The Tempo of Silence and the Pace of Understanding

Music isn't just about the sounds we hear, played on instruments of varying character as notes with pitch, or tone. It's also about the silences between the notes The brief pauses that convey the over-all emotion and feeling of the music in question. The changes in the tempo of the notes and the silences played can drastically alter the mood of a piece.

It occurs to me that this effect is also in conversation and public speaking in particular. Orators, use the short silences between words/syllables, and paragraphs to grab hold of their audiences and pull them in to feel the meanings in their words. It's a connection that develops between speaker & audience with feedback provided via eye contact and other body language.

The successful speaker then, would be aware of these characteristics, and be able to read the responses in their audience, changing the tempo and other qualities to grab hold of their audiences. For writers, it's a little different, but I'm sure a speaking style known by some can be inferred through the writing by the same.

I guess it's why people have told me that they know this is me by the way I write. Because it sounds just like I talk.

But it's mostly all in the silences. And the occasional comma.