THE BROADCASTING VOICE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 166, 10 April 1926, Page 22

THE BROADCASTING VOICE

GOOD SPEAKERS AND BAD

One of the enigmas of broadcasting is why one person’s voice comes over well and another’s badly. Listeners are alwavs asking themselves why this is so. The Prince of Wales, they probably know if they have heard him speak in person, does not possess a particularly strong voice, while he has frequently been credited with a sensitive, hesitant manner; and yet he broadcasts remarkably well. His recent speech at the British Industries Fair banquet came over with exceptional clearness. Other prominent speakers, whom most people would expect to broadcast perfectly, frequently disappoint. What is the explanation? Is it a question of timbre, of elocution, of delicate mechanical adjustment in the studio, or of a new microphone technique which even the most experienced speakers have io acquire ? _ Or is it simply that indefinable quality, personality ? This last was the explanation offered an “Observer” representative by a 8.8. C. official recently. “Good, clean English by a speaker with a definite personality who has something to sav and is speaking from his heart—that will always get over,” he said “Take, for instance, the talk i>v Captain Tose, master of the wrecked Antinoe. Fie had not much voice, but he bad a ' ery definite, forthright personalitv. so he got over well. The Prince’ of Wales has undoubtedly a strong personality, and so gets over well. So long as a man speaks clean, straight English as naturally and conversationally as possible, elocution does not matter. “I don’t think one of our announcers has ever been an elocutionist in the strict sense of the word. They become announcers, so to speak, by the grace of God. They are educated, can punctuate well at sight, speak clean English, have flexible voices, and, above all, personality. Flexibility is indispensable. Recently we had to refuse an applicant who had a good voice and suited in everv other way because he had reached the age when the voice loses its flexibility.” So long as a man had this “personality” voice, he added, it did not greatly matter what handicaps he laboured under. The last announcer engaged by 2LO was a man who had suffered badly in the war and lost three ribs and an eve. ’Normally, he pointed out, a speaker stood three to four feet from the microphone, but with voices of strong emotional pitch, adjustment was sometimes necessary. When Mr. Henry Ainley and Miss Cathleen Nesbitt broadcast scenes from “Antony and Cleopatra,” for instance, the one stood twenty feet away from the instrument and the other eight. It is a 8.8. C. rule that broadcast matter has first to be written—a pre-

caution only waived in rare instances. One secret of getting over well is to read exactly as though one were talking extempore, and never, on any account, to rustle one’s papers, which would at once destroy the illusion. For this reason, all intending broadcasters are urged to read their matter aloud as they write it. They have to talk quietly and naturally, as they would in an ordinary room. So far as they are concerned, their audience, whether actually in Aberdeen, Plymouth, or India, is always three feet away, where the microphone stand?. The pompous, ponderous manner is the worst of all. It is an interesting fact that of the total number of people tried out for broadcasting, 00 per cent, were rejected for voice alone. The principal faults were: Bad enunciation, hesitancy, misreading of sentences, too shrill a pitch, lack ot personality, lack of something really worth saying. Mr. A. J. Alan, the, teller of those ghost and burglar stories, has a charming knack of talking as though he were improvising. Mr. Lloyd James’s talks on English succeeded' because they were talks in English, and the best English at that. Mr. Baldwin’s election speech was one of the most impressive things heard on the, wireless because —it was Mr. Baldwin, and steadv, sound, dependable English. Mr. Bernard Shaw, reading “O’Flaherty, V.C.,” was a great achievement because of his bountiful personality which could talk in four voices and sing a song! Chaliapine was fine for the simple reason that he is natural, unforced, and debonair in manner, and sang as he would in a drawing-room. Tettrazini was less successful because she sang in the studio exactly as she would in the largest opera house in Europe. Light, flexible, coloratura singers like Miss Mavis Bennett and Vivienne Chatterton always come over well, for thev bring the intimacy of a room into their singing. Generally speaking, women speakers are seldom as good as men, for there are relatively few outstanding women personalities of the calibre of, say, Rebecca West or Rosita Forbes. Here are a few points for intending broadcasters who want to get over successfully:— “Be conversational, not pedantic or academic. Since the talk is to be of short duration, deal with one or two points thoroughly rather than a lot, which will leave the listener with loose ends. Don’t end an admirable talk on the Giant Killer Wasp bv saying, ‘The largest known insect of which there are surviving species is the Giant Dragon Fly, whose wings measure two feet from tip to tip. Good night.’ That is not the end of a talk, but the beginning of another.” “Don’t raise the voice. Imagine yon are talking to two or three people in a room.” . , . “Don’t fidget with your, papers; become a study in still life. “Be—-yourself.”