The only authentic accents are those of narrators of commercial books. In
the past, NLS had some narrators with authentic British accents. Some of
them are being mentioned in posts on BARD Talk this afternoon. And one or
two, like Guy Sorrell, could produce an authentic French accent if he chose.
But the others are put on. I don't understand why accents are thought to
improve the experience of reading a book. If one were reading the print
version, or the braille version, for that matter, there would be no accent.
You know what country you're in or the nationality of the character, from
the text. As for authentic accents, they're difficult to understand, and
they're particularly difficult to understand if one's hearing is somewhat
impaired. NLS is supposed to be serving blind and disabled people, and the
majority of its patrons are elderly. Therefore, NLS should be concerned that
the books are easily understandable to all its patrons. There's a novel
called Americanah about a Nigerian woman who emigrates to the US. I bought
it from Audible because, at the time, it wasn't on BARD. It was narrated by
an African woman who had a British accent. But she read all the characters'
dialogue with authentic, very heavy African accents, and she changed the
pitch of her voice for different characters. It drove me crazy. I couldn't
hear a good part of it. I returned it to Audible and got the Bookshare
version which was a total relief to listen to. Then, the following year, the
book appeared on BARD, narrated by an NLS narrator. I haven't heard this
version, but I have heard this particular person do books with African
accents before, and I know that I would have no difficulty understanding
her. However, I see no point in the use of these accents. I want to read the
book and the most feasible way to do that is to listen to it. But I want
listening to be as easy and as close to reading the print, as possible. And
the fact is that even Kendra cannot read certain things appropriately like
foreign words or the sh sound that someone makes to quiet someone else down.
When you listen to Kendra, you have to do some translating in your head and
also, make allowances for bits of skipped text. And you have to pay very
close attention because she doesn't always pause appropriately between
sections or chapters of books. So reading tts is not really closer to
reading print than a good competent human narrator.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 2:43 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: After You DB82661
If they are using authentic accents then at least that is a step forward.
Those phony accents are so grating on the nerves that I wish they would just
stop it.
On 11/13/2015 10:42 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Thanks, Penny. I do want to explain that ambient noise has nothing towhich take place in those countries. The narrators without accents, put
do with this issue. The issue is that range of the volume level is
much wider in digital recording than in analog recording. So if you
set the volume level on the machine that is high enough for you to
hear what you are listening to, the level constantly changes because
the narrator reads at different volumes constantly changing depending
on how he or she reads dialogue between various characters. Whether or
not you're using earphones, you would have to keep changing the volume
level. Usually, narrators read the straight narration at one level and
change only for dialogue. In this particular book, she read the
straight narration very softly so the volume became unbearably loud
for much of the dialogue. The NLS person on the BARD list explained
to me that there is a fix for this, but they just chose not to include
it when they built the digital player. The reason that the problem is
worse with commercial books is that it is the commercial market that
determined that reading the books should be a performance, rather than
just good, clear, reading with appropriate expression and pauses for
pronunciation. A lot of things followed from this decision, including
using people with authentic accents from various countries to read books
All I've ever wanted, even when my hearing was absolutely fine, was tothe experience of poor.
hear the book read well. If I wanted a performance, I'd attend the
theater or a film. But much of the commercial practise has leaked into
what NLS narrators do, like changing the pitch of the voice for male
and female, acquiring accents for certain characters. If you add all
of these practises onto these huge changes in volume which take place
when there's dialogue, the experience can become unmanageable. But like
eyesight, the experience of poor hearing is difficult to communicate
which is why so many people have mentioned earphones as a solution.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Penny
Reeder
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 9:10 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: kimcharlson@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: FW: After You DB82661
Hi Miriam, I have been the representative from Library Users of
America
(LUA) on the NLS Equipment committee for a few years. I don't know if
Kim will re-appoint me to this position, but I will make sure to bring
this issue before the committee and insist, as much as I can, that it
be addressed.
Meanwhile, an NLS patron can receive headphones from a cooperating
library
-- all one has to do is ask -- and I'm wondering if using headphones
might block out some of the ambient noise in y our environment and
make books easier to hear. Unfortunately, these are not wireless
headphones, and so their use could be somewhat problematic while
falling asleep, but it might be worth giving tyhem a try.
I am going to cc Kim Charlson, in case she's thinking of sending
someone else to the next meetings of that committee -- so that that
person will be sure to address this issue even if I'm not there.
I am happy to continue to represent LUA in this way, but it's up to
LUA;'s president and the ACB president as well.
Penny
On 11/12/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Below is an email that I sent to NLS today. I thought some of youappropriate staff members.
might be interested in what I told them. I received a response,
thanking me and telling me that it would be forwarded on to the
There is a member of the Bard talk list whose name I can't remember,they meant to the elderly.
who works for NLS and who emailed me privately a few years ago when I
began asking about the changes of volume in the new books. He told me
that when they were designing the NLS digital player, he suggested an
additional control which would compensate for the differences in
volume that occur in digital books. But his superiors said that an
additional control on the machine would be confusing to people. I
assume
This is unfortunate because we're the folks who need it.impaired hearing.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni [mailto:miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 12:55 PM
To: 'NLSDownload'
Subject: After You DB82661
I'm writing about this book, but I am also writing about a broader issue.
I'm not sure that you are the right people for me to communicate
with, about the broader issue. But if not, perhaps you can direct my
comments to the appropriate person.
About this book which is commercially produced. Now that I'm old,
I've developed hearing issues along with barely being able to see.
The NLS player is wonderful, in that one can use the controls to
adjust each individual book so that it can be more easily heard. But
there is no way of dealing with the changes of volume within the
narration of a book. This particular book is especially difficult to
hear. The narrator has a British accent and she does the main
narration of the book in a very soft, confidential tone, difficult to
hear. She speaks more loudly for the characters, but this also
varies. I did speak with a sighted person whose hearing is fine, who
listened to the same commercial version as NLS has, and she told me
that she found the volume hanges in the book excessive. For me, the
recording was so difficult to hear, that I had to get the Bookshare
version of the book so that I could read without missing anything.
That was really disappointing because I much prefer to hear human
narration. I've done this only twice in the past and it was with
books that I'd gotten directly from Audible. I've never had to do
this with an NLS book before. And actually, I've stopped getting
books from Audible because the recording quality is so unpredictable.
I think there is a broader issue here. If I'm not mistaken, the
majority of legally blind people in the US are newly blinded elderly
people. I think it's safe to assume that a good percentage of them
have
My
evidence is that within the past few years, (I'm now 78 hears old), I
keep receiving advertisements for hearing aids in the mail. So if a
lot of these elderly blind people begin to use the NLS talking book
program and if the talking book program uses more and more
commercially produced books without making some kind of technical fix
to make it easier to hear the books, there are a lot of folks who
won't benefit from the program, and that would be terrible. I'm told
that these severe changes in volume level are related to the fact
that the books are digitally recorded. Even within the NLS program,
there's a big difference between the books recorded by NLS narrators
in the 90's and books recorded now. Books recrded by the same
narrator in the 90's are easier to hear than the ones she records
now. And I notice differences in the sound quality of NLS produced
books that come from different studios.
However, there seems to be much more unpredictability with the
commercial books. I know that most of the younger blind folks on
email lists, love the commercial books and they also like all of the
performing rather than just good, expressive reading. Even when my
hearing was fine, I never liked all of what I consider to be,
overacting. But I do think that if you are wanting to serve those of
us who are old, it would be helpful to try to come up with a solution.
Not all of us use hearing aids, nor do I think that hearing aids
would help in these situations, especially for those of us who listen
to a book while falling asleep at night. I also do appreciate how
much more efficient it is to use commercial books that are already
produced. You can get them more quickly and it may be less expensive.
So I hope that either a change can be made in our NLS players, or
that you can do something with the recordings when you convert them
into daisy format to even out the changes in volume.
Miriam Vieni
