A voice that connects.
Direction that delivers.

An essay by Klaus Kowatsch, translated into English. Time references relate to the original publication.

Once again the voice artist has stumbled over the “Seljuk sailing ships”. He is a seasoned professional, and this is not our first session together. But when things go wrong, patience is the only answer. I ask the sound engineer for five seconds of pre-roll so the speaker can hear the tone of the previous sentence and pick it up.

“But not so hard, not so forceful. Stay relaxed and pick up your own tone, otherwise it will be difficult to edit.” With all those s and sh sounds, I almost stumble myself. Once more: “Seljuk sailing ships”. There we go! No, this is typical: the hurdle is cleared, the speaker is pleased, his mind lingers on it for a fraction of a second, and he trips over the utterly ordinary word “arrive”. We are not safely in port yet.

It is almost funny. The previous three paragraphs went through without a break, but now... Well, laughter at least helps us relax, especially when we laugh together: for instance at my threat to wrap up the outtakes as a Christmas present for him.

“Same spot?” “Same spot, and... please!” That was it. Another stumble. It did not help. What now? The next trick: “Listen, do not make it unnecessarily difficult. Just say ‘the sailing ships of the Seljuks’.” “If you think so...” “Yes. With a pickup, and... please!” To the sound engineer: “Thank you for your patience. You know, sometimes it is these little things...”

Yes! Done! He sails through effortlessly and delivers the next sentence cleanly. I listen closely: does the tone convey the meaning, do listeners still feel personally addressed, is everything understandable on first hearing? Perfect. I note the change to the text and mark off the page. Relief.

.........

The work of voice direction does not begin only in the studio. Preparation includes assessing whether the text can be spoken and understood. The approach can vary considerably with the type of text:

For an audiobook, a recorded literary work, the words must be reproduced faithfully. Changes, including abridgments, must be agreed with the author, translator and publisher and cannot be made without approval. The director’s attention therefore rests mainly on interpretation. As the first critical listener, the director must judge whether the writer’s sentences convey their meaning clearly and their emotional quality immediately. If that does not happen at once, the director needs to know the expressive tools the performer can use: phrasing, breathing pauses, timbre, pace and so on. Offering collaborative advice and, at times, making demands, the director guides the voice artist toward the intended interpretation and an engaging literary listening experience.

The approach is somewhat different for an informative factual text. Here the emphasis is on communicating the content accurately and accessibly. Phrasing may need to be adapted to the needs of speaker and listener. While listening, we cannot scroll or turn back a page: information must become clear immediately and stay in memory as precisely as possible. Because feelings also influence how the brain stores information, an appropriately pleasant voice is an important means of conveying even the driest content.

In everyday studio practice, however, mixed forms are the most common, for example documentary commentary and audio guides. Information and interpretation are interwoven. With strongly emotional material, it can be a delicate balance to allow feeling into the voice without sounding sensationally sentimental or, at the other extreme, cynically cold.

Oh yes, another twenty pages of Seljuks... Fortunately it is only two now, but imagining that there are still many more has proved useful. That is at least what I like to tell speakers, so that anticipation of finishing does not make them lose tension and let their concentration sail away just before the end.

At the time of the original article, its author Klaus Kowatsch had worked in Berlin as a director for voice recordings for 25 years.