Voice
The best microphones can cause a slight distortion of the human voice but modern engineer has reduced that distortion to a minimum. It has been noticed with fair degree of honesty that the voice of an actor or singer can be heard in the home in normal or natural state unless we deliberately alter it. The high fidelity of good FM reception will often cause announcer to sound like some one actually in the room. In the average drama, voice IS heard without distortion. it is only on special purposes it is passed through a filter or given extra reverberation provided by an echo chamber (see chapter on Microphone) In the musical programme the voice of a soloist or chora group is sometimes enhanced by the use of echo or artificial reverberation a device often used by the record industry.
In a nondramatic anti nunmusical programmes we may assume that studio voices will be as natural as possible.
A filters or variable frequency: Filter is an electronic device in the control room which permits the audio engineer to subtract or filter out high or low frequencies of the voices passing through the audio console Taking out the lowest sounds and most of the high sounds give us familiar sound of a voice heard over a telephone and taking out other frequencies can create the effect of an intercom system or a loud -speaker in a terminal.
ECHO
Originally, echo is an added reverberation given to voice or sound by the use of an echo chamber, a long narrow passage or a twisting labyrinth with concert or plaster walls. The sound originating in studio enters this chamber through a loud- speaker and the resulting sound waves bounced their way between the reflecting walls to be picked up by a microphone and then fed back into the audio console which was mixing the programme-and this in a fraction of a second.
Modern studios have mechanical or electronic methods of inducing this added reverbration. Echo will be used to suggest that the actors were speaking in a huge cave, a large railway terminal or a meeting hall. Echo can be manipulated to suggest a gaint’s shout, the voice of a ghost or other obnormal originations. Echo is used to recording live music to augment the richness of a choral group.
ARTIFICIAL PITCH CHANGE
The method of speeding up the frequencies of the voices is to raise Pitch but without speeding up the rate of delivery was accompanied by recording normal voices singing slowly but recording at a slower than normal recorder rate. When played back at normal speed the singing came up to proper tempo and the pitch of the voice and television drama. This high pitch is Used to suggest extreme smallness in the owner of voice, and at times, when the hero voice is gradually growing higher and higher and higher as he grew smaller and smaller pitch change is always a suspense in drama involving a Variation to shrink down toward a micropic size.
MULTIPLE RECORDING
In the recording industry, a number of singers have developed styles in which they record a melody then harmonize with their own voices. By dubbing and redubbing, it is possible to create a one a man quartet or a two person chorous televisions case of multiplying the images of a performer suggests opportunity for multiplying his voice
PRE-RECORDING
All the variations in the use of human voice listed so far can be used equally by radio and television. The television may pre-record the voice of an actor for certain situations. It is a necessary device in a play that at times the characters are speaking aloud and hear each other, at other moment, one of them is thinking and his thoughts are not audible to his companions
In the theatre, this concept was established by the device of having all other characters at the stage a given moment “freez” while one of them thought aloud. In such a film, and television versions, this same effect would be created more convincingly by showing in the screen a close-up of the face of the person thinking, while his own voice comes to us from a tape, expressing the thoughts which we also see reflected on his countenance. It is used in any situation in a play in which we need to know what is running through a characters mind, whether it be his own thoughts in his own voice or his recollection if the voices of others. It is a soliloquy in a drama.
CLARITY OF VOICE
Clarity of voice depends on:
a. Timbre, or tonal quality the richer the voice in its harmonics lying between 300 and 7,000 Hertz, the more suitable it is as a conveyor of words. No where is this more true than on short waves. A woolly voice is a bad carrier of meaning. The timbre can however be improved by training or up to a point by boosting the higher frequencies at the expense of its lower in its passage from microphone to loudspeaker.
b. Accuracy of enunciation e.g in English, pair, bare (bear) tare (tear) and dare being spoken in such a way as to be distinguishable one from the other.
It is often said that broadcasters on short-wave should speak more slowly then normal to be better understood by listeners, that is half truth because a person who is slovenly in speech will not become noticeable more comprehensible by showing down his rate of delivery longer than normal pauses between sentences, may give the listener split second moment to puzzle out what had just heard but the listener should have been puzzled in the first place.
In most languages, it is the consonants and not the vowels which carry most of the meaning in the tone languages and ‘tone’ of course is as important as consonants in the conveyance of meaning and without the vowel the ‘tone’ cannot be established the Edo-Bini Language in Nigerian is a ‘tonal’ language and without the vowel, consonants are meaningless and consonants cannot form any grammatical word as it is in English.
In slow down speech by lengthening the vowels is therefore useless in some languages.
But if speech is slowed down because consonants are being more carefully emanated, then it will be more intelligible, for the carefully enunciated consonant is richer in upper frequency harmonic than the one said slurred Hills (1973) said that “far more careful enunciation is necessary than the domestic broadcasting or in broadcasting to expatiates when a broadcast is intended for listeners to whom the language of the broadcast is a second language and not their own Even where there is a community of language eg as between USA and Britain, the listener may find a non standard accent incomprehensible, and marked accents with which the listener is not familiar should not be used”
A speaker might have the finest timbre and enunciate perfectly and yet be incomprehensible. More fundamental than timbre or enunciation in the following:- “The idea to be conveyed must be said in away in which the listening mind can accept and therefore understand that idea”. There are two factors
i. How words and sentences are spoke and the
ii. Conversation
HOW WORDS AND SENTENCES ARE SPOKEN.
Broadcasters on short wave are advised to speak more slowly than normal, so that he might be better understood by listeners. This has led programme directors and others to guide broadcasters to speak so may words per minute. But the ear is not a computer. The listener does not know how many words broadcasters are made to speak per minute and it is of no importance for him to know. What matters for the listeners is that the broadcaster should be understood, and that he has interest of the listeners. This can be Varied from speaker or broadcaster to broadcaster and between one passage and another.
PHRASING
Let us study tile following sentences. The main victims of the present strike are said to have been the leader of the government in Nigeria. That could be said at 50, 100, 150 words per minute in this way. The —main- victims — of- the – pre-sent- stri-ke —are-said-to — have- been——-
If the sentence is broadcast or said in this manner, it wou1d not be understood easily on short or any other wave. It would be understood if said rapidly:-
The main victims of the present strike-are said to have been—the leaders of the government-in Nigeria.
If it is spoken in ‘sense groups’ or in correct phrasing, it is the key to intelligibility in all broadcasting stations whether local or external.
A broadcaster who speaks in ‘sense groups’ can give impression that he is speaking ‘slowly’ even when not, and one whose phrasing is poor can appear to be going fast even when going slowly.
