03.30.10

Perfect Pitch

Posted in Humor~General, Humor~Health & Goals at 2:11 pm by Dr. Trina Hess

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Humor is all about being AWARE. And then ACTING on that awareness. Then ACCEPTING the results of our actions.

One of my friends is well aware of the tiniest detail when it comes to speaking. Lynda Stuckey, The Speech, Accent and Voice Expert at ClearlySpeaking offers weekly tips on vocal use, care of the voice, and other fascinating topics that someone outside her field may miss entirely.

In her last newsletter, she brought up the concept of Asking Questions with Downward Pitch. What? Don’t we always ask with an upward pitch??!!
Here’s what Lynda has to say about it:

“Not all questions are asked with a rising pitch inflection; many questions have a falling pitch at the end. This could be confusing to non-native English speakers. The way to determine if a question has rising pitch is to remember that “Yes/No” and clarifying questions require a rising pitch:
Are you going to eat with me?
When are you leaving for France?

“But a question requiring more of a verbal response often ends with the downward pitch:
What is your new address?
How are you doing?

“When there are two choices in the question, the first choice gets rising inflection and the second one falls:
Do you want pizza (rising inflection), or hamburgers for dinner? (falling pitch)

“How do you ask tag questions? Try the following sentence with both falling and rising inflection. Could it go either way depending on the context?
You are taking vacation tomorrow, aren’t you?

“How do you know which way to go with your pitch? In this case, it depends on how certain you are of the response.

“Read new articles posted weekly at my blog: http://lyndastucky.wordpress.com/
Quick Links…
Email: lynda@clearly-speaking.com
Website: http://www.clearly-speaking.com
Sound Matters Blog: http://lyndastucky.wordpress.com/”
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