Rhythm and Timing

Acoustic Demonstrations and Exercises

1. Computer manipulation of speech timing (some not very serious demonstrations). These were done using the CoolEdit program. If you have access to a full version of this, there is a menu option Transform - Time/pitch - Stretch which will allow you to play about with duration and pitch without much effect on the other characteristics of speech.

Firstly, here's an old bit of news broadcast (about Nemo the Killer Whale) played at original speed: click

Here's the same passage slowed down by about 50%: click

Now the passage speeded up by about 50%: click

Here's something more complicated: all syllables have been adjusted to be equal to the average syllable duration of the passage, so it's effectively an artificially-constructed example of perfectly syllable-timed speech: click

For contrast, in this one all feet have been adjusted to be of equal duration, so the speech is artificially stress-timed: click