he sound a little bit different there?

ROXY Yes you sounded different; I think you were like probably putting

emphasis on some of the words.

JACK Yes.

00.10.32 ELSPETH I could hear you were a bit nervous there.

JACK A little bit.

ELSPETH A little bit nervous probably because of the atmosphere, but

actually I really liked the life and energy [yeah] we talked about

up this morning and you were totally rocking it, the only thing I

would say is, what was your very final sentence?

JACK Former Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion has praised Dylan’s lyrics

calling his songs works as poems.

00.10.53 ELSPETH Calling his songs works as poems, when you come to the end,

falling inflection, when you go into either a clip or you finish that

I’m just coming to the end of what I’m saying, it’s a little kind of

voice, news, speech convention in broadcast is when you are

finishing something there’s a little kind of rise, fall and now I know

I’m going to the clip, rather than I’m going to the clip, it doesn’t




sound like I am [yeah]. I’m going to the clip; it just needed that bit

more finish on it [yeah] that was all, but well done, thank you.

00.11.25 KRIS A big hand please for Roxy Ebrahim-Khan.

ELSPETH Right so what was your big note?

ROXY Breathe.

ELSPETH Yes crazy.

ROXY Pause, let the thoughts fall, don’t rush.

ELSPETH Yes, so just let the thoughts land and speed was your main issue

wasn’t it, kind of I just want to get out the room, no you want to

stay in the room and tell us whatever you have for us, so whenever

you’re ready Roxy.

00.11.53 ROXY Hello and welcome to this week’s BBC Academy Podcast with me,

Roxy Ebrahim-Khan. So this week we’re going to be talking about

the balladeer, artist, actor and all round awesome being that is

Bob Dylan. He’s just been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for

Literature and became the first songwriter to do so. You don’t

need to be from a certain generation or demographic to be a

Dylan fan, and Sarah Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish

Academy said, Dylan had been chosen because he was a great

poet in the English speaking tradition. Few experts expected the

Academy to extend the award to a genre such as folk, rock music,

but what can you say, the times they are a changing. Let’s speak

to Bob’s daughter, Sarah on her Dad’s big win. Sarah what does

this award mean for the family?

00.12.40 ELSPETH Good, well done. I really like your phrasing, I really like the way you

said, now did it say in the copy that he was an awesome human

being? That was in your own words. Brilliant so that’s what I mean

about and did that work for Roxy, saying awesome human being,

yes it totally worked didn’t it? So it’s just finding what is your idiom,

what is your way of speaking that suits your patterns, and I thought

you found really nice ones in there. There was a new little habit

you were slightly developing there, probably because you are

nervous, you were getting a bit of (clicking noise) going on and

that happens when you get a bit nervous and your tongue starts

sticking to the roof of your mouth, doesn’t it? It’s just a little habit.

00.13.22 ELSPETH Put the tension into your hands, because the lovely thing about

radio and broadcasting when you’re not in vision.

ROXY No one can see you.

00.13.30 ELSPETH You can do this stuff with your hands, if you want to have a little bit

of a tick, put it there, the pace was so much better and you said

that how it suited you and that’s what it’s all about. For people

that don’t know when podcasts work it should sound like you’ve

just wandered in and you’re having a bit of a chat. You know it’s

a carefully crafted piece of written work, but your job is to lift the

words off the page and make it sound as if you’re just thinking

them for the first time, as I am now, I’m not scripted by the way,

but that’s the holy grail of what you want, is you want to sound like

you’re not scripted even though you are.

KRIS And last but by no means least its Charles Miller.




00.14.14 CHARLES Okay here we go. So, it’s finally happened, for years Bob Dylan’s

lyrics have been studied on the racier kind of English literature

courses, attracting the ridicule of literary traditionalists, well now,

Bob Dylan has officially joined the literary premier league because

he’s just been given the Nobel Prize for literature. Now he has

something in common with Winston Churchill, who was also given

the prize. So have pop lyrics finally been properly recognised or is

this the end of civilisation. I’m Charles Miller and I’m joined by

Professor John Sutherland of Oxford University and the writer of a

piece of English literature called, Waterloo Sunset, Ray Davis of the

Kinks.

ROXY Nice.

00.15.00 ELSPETH Well done, right smashing, what was really great about that is you

totally took on board what we talked about of just adding those

little kind of, the spice to it rather than just going up and down,

going up and going down, just like when you said, well now, there

was a phrase where you just started with well now, it’s just a little

speech thing you’re not giving it too much, it’s not well now,

because people say they don’t like to hear people use those

words too much, but actually we use them all the time, little filler

words when you’re trying to be conversational and lift it off the

page, are a fantastic thing.

00.15.32 CHARLES Yes I think that’s right because actually when i write stuff, the

sentences often start off by with a but or a so on the front and then

I tend to cross those out before they’re actually in the finished

script, so perhaps I need to put them back.

ELSPETH Absolutely, think of them as little surfing words to get you from A to

B otherwise the stuff you’re saying is quite dry, what’s interesting for

me, listening to all of you is you’ve all got, let’s just call it different

BBC brands going on in your voice and if we’re going to put a

brand on a radio station, on Charles’s voice, what would his

natural home be?

TOGETHER 4 – Radio 4. (laughing)

00.16.08 ELSPETH They chorus and that’s completely fine because you’ve all got

natural homes and the fact is, as podcasters, you should all sound

like all the different brands that are across the BBC and that’s

absolutely how it should be. And none of you should be changing

or tweaking your accents to fit, you should all be looking at ways

of using your formally, informal voice, like you are talking to

somebody, an older relation perhaps that you’re not talking to

them in a slow kind of weird way, but you’re talking to them in a

nice, friendly manner.

00.16.44 CHARLES I mean do you think you should actually try to pronounce words

more clearly than you normally would, instead of mumbling kind of

thing?

00.16.51 ELSPETH It depends what your starting point is, I mean let’s say if you’re

somebody that talks like this, you know I’ve got actors I work with

that talk like this, and there’s nothing actually wrong with it, you

can sort of understand what they’re saying but I mean you

wouldn’t listen to them for. You wouldn’t listen to them very long if

they spoke like that, really, would you. So there’s a level of clarity

but neither do you want to become like Eliza Doolittle’s younger,




slightly over enunciated brother or sister. So its finding somewhere

where you’re clear, I’d say one of the main things as well as diction

is actually pausing and phrasing and allowing the thoughts to

land.

00.17.28 All your voices will have a different demographic appeal, the way

younger people tend to speak is in more of a sort of in flatter tones,

especially from the south east of England, there’s a sort of way of

speaking that’s sort of a little bit flat, and people sort of think that if

they do anything more they feel it’s too much. Whereas an older,

yes, who was just saying that’s me?

ROXY Jack.

JACK That’s me.

00.17.51 ELSPETH Yes, there’s very different ways that different age groups receive

speech.

KRIS So alright, Charles is Radio 4, what brand would you say I am?

ELSPETH Guys?

KRIS Because if we know our brand, we can it would be interesting to

try and put the right voice to the right content of Podcast so that

we get that match.

JACK I could imagine you doing news features.

KRIS Right.

00.18.16 ZAYNA I can imagine you doing like a commentary on 5Live.

KRIS Okay. And what?

ROXY I like that one yes.

JACK But do you think that’s important to know that kind of stuff?

00.18.29 ELSPETH I don’t think it’s necessarily important because you might play

against type sometimes as well, so yes you don’t have to be

boxed in one particular way at all. How you speak on microphone

is actually slightly, well its being yourself, but it’s being your

broadcast self, so you’re doing a version of yourself investigate

your broadcast self, so you sound as normal as possible in this

context.

ROXY Yes because it’s not about sounding like someone else isn’t it, it’s

just use but with I don’t know like 10% more or?

00.19.03 ELSPETH Yes it’s you and 10% more, it depends what your starting point is,

sometimes as someone pointed out to me the other day, its 10%

less, I was working with this guy who spoke like that, I mean he

really did in real life, this is how he spoke in real life all the time, I

mean this is really excitable and I was, you know with a straight

face I said to this group it’s you and 10% more, he said I don’t think

so for me, I really don’t and I went, no you’re absolutely right, for

you it’s about 20% less, because frankly you’re scary.

00.19.31 Its what’s your starting point, do you have to go up, do you need

to bring it down a bit.

ROXY? Personal tweaks.

ELSPETH Personal tweaks, there isn’t an overall do this and you will be a




broadcaster, I think one of the things about being a broadcaster,

a podcaster, whatever you’ve got to have a native spark of a

desire to speak but also a desire to listen, a good broadcaster is

somebody who can listen and actively listen and follow up with

questions, it’s a conversation you’re trying to have at all times and

that’s a learnt skill, by the way, we don’t learn these things in

school so you just have to learn that and practise active listening

outside of here, but active speaking just do it in front of the

microphone.

00.20.13 And listen back to yourself, don’t listen back to yourself after every

broadcast and give yourself marks, most people, every now and

again just have a listen in and go, oh I’ve gone off the boil a bit, oh

I sound a bit bored, oh I just need to perk myself up.

CHARLES Do you think if you are shy that you shouldn’t try and be a

presenter?

00.20.30 ELSPETH That’s a very interesting one, I know some people on air and I work

with actors as well who are incredibly shy on a one to one inter

personal basis but put them in front of an audience or a

microphone and they fly, you know the world is imagined in front

of them, so it’s not about personality type it’s about the desire to

communicate, I would say.

00.20.55 KRIS Well that’s all we have time for today, I hope you’ve managed to

pick up some great tips from our sessions, many thanks to our voice

and presentation coach, Elspeth Morrison and my BBC Academy

colleagues for joining us. You can find out more about all things

presenting by visiting the BBC Academy website,

www.bbc.co.uk/academy, you can find us on Twitter and

Facebook too, from me, Kris Bramwell and my producer, Zayna

Shaikh thank you for listening.

00.21.30 NARRATOR You’ve been listening to the BBC Academy Podcast. If you want

to find out more about this topic or to hear previous shows search

online for the BBC Academy.

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