Speakers should use more sound effects!
Every public speaker stands naked before his audience. Well, not exactly naked, as in “no clothes”, but rather bare, as you have nothing standing between you and your audience. It’s both wonderful (you can connect with your audience) and terrible (it’s all you, baby). To increase the impact of your speech, you need as much help as possible, and sound effects are one way to do that…
Welcome to the world of sound…effects
Here in the age of technology everywhere, your audience is used to having their senses completely submerged in any experience in which they choose to participate. From 3D in theaters to Dolby surround sound at home, we want it all, and we want it all the time.
As a speaker, you really can’t fight this ever-increasing level of expectation from your audience. You need to improve your speech to match what your audience is looking for. Sounds are a speaker’s best friend – they are easy to wear and can add depth to any speech you give.
4 secrets to using sound effects with your speech
Dean Sheetz has been researching how speakers can incorporate sounds into their speeches and he has come up with four keys that can guide you as you prepare your next speech:
- Choose wisely: adding sounds to a speech can be a powerful way to make your point stick in the audience’s mind. However, if you don’t choose your sounds wisely, then your audience will get distracted and spend their time trying to figure out how the sound relates to the point you’re trying to make.
- Timing is everything: if you intend to use sounds in your speech, then you absolutely need to get your timing down perfectly. The purpose of sound is to support what you are saying. If the sound does not appear at the right time, then its impact will be lost. For example, if you’re talking to a group of high school students about the dangers of drunk driving and you’re going to use a car crash sound effect, then you’ll need to be able to trigger it at just the right point in your story to drive away the sense of danger.
- Too much is too much: I don’t know about you, but maybe you’ve seen children’s books where you have to press a button to make a sound for every other word while reading the book? This is great for little kids, not so much for an audience. You should use sound effects to add depth and richness to your speeches, not let the sound effects take over your speech.
- You have a plan: every time you add something to a speech, you need to have a plan for when things don’t go the way you expect. When it comes to using sound effects, there are many challenges that can go wrong. These include your sound effects not working, the wrong sound effect occurring at the wrong time, etc. As a speaker, you need to anticipate this happening and decide what you would do to keep your speech under the most challenging circumstances.
What does this all mean to you?
Every speaker wants the same thing: to make a lasting (good) impression on his audience. The challenge we face is that when we give a speech, it’s really just us against the world. However, if we take the time to plan it, then we can use sound effects to add depth and impact to our next speech.
When we use sound effects, we need to make sure that the sound effects we work with our speech, not against it. To do this, we need to keep four simple rules in mind: choose our sound effects wisely, remember that timing is everything, be careful not to overdo it, and finally have a plan if things don’t go our way.
Our audience is waiting multimedia shows in their lives. As speakers, we can use sound effects to give them what they’re looking for and achieve our ultimate goal: to change the world one audience at a time.
#Speakers #sound #effects