I recently posted an entry about one of the best jobs I’ll never have – a reporter job at NPR.  But I did have the good fortune to dip my toes into the yummy warm pool that is NPR for a summer, when I was a AAAS Mass Media intern at NPR’s Science Desk.  You can hear the clips when I was on the air on NPR here.  I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to have your name mispronounced on the air!

Anyway.  One of the things that fascinated me (and still does) is how people make their voices sound so conversational when they’re reading script.  Try it.  It’s not easy.  When I did my first voicing, I kept trying to sound genuine.  I thought I’d do OK, and then Richard Harris would shake his head no…   Finally he grabbed me and brought me back into the studio, and sat across from me at the table and said “Tell me the story!” and shook his head enthusiastically and listened to me with rapt attention.  My voice changed so that I was underlining words with my voice, using the right emphasis, and telling him the story, instead of reading a blank script.

This gets easier with practice, of course, and I’m able to relax more easily now and (at least some of the time) make a script come out sounding good, even if I’m in a room alone.  I can hear my own voice, and use it as a paintbrush on the words, and can tell for the most part when I’ve done it well or not.  It’s still easier when there’s someone there.

And of course the NPR reporters get more practiced at this with time, but it can still take some work to make your voice sound lively.  One of the funniest things I ever saw was David Kestenbaum, who could read the phone book and sound interesting.  He does this funny thing when he’s recording, twitching his body and jumping a little, to sound lively.  I feel bad writing this, even — these are the private things that we do as writers, be it writing your first draft in your favorite bunny slippers, or putting colored post-it notes all over one wall of your office to outline a novel.  We do funny things, but whatever works for our creative process, go for it!  So, I’m not making fun of David at all, but rather, it was interesting to see that someone with such an interesting voice has these tricks to keep it lively.

Another funny thing was dear old Bob Edwards on Morning Edition.  You could tell when he was the one talking (even though you were outside the studio and couldn’t really see people’s mouths moving.  He would bob his head up and down in time with his words, “And I’m” (nod) “Bob” (nod) “Edwards” (nod).

I also heard of a reporter who put a picture of their grandmother on the studio desk and told her the story.

Joanne Silberner showed me a trick, too, of writing out your script with one idea per line (regardless of where the sentence breaks were.  For example, my All Things Considered story on the first cloned horse:

HOST

This week italian scientists reported the birth of the first cloned horse. The foal, named Prometea (pro-ME-tee-ah), joins a growing list of cloned animals. NPR’s Stephanie Chasteen reports.

CHASTEEN

The horse is the second equine species to be cloned. Just a few months ago US researchers successfully cloned a mule, named Idaho Gem.  This latest cloning success comes from the Italian firm CIZ.  The new foal, Prometea, is different from her cloned cousins in a few key ways.
She was born to the very mare whose DNA was used to clone her. This is the first clone that’s an identical twin of its birth mother.  And unlike the mules, Prometea was created from an adult cell… This means that if a mature horse can be cloned, then breeders could duplicate an exceptional animal even if it could no longer breed.  The research is published in today’s issue of the journal Nature.

Stephanie Chasteen, NPR News, Washington

Becomes

CHASTEEN

The horse is the second equine species to be cloned.
Just a few months ago US researchers successfully cloned a mule, named Idaho Gem.
This latest cloning success comes from the Italian firm CIZ.
The new foal, Prometea, is different from her cloned cousins in a few key ways.
She was born to the very mare whose DNA was used to clone her.
This is the first clone that’s an identical twin of its birth mother.
And unlike the mules, Prometea was created from an adult cell…
This means that if a mature horse can be cloned, then breeders could duplicate an exceptional animal even if it could no longer breed.
The research is published in today’s issue of the journal Nature.

Stephanie Chasteen, NPR News, Washington

It’s amazing how differently you read something depending on how it’s written out.  This helps your voice highlight the key ideas, instead of slurring on from one idea to the next.

Also note that this piece took 2 days to write, in order to interview the researcher, and condense years of work and societal implications into 1 minute of script.  One minute of script is not very much, as you can see!

I went to voice coach lessons with David Kestenbaum and Ari Shapiro (yes, I went to biweekly meetings with two incredibly intelligent and attractive young men, tough job!).  This was interesting because, even though David’s voice is so good, he didn’t like how he sounds sing-songy.  And as I listened to him, I realized he’s right — he has a tendency to hit every 5th word or so, regardless of whether it needs emphasis.  Like, “In today’s budget analysis, the congressional leaders decided that they needed to take some time to debate the matter.”  Listen to him on Planet Money and see if he’s still doing it.

Another thing was all the different tools available to your voice.  You can stretch out a word to emphasize its importance, or you can hit it louder, or you can be more subtle.  For instance, in a story on the shuttle, they were referring to the “delicate heat-shielding tiles.”  It was more important that the tiles were delicate, instead of heat-shielding (since we were talking about how they had broken off).  So we wanted to hit “delicate” but you don’t want to hit it like “DELICATE”.  That just doesn’t work with the sense that you’re trying to convey.  So, you hit it, well, delicately.  Say it like it’s a piece of china you don’t want to break.  Lightly on the tongue, with a bit of uplift.

This is what I love about audio and the voice. There is so much chance for expression!

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