Far From The Madding Crowd
The other week, I was one of the speakers at a celebrant conference. It was by Zoom, so I didn’t have to travel far – just upstairs, in fact!
I like Zoom, partly because I can stay at home here in the seclusion of Cumbria, connect easily with a lot of people, and also because I can do the old newsreader’s trick of the top half of my body looking sartorially presentable – while wearing no trousers!
If you’ve read any of my earlier blogs, you’ll be familiar with the sort of thing that I teach.
A lot celebrants haven’t had the benefit of good voice-and-communication training, and they think of presenting a ceremony in terms of reading aloud. Fair enough – after all, that’s what celebrants do! But most have little idea about how much difference the skill of being able to read while sounding like they’re not reading can make in enlivening their ceremonies. The more a celebrant sounds like they’re reading, the less interesting they are to an audience. It’s to do with the expectations of the human ear – well, both of them! 😊
Our ears hope for attractive and varying sounds. In other words, a pleasant voice – and to hear a way of communicating which sounds authentically spontaneous: similar to someone speaking off the cuff. When we hear an attractive voice speaking in a natural way – Bingo! We’re hooked!
And it is possible to sound spontaneous when reading aloud. Now, you may be a good, fluent reader. But even that skilful narrative style begins to have a sameness to it after a few minutes because the range of expression is more limited than the “recalling” style I suggest. When a person is reading aloud in the traditional style, the same notes in the voice recur too frequently; pauses tend to be similar in length to each other, and as a result, changes of tempo don’t happen as often as is ideal. This is a cause of listeners gradually tuning out.
You might be thinking “Does it help if I’m amplified for a ceremony?” That’s a subject for a different blog, but the short answer is YES!
When you’re not amplified, you’re rather like a plate spinner in a circus! Similar to like dealing with those plates, most of your attention will be taken up with trying to keep your voice at a high volume so that you can be heard.
There’d be no room for subtlety or warmth in your voice. And there’s no way that you could avoid sounding like you’re reading. To put it bluntly, you can’t do the best possible job for your client(s) in those circumstances.
What has this to do with addressing a celebrant event? Well, it was the reaction of the people attending. It mirrored that of the many celebrants I’ve worked with. Most of the time, I teach one on one – either on Zoom or in person. Celebrants react to what I teach by saying things like “I’ve never thought of that!”; “Why has no one told me that before?”; “That makes perfect sense!”; “There’s a lot more to it than I’d ever thought about before”. The reaction from celebrants at the conference was excellent: “Paul’s session was fantastic”; “Thought provoking”; “Valuable”; “The exercises were great fun”; “Really interesting and extremely useful”, and so on.
So, it was gratifying to get a group reaction from celebrants as what I was saying hit the spot: to witness the pennies drop collectively rather than singly as they do when I’m working one on one.
What I teach isn’t difficult to understand – although it does need practice to put it into… practice. If you’re interested in what I’m talking about, I’m happy to have a phone call or a Zoom (there’s no charge for that) to see if you’d like to do some work with me. I don’t just coach celebrants, but in the unlikely event of me appearing on Mastermind, teaching people how to read while sounding like they’re not reading could be my specialist subject.
You can reach me on 07469 957 199 or paulyrobinson@outlook.com
And here’s my website:
Paul Robinson Voice Coaching – Voice Coaching
And if you’re thinking of becoming a celebrant, Heart-led Ceremonies Celebrant Training could be just the thing for you! Heart-led Celebrants – Heart-led Celebrants