41 – Why your podcast needs musical dynamics

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Dynamics is incredibly important to all of us who either make music or just truly admire it. We're

listening to things through the lens of dynamics, like how things are loud and soft or fast and slow or have

tension and then release that tension. We might notice building things up to a peak or dropping things down

to a whisper and how all of those things create a lot of noise.

Like a song that stays just at one level, like one note the whole time, it really can be exhausting to the ear

because there's nothing to contrast. There's nothing to feel. It's also hard to understand. Now solo

podcasters especially really need to think about their voice in the same way because our voices are the

only or at least the primary element in our episodes being solo episodes.

What we're inflicting on your ear for the entire duration is just this one thing.

So it's easy to fall into a single note or tone or pace, like one level of energy,

and just kind of stay there until the end of our list of notes or our script.

And then we're like, wow, how did that end up so flat?

So our notes, the content, that can be great, lots of value.

But people associate the delivery of our voice, how we do it, with the value of the words that we're saying.

They naturally do that. That's just part of the human brain. I'll put a link in the show notes. So we need to

think about the quality and specifically the variation of our voice when we're delivering our shows. And

that's great because it's one thing that doesn't cost us any money to do.

So what does this look like? So we might slow down to emphasize points to signal to the listener, the person

listening, that it's something important or something that matters. We can speed up our vocal cadence to

indicate that it's something really exciting. We can turn down the volume to make things connect with the

listener more effectively. Or we can speed up and turn down the volume to indicate the idea is just kind of an

aside or less important. We're adding context.

through our voice, which adds more interest for the listener. And it sounds a lot more human as well. We

naturally do this as humans. It's all the subtext that we're adding to the things that we say. So how do you

practice this and start adding this to your episodes? So you want to take your notes or your script that

you're going to use for an episode and pick out a few points or moments where you want to adjust your voice.

Pick like a place where you want to slow down and emphasize

something. Make a note on that location that that's what you want to do. Pick another spot where you want to

display a lot more energy. Make that note there to like speed up. And then find another spot where you want to

say get quieter and just kind of connect with your listener more. Record your episode and see how this

contrast plays out. And make yourself some notes for things that you want to adjust a little bit further and

try again. The second go is usually a lot more natural.

at least for me once you've had that dress rehearsal i'm jen dehan this is a credibility

minute you can find more episodes and get in touch with me at stereoforest.com slash

minute