okay so today we're going to be talking about narration and my narrator speak so
slow. This is a video that I expect very few people to be interested in but, I
don't know man, I just really wanted to make it. If you
don't know, I am an audiobook narrator - not a particularly good one but you
know, I do what I can. I do have a video talking about my favorite audiobook
narrators, so if you are looking for some really good ones check it out up there
and down below. But a lot of people speed up their audiobooks, not everybody, but a
lot of people. And today I want to talk about why the narration is so slow. I
have four things that I'm gonna talk about and there's really no point to
this video. The first reason that narrators speak is so dagum slow is
because reading out loud is just slower. When you read in your head you don't
have to have subvocalization, or at least not as much, which means you don't have
to pronounce every word in your head. I still do but I think it's just because
I'm Dyslexic. But for the average reader, reading in your head is just naturally
*faster than reading out loud.So if you physically read a book or read a book on
eBook you can just get through it faster than you can if you're listening to an
audiobook on 1x speed. Going along with that, the next thing is because a
narrator has to enunciate and articulate themselves really well. If you're rushing
through a passage, one it doesn't sound good. Two, it's harder to understand and
three, you're gonna make so many more mistakes. And so to have a clean audio
file where you're not having to go back and retake literally everything, you have
to move a little bit slower in order to get through it cleanly. But then also
it's just not fun listening to a narrator speak ridiculously fast where
they're mumbling or stumbling over words, which is what happens if they read
faster, So it makes more sense for them to read slowly, and then if you want to
speed up the text it's still clear - not text. If you want to speed up the audio
file, it's still clear to your ear because they're speaking slowly and
clearly and you're just making it as fast as you want it to be. The third
reason I'm going to talk about is conditioning of the reader. Have you ever
watched a YouTube video on 1.5 speed or 2 times speed and then for whatever
reason decided halfway through the video I'm a slow this down and then you put it
on normal speed and it sounds like the person is speaking through molasses?
They're not, you've just conditioned your ear to listening to them talk a little
bit faster, and when you slow them down their natural pace, it sounds unnatural to
you. If you're used to speeding up audiobooks and that's something that
you've conditioned yourself for and it's something that you've accustomed to
yourself too, then one time speed is going to sound so much slower to you
than it really should because your ear just isn't used to a normal dialogue. On
the opposite end of that, giving an example in reverse, as a narrator
sometimes Korey actually - my husband - will put one of my audiobooks on to listen to
it and he listens to my audio books at 1.25 speed and it drives me crazy
ecause it sounds so unnatural to me. He thinks it sounds natural, he thinks that
I sound like just a regular person talking at 1.25 speed, but
I'm used to listening to me at 1 time speed and so when I hear myself sped up
even just a little bit, it feels so uncomfortable to me. Even though I may
speed up someone else's audiobook, I'm used to hearing me at one time speed so
it just sounds wrong any other way. If you're used to speeding up your books
and doing the opposite and slowing it down it will sound wrong to you, not
because it is wrong, because of what you're conditioned to. Last let's talk
about performance. Let's say you want to watch a movie, but really all you want is
the plot of the movie and you want to get through it really fast. Do you read
the script of the movie really fast or do you want to sit down and watch the
performance of the actors? Just reading through the script really quickly is
going to be faster, and it's still going to give you the story that you're
looking for, but you're missing out on the performance that you came for. The
truth is that just reading a script even if you're just reading out loud is going
to be a lot faster than performing the script. I'm gonna give you an example and
I'm gonna use a public domain book because I don't want to be copy written.
Let's just read it. Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me
I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive and for a while. I could not enter,
for the way was barred to me there was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I
called him my dream to the lodge-keeper and had no answer and peering closer
through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw the lodge was uninhibited. I've read
through that really fast, it was also terribly boring to listen to.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again, it seemed to me I stood by the
iron gate leading to the drive and for a while I could not enter for the way it
was bard to me there was a padlock and a
chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper and had no answer,
and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate. I saw that the lodge
was uninhibited. That's just a narrative paragraph, no dialogue or anything, so
that's kind of boring anyway. But the point is, if you're performing something
in order to actually invoke emotion and make it feel like a conversation there
has to be some sort of slowing down and tone and a little bit of drama to it.It
feels more like someone's talking to you and less like someone's reading to you
and that just takes longer to do. Performing a script takes longer than
reading a script. For me, I have a list of my favorite narrators, people that I
listen to their books for their performance as much as for the story. I
actually recently read skyward by Brandon Sanderson and I wanted to read
it physically but then I realized that Suzy Jackson with the narrator and she's
one of my favorite audiobook narrators, so I got the audio book just for Suzy
Jackson's performance and I listened to her at one time speed, Even though I
could have physically read the book way faster, I chose to listen to her
performance because her performance adds so much to a story in my opinion. Now
there are definitely narrators that are a lot more dramatic and want to add
drama to every word ,those guys you got to speed them up otherwise you die. But
that's just a narration style, people are individuals and the way they narrate is
going to be individualistic. If you're gonna listen to someone that's a little
bit more dramatic and likes to make things a little bit slower, you know
speeding them up might sound more natural to you. But there are also
narrators like Suzy Jackson who I think narrates at a really normal feeling
pace. For me, there are narrators that I can't speed up or can only speed up a
tiny bit because I want their performance as much as I want their book -
their performance adds to the story, which is every narrator's goal. There are
some narrators that I speed up more than I'm really comfortable with just to get
through their performance because I really don't like the way they're
narrating the story but I still want the story, so I just speed them up so that I
can only focus on the story and not get distracted by their performance. That's
obviously not ideal. Obviously there's nothing wrong with
speeding up your audiobook, listen to them however you're comfortable with. But
if you were ever curious why audiobooks are so dadgum slow, there ya go, there's
some information. Anyway that's all I have for you today in regards to
audiobook and narration. I'd love to chat with you more about this in the comments
if you have any questions or any more insight about this topic. I post videos
every Sunday Tuesday Thursday and Saturday I'll see you guys soon. Bye