Hearing voices

Several times a day my mind drifts off to its own world and flicks around  between topics like the crazy way pineapples grow, to looming deadlines, to who’s campaigning for mayor. For radio to capture my attention it has to be more interesting than spiky fruit bushes. So when I hear a broadcast that makes me focus it will likely have these two elements: captivating opening-audio and interesting voices.

I always thought pineapples grew in bunches like bananas.
Image courtesy of Exsodus / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Beginning.

The start of a story is crucial to engaging listeners. Jonathan Kern, author of Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production said:

On radio you get one chance to tell the listeners your story, and then there’s no going back.

A dramatic statement but true nonetheless. Radio is often a background noise to other tasks. To get those listeners tuning in means the broadcast must use some tricks to lure an audience.

Let’s use Radio New Zealand’s programme Insight as an example. In May 2012, Tonga – The Future, was broadcast. Instead of an introduction from a reporter the story opens with a lone voice singing in Tongan. The listener must stay tuned in to find out that it is a kava drinking ceremony for the new King of Tonga. Rather than a reporter saying “a man sang while the new King drank kava”, the sound itself tells the story and rouses the curiosity of the listener. As Kern says:

The right sound… can substitute for dozens or hundreds of words, and can be as descriptive and evocative as a photograph.

A variety of sound is important to keep the attention of the listener and compete with other distractions like TV, the internet, and weird fruit bushes.

Did you know cashews grow on an apple type fruit.? The shell is poisonous and will give you a rash. Don’t eat it.
via topfoodfacts.com

The voice talent

An enthusiastic voice is more relatable and interesting for the listener than a monotone. Think back to that high school teacher who droned facts at you like the “anyone? Anyone?” teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Sound has the ability to engage your emotions and alter mood and Kern sums up its capacity to grab attention:

Radio’s greatest strengths remain the power of sound to tell a story, the expressiveness of the human voice, and the intimacy of the medium.

Unfortunately the Tonga report, while informative, lacked the intimacy Kern mentioned because the serious nature of the topic inspired a sombre tone in the reporter and interviewees.

However, another Radio New Zealand broadcast from 2008 was full of enthusiastic, charismatic voices and exemplified “the power of sound to tell a story”. The documentary piece, Bowie’s Waiata, was broadcast in November of 2008; 25 years after David Bowie visited the Takapūwāhia Marae in Porirua in 1983.

The absence of a reporter’s voice is a noticeable difference. The intimacy that was lacking in the Tonga report is found here because the story is told by those that lived it and not by a bodiless voice. Relaxed voices combined with sound clips of Maori music and Bowie songs are permitted to tell the story. As Kern explains

during a radio interview we can often hear for ourselves that a politician is dismissive, or that a protester is angry… we don’t need a reporter to characterise them for us.

The relaxed voices in the broadcast speak honestly and humorously about the preparation and behaviour for Bowie’s visit and in doing so, educate the listener on Powhiri protocol. Stories are told of Bowie exchanging customary speeches and songs; giving a “pointy sharp nose hongi”; and tasting all of the food put before him by waitresses at the Hākari (feast) who purposely bumped his arms so they could say they’d touched him.

Intelligent decisions were made in the editing process to piece it together. The result is an entertaining and educational piece of radio journalism that lets sound tell the story and has me listening to the Labyrinth soundtrack.

Dance magic dance…
Image courtesy of EmilyinChains714