I was going over my notes from the History Channel special I did this fall and came across my notes on Obama. Since I had so many of my audience members ask about him I thought I would cut and paste my notes. I am prepping for my deception detection class tonight so I am giving you these notes in their pure, make that not edited in anyway, form.
(i) Barack Obama How does he use his voice to project an impression? Rhythmical, very powerful, charismatic.
(ii) I just analyzed his voice as he did his victory speech at the Iowa Cacus back in January.
(iii) Barack Voice is naturally a deep full low baritone. Deep low voices are perceived, according to research, as more authoritative believable and trustworthy. Combine that with the ease at which he can speak loudly without any vocal strain and you can hear his voice coming from the TV in another room and feel its authority and power. Hilary voice as much as she tries to control it and make it lower is not naturally low and she strains it and sound screechy and angry when she attempts it.
(iv) Obama paralanguage is chameleon like he changes his voices so dramatically to suit his location his audience his topic that it is difficult to know no just what his real voice is but who is truly is.
(v) Listen how Obama cadence that rhythm that sounds like a Baptist preacher. Listen to how he speaks on beat and extends certain words the word saaaaaaaid this day would never come. Preachers have a special rhythmic speaking were there voice goes up and down like a song and pauses on a beat rhythmically like a drummers reptile paradiddle on a drum.( demonstrate) When he does this his speaking is musical and very pleasing to the ear. We listen and moved by the rhythm so much we may not even hear the words; in fact the words may mean nothing.( and he didn’t really say anything new in the speech) But his voice is hypnotic. We know when his voice goes up and he pauses we must cheer and say amen. You can’t help your self. His other preacher speaking aspect copies the I had a dream, Listen how to volume goes up and up and up stirring the crowd and then he pauses for effect. He very effetely uses He uses the power of the pause he will say something like. He waits till the audiences cheers till he moves on to the next sentence. Pausing makes the word before the pause and sometimes the entire sentence before the pause sound more powerful and important.
(vi) Barack Voice is naturally a deep full low baritone. Deep low voices are perceived, according to research, as more authoritative believable and trustworthy. Combine that with the ease at which he can speak loudly without any vocal strain and you can hear his voice coming from the TV in another room and feel its authority and power. Hilary voice as much as she tries to control it and make it lower is not naturally low and she strains it and sound screechy and angry when she attempts it.
(vii) Obama paralanguage is chameleon like he changes his voices so dramatically to suit his location his audience his topic that it is difficult to know no just what his real voice is who is truly is.
(viii) Listen how Obama cadence rhythm that sounds like a Baptist preacher. Listen to how he speaks on beat and extends certain words and he say ‘They saaaaaaaid this day would never come. Preachers have a special rhythm were there voice goes up and down like a song and pauses on a beat rhythmically drummers reptile paradiddle on a drum.( demonstrate) When he does this his speaking is musical and very pleasing to the ear. We listen and moved by the rhythm so much we may not even hear the words; in fact the words may mean nothing. The voice is hypnotic we just know when his voice goes up and he pauses we should cheer and say amen His other preacher speaking aspect copies the I had a dream, Listen how to volume goes up and up and up stirring the crowd and then he pauses for effect.
(ix) And listen for how he says particular words like said you small towns and churches Ameeerica, affooodablllee draws it out he puts on a slight southern more accent that slightly slurs the word. That makes him sound like one of the common folk. So even when we know he came from upper class family when he says, Callused hand by callused hand he sounds like he was with us working on the farm and ploughing the field.
(x) He very effetely uses He uses the power of the pause he will say waits till the audiences cheers till he moves on to the next sentence. Pausing makes the word before the pause and sometimes the entire sentence before the pause sound more powerful and important.
