0494 – 16 - Rhythm Nation

2022.05.09 – 0494 – 16 - Rhythm Nation

16 - Rhythm Nation

A formal script will sound ‘script perfect’. Each phrase and sentence will come with the regularity of waves on a shore, every one much like the previous one. Think perhaps of a documentary style of presentation or an announcer. It sounds like a script has been written, read, rehearsed and recorded.

But that’s not how we speak in real life. In real life our utterances have ebb and flow. We don’t really talk in sentences at all, but a series of phrases, of different lengths, with rises and falls in pitch and intonation, and yes with pauses as we search for the right word and stumbles as we correct ourselves. As though you’re discovering the thoughts as they occur to you.

Your story will have natural pacing if the thoughts and feeling in your script or story influence how you express them. Listeners should be able to hear different rhythms as the thoughts and feelings unfold.

A ‘read read’ tends to be quite consistent and definite. A natural conversational read has more variety, more ebb and flow.

What are the rhythms?

·        Some words and ideas should come quickly, while others - usually the important words – will take more time, more care and deliberation. As we search for the word, there’s a suspension or a stumble.

·        There should be natural pauses between thoughts – after all, even though you can’t see your audience and have no verbal or facial feedback from them, it is still a dialogue and not a monologue that you are trying to achieve. And what a pause does, is that it creates a moment when they can inject their own thought, or nod or a nod or a shake of the head.

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