0394 – Don’t Fear The Silence

2022.01.29 – 0394 – Don’t Fear The Silence  “Pauses strengthen the voice. They also render thoughts more clear-cut by separating them.”Rhetorica ad Herennium - the oldest surviving Latin book on rhetoric, dating from the late 80s BC  Broadcasters can fear silence. We want to have a wall of sound on air – music and talking, or music and talking. It causes some people to talk, without ‘saying anything’, verbal diarrhoea just to keep the volume meter waggling on the studio desk.Silence doesn’t mean ‘nothing’. It is an important communication tool which can mean as much as ‘something’. Constructive silence can be confident and comfortable, and create conversation. Destructive silence can be defensive and discourage discussion. Silences can be golden, or leaden.They can give us space to breath literally - and for the audience, metaphorically, letting significance sink in.Pauses possibly produce powerful performances, from increasing tension to enhancing jokes.But they can also be slow, boring, pregnant … or dead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.