Pacing Rhythm Emotion And Other Essential Skills For Audiobook Narrators |
Posted: January 17, 2022 |
Being an audiobook narrator
Being an audiobook narrator could open up your career to lots of new career opportunities, as audiobook sales have recently been over 70% higher than previous years. This indicates a huge opportunity for those with a natural talent in voiceovers, voice recordings and vocal acting.
The career involves a wide range of narration types including; multicast, duet, solo and full cast narration jobs. Within those jobs you might be performing in multiple foreign accents, dialects and voice types of various genders, nationalities and character types.
The amount of work available within this industry is growing year on year.
Audiobooks are currently enjoyed by around 8% of Brits, compared to 60% who still like physical paper books. As more audiobooks become available, the amount of people listening to their books and not reading them, is likely to rise.
More than two million people in the UK are registered as living with sight loss, so the more high quality audiobook narrators, the more able everybody is to enjoy the huge range of incredible books being produced in the UK and worldwide.
Audiobook narration: essential skills
There are lots of skills useful for an audiobook narrator such as; good organisation, dedication to learning and great microphone skills. However, some skills are not just useful, but essential if you want to beat the competition in the audio narration industry.
Here are some essential audiobook narration skills: Rhythm & Pacing
Rhythm and pacing is the tempo, regularity or interruption of events as they are told in a story and it is an essential aspect of telling that tale, impacting how much we enjoy the journey we hear. How a narrative moves through time also impacts how much we engage with it, how satisfying it is to hear, and how easily we comprehend what we are hearing.
Lastly, rhythm and pacing helps us to follow the natural rise and fall of a book, drawing us in and keeping our attention throughout. Emotion
Emotion in your narration helps bring the story to life. It prompts us to respond emotionally to the book and helps us connect with the story being told, and the characters within the story. The skill is pushed further in audiobook narration because you have to keep your own emotions separate from the emotions of the characters. If reading multiple characters, you then also have to diversify the emotions you convey enough to differentiate each character, as well as keeping the neutral but engaging emotion of the narrator throughout. Pronunciation & Articulation
Having the skill to speak clearly and concisely is extremely important when you narrate. You need to be able to avoid popping or lisping, smacking or gulping which is done with a mixture of breath control, mouth control and microphone control. Voice Care
Delivering your work well includes a lot of voice care that gives you the ability to work hours and hours at a time over several days. You may need to cut out certain foods, like dairy, as well as resting your voice before you have a big job ahead. Understanding what you need to be able to care for your voice is a skill in itself and one that has to be mastered to be able to consistently deliver great results in this industry. Preparation
There is a skill in narrating which involves reading ahead a few sentences whilst you are speaking a sentence, or glancing at the sentences ahead before you begin a new paragraph. This skill is so important because you’re then able to avoid time consuming mistakes like missing words, or mispronouncing words. It also gives you a moment to prepare for changing characters/ mood. Preparation for narrating also involves reading the script beforehand so that there’s no element of surprise in the script. You understand the journey, the characters, the nuances and you’re ready to take the listener on that journey without a hitch. What’s your next step into audiobook narration?Essential audiobook narration skills are really challenging to learn, but essential if you want to be able to compete within this growing industry.
The good news is that the skills are technical and once you understand what to do, practice really does make perfect. By building on these skills, hopefully you’ll find yourself landing well-paying jobs, taking your career from strength to strength.
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