Reading written words aloud is different than reading reading to yourself, in your head. Reading aloud, for an audience, is a presentation, and requires the use of specific voice modulation to bring words and ideas to life, and give them meaning. Using specific voice techniques will make your recording resonate.
Activate your voice
Your voice is a presentation and translation tool: Modulating your voice as you read a script aloud conveys additional meaning to words, phrases, and concepts.
Pitch variation (up, and down) is an essential technique to use when you read aloud. This subtle adjustment to raise, or lower, your voice, and make other modulations, is something we do naturally when speaking— and sometimes forget to employ when we’re following a script.
Your audience will notice when your voice pitch changes. Reading a script “straight through” without pitch change can sound monotonous and dull. Modulating your voice creates a dynamic, more interesting video recording.
Reading a script aloud isn’t normal for most of us, so it’s important to consider (and practice) varying your speaking pitch.
Voice modulations convey meaning, and engage an audience
Use these techniques to modulate your voice as you read aloud:
- Pitch (Raising our voice higher or lower). Conveys emphasis, draws attention to words, or differentiates points. No pitch variation = monotone)
- Rate (Speed of speaking). Speak with a slower rate as you explain a complex idea, or slow down to emphasize a line, or idea. Increase your rate to move through things your audience intuitively or already knows.
- Long pause. Use a pause before, or after an important point to add emphasis, and draw attention. Pauses give audiences a chance to “digest” an idea, or consider a question, or prepare for the next idea to come. Pauses also draw increased audience focus.
- Inflection and intonation.
Inflection: Change your pitch on a word, or two, in a sentence. This draws attention to the word, or differentiates/emphasizes that word from the rest of the sentence. Intonation also breaks up a script that feels monotonous.
Intonation: Change your pitch across an entire section. This changes mood and/or emotion for an entire topic. For instance, for an emotionally charged topic you might drop to a low pitch and speak slowly to extend respect.
Our voice conveys meaning, and keeps our audience engaged:
Offer contextual clues
Offering contextual clues/ posing opening questions to preview main ideas and concepts you’ll discuss, at the start of the script, or sections of a script, makes it easier for the audience to follow. Use these opening lines, at the start of a script, or a section of a script.
- What am I talking about?
- Where does this lead?
- So why does this matter?
- We’ll cover these 3 things, X, Y and Z.
Revisit and reinforce these main ideas multiple times to ensure your audience retains the concepts.
Repetition: Tell your audience you’re about to say it again:
Repetition
The strongest lectures don’t need a rewind button because everything is clear, and one way to ensure clarity and understanding is repetition.
Tell your audience you’re about to say it again:
- “Let me say this again, because you’ll want to remember this point when we get to…”
- “This is important. Really important.”
Avoid
Speaking fast: This can make it harder to grasp and keep up with new ideas and information, and can elevate cognitive overload. Speaking “a beat” slower is okay because audiences can “speed up” a video recording if listening at a faster rate (x1.5) works better for them.
Longer complex sentences (multiple commas): Makes it harder to process what you’re saying. Simple sentences are easier to read and help you speak more clearly.
Test record!
What Recording a test section of the script is a good idea for a couple reasons: Make sure the technology works, and
- Record several lines of the script, and listen to the recording. Does it sound the way you want it to?
- Experiment: Read several lines, using different approaches:
- First, read with a relatively flat intonation.
- Then, transform to a stage actor, and push to overemphasize your voice modulation.
- There’s probably a middle ground between the two versions you can aim for in the next recording.
- Smile often! Smiling while we are speaking this naturally lifts our voice, and makes it easier to enunciate and pronounce words.