Podium point #1: Woah, not so fast...

The Ford's Theater National Oratory Fellowship brings a teaching actor into the classroom via video conferencing. During our first class-long visit, Jojo talked with my charges about podium points. There are five vocal and four physical skills or attributes she sugggested the kids be aware of and work on. I thought I would overview them here. She did a really good job of getting them involved and it was a hoot to hear them take these attributes to the silly level.

The first is pace.

In regards to speechmaking, its the basic idea is the rate or speed you talk

This is a classic FedEx commercial from the 80s.

This is a great when you absolutely positively want to give an example of pace.

Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert! -- here is a Time article written about a study done on asking what languages sound 'faster' than others. It has to do with pace, to be sure. But the study also looked at the 'density' or how rich the meaning the of the word. Their example of this might help-the word 'to' is not particularly rich in meaning when compared to a word like 'bliss'.

I can't think about pace without thinking about this musician. He is a great example for another of the podium points as well so he may make a return appearance.

Jason Mraz, Wordplay (Live in Korea)

For my son, I looked for the fastest rapper. The one below is the labeled by Windows as the fastest. I cannot speak to this designation-nor do I care, really.

Cloud Rap: Word's Fastest Rapper on Windows Azure Cloud