We have a basket of small musical instruments,
and I almost forgot that we have this.
[plays]
Do you hear how smoothly the sound changes?
From a high pitch to a low pitch.
It's very different from the sounds we get from a keyboard.
On a keyboard it's more like stepping with our fingers, right?
But with a slide whistle, the changes in pitch
are more similar to gliding because it's very smooth.
In our first lesson, we talked about stepping and gliding.
We focused on falling intonation.
And that's an important intonation pattern to learn
because without it you won't sound certain...
and people won't know when you're finished speaking...
However, there are times when we need to make our voice rise in pitch.
And that's what we're going to focus on now.
[title]
Rising intonation is used with many questions, especially yes-no questions.
Those are questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no.
As with falling intonation, rising intonation makes use of stepping and gliding.
Step up when you have more than one syllable to work with.
Each unstressed syllable after a stressed one
is a chance to step up even higher in pitch.
Notice how those adverbs of time are not stressed.
They're content words, but the verb is the more important word.
So I place emphasis on "coming."
We glide up when we have only one syllable to work with.
That's one stressed syllable and no following unstressed syllables.
Both with stepping and gliding there's a bit of a drop before we rise.
Rising intonation can express doubt, uncertainty, and incompletion.
It's not a bad thing necessarily.
In fact, rising intonation can be a helpful signal that we need an answer.
I need confirmation. Yes or no?
Sometimes we use rising intonation to turn a basic statement into a question
So grammatically the sentence looks like a statement.
But our voice signals our listener that we're asking a question.
A stronger rise can express more doubt or more uncertainty.
Similarly, we can repeat a wh- question with rising intonation.
We might do this because we didn't hear the answer the first time.
Or maybe we didn't believe the answer.
I ask my wh- question the first time with falling intonation.
I'm also changing my focus word.
Instead of the final content word, I really want the basic information: when?
So I change my focus word. It's not at the beginning.
So I have more syllables to work with, and I can keep climbing to a higher pitch.
OR: When did you say he's coming?
if I use just the single word, one syllable, I glide: When?
Falling intonation the first time I ask the question.
I also changed the focus word the second time.
I'm emphasizing WHO and all other words take me higher in pitch.
If I only use the question word, I have one syllable, so I glide: Who?
First, we'll step up from a stressed syllable.
Listen for the drop before we rise.
Now we'll glide up on a single stressed syllable
Listen for that little drop before we rise.
Remember to practice on your own.