39. The Art of Um: Filler Words in Podcasting

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You're listening to Up an Octave, a podcast by Sonivia, the podcasting agency that believes that women and non binary people deserve to take up space in the podcasting industry because our thoughts, voices, and stories matter. Here you'll learn how to make dope podcasts that inspire, educate, convert, and most importantly, make your voice shine.

I'm your host, Rue Spence, and I'm here to take podcasting up an octave. Let's get into it.

Welcome back to Up an Octave. Today, we are talking about the art of um. All those pesky filler words that leave you grappling with imposter syndrome, wondering how you have any friends at all, and editing your podcast to death. This is a big one because as someone who A, I've got my own philosophy and ethos on this, but also B, I get to interact with a lot of my clients who have very strong and differing opinions on the topic.

So first up, I want to say that I often hear podcasts that have been edited to death. And what I mean when I say that is that I can hear all of the editing that's been done The average listener isn't going to hear this, but I've kind of been in the game long enough that I do. And to me, that's more distracting than an um.

When you can hear where something's been kind of roughly cut out, that to me is always going to take away more, especially if it's a conversational kind of podcast, right? If it's. laid back and feels like you're with your girls. When I am embracing my sleepover energy with my best friends, we say, um, sometimes it's just how that works.

Now, I also don't think that you need all of the ums that you say, especially if you're still getting the hang of podcasting. If you're nervous, if you're struggling to keep a train of thought. That can be where filler words kind of become a crutch, but I do believe that there is a balance. So I want to share just kind of what that balance looks like for me.

And how you can achieve it when you're editing your own show. So when we think about filler words, I'm predominantly talking about um, uh, you know, like. Those are the big ones. But you will notice that you have your own little like vocal tics, essentially is often one that I hear, or I think, and this is one that I'm really guilty of, well is another one.

These are, you know, words that I hear a lot that people kind of rely on, but that can sort of take your listener out of the listening experience of hearing your show. And I also believe that the reason that we use filler words changes based on context. I think that a well placed um in an interview podcast can kind of strengthen your credentials almost as an interviewer.

If you know, you ask a really strong question and the person that you're interviewing goes, Hmm, you know, it shows that they're. They don't have a canned response ready that they are truly sitting with what you've said and coming up with their answer. So it doesn't feel rehearsed. It doesn't feel phony.

And I think that that can be really powerful. There is also the, the valley girl trope of where like every other like word is like, and I do hear that sometimes too. That's often camouflaging nervousness as well. And then You know is one that I hear that is almost always a self confidence thing where you hope that what you're saying isn't out of pocket and that anyone else can relate to you.

So I'll hear a, you know, if it's like, please agree with me, please validate me. That's where I hear that the most, but then there are also just words that are part of our speech. I say um a lot. Especially as I'm stringing together my thoughts and that's just part of how I speak now when it's because I, um, lost my train of thought, that's very different than when I, uh, add a little bit of a flourish, I think, for example, if we like Jeff Goldblum, right, is such a perfect example of It just kind of being how you speak, if you've ever seen anyone do a Jeff Goldblum impersonation, they could have all of his characteristics, the tone of his voice, they could have all of that down.

But if they were just like, Hey, what's up? I'm Jeff Goldblum. You'd be like, that's a really crappy impersonation because his whole thing is life, uh, finds away. Like that's just how he speaks. And so when I'm working with clients and even editing for my own show, the, the philosophy that I have is that I don't ever want it to be like an auditory catfish, right?

And what I mean by that is if you were to hear a podcast that I'd edited with someone And then you met them on the street. I wouldn't want their voice and their speech patterns to be so different that if they really do like, say like every like other word, I'm probably not going to leave all of those in, but I will leave enough in, you still recognize them.

If I were editing an episode where Jeff Goldblum was a guest, I wouldn't take out his Jeff Goldblum ness. I would smooth it down a little bit and refine it in some places to help just string the narrative through a little bit more. But I never want someone to not sound like themselves. And part of that is ums and uhs.

And as we're always talking about the advent of AI and now AI for like speech, you can even create speech with it. That's like, sounds like your own voice. That's somewhere that I really think the special sauce of being a human creator is having those little vocal inconsistencies. Something that I tell my clients when I'm teaching them to edit their own shows is to think of it as a little bit of concealer.

You know, a little, A little bit of foundation here and there, but that we're not photoshopping for the cover of Vogue. I wouldn't do a, a photoshopping for the cover of Vogue style edit, unless we were truly making an audio book or something that is so production value heavy that it can't afford to have those little nuances.

In general though, you take some of your, your humanness and also some of the intrigue out when you just sound perfect. When you're lacking some of that richness, some of that human quality of an uh, or a like, or, you know, every now and again, that takes out some of that feeling of like, hey, we're just hanging out, driving your kids to school right now, or folding laundry together.

If I'm so perfect, how could anyone relate to me? I couldn't relate to that. If I feel like I, you know, have to code switch essentially, and that's a huge topic in podcasting, especially for creators of color and other marginalized communities within podcasting, but if it's something that you feel like you have to be this perfect and, you know, flawless version of yourself.

That's honestly so alienating to your audience. So I'm a big fan of keeping some of that quality the same. And there are different philosophies that people have for when to eliminate them. Something that I've heard is delete every um that comes before a consonant. That's you know, one method that you can take.

For me, I really look for when you're actually in the sauce and when you're actually editing, The biggest thing that I look for is clean breaks within the. actual sound waves. So if I, um, lose my train of thought and I have that big pause, that's an easy one to just yoink right out. But if I, um, kind of, you know, have this like long string where I'm, uh, talking a lot, but I'm also, um, using some, some like filler words, I would touch that a lot more lightly because, especially if you're not a confident editor, that can very quickly turn into this.

So, I get up in the morning, and my daughter is waiting for me, and she's ready to go, so I change her diaper, and then we come downstairs, and I start making my coffee. That gets so choppy. You know, you can hear how much more distracting that edit is than if you just keep some of that natural filler words and that natural cadence of how someone speaks.

And this is going to be a lot easier for you to master for yourself. If you are doing like solo shows, because A, you will get so much more comfortable with editing your own voice and B, you will also be able to practice good podcasting etiquette, whereas it can be trickier for if you're, you know, doing interviews.

Because those people may not be thinking in an audio engineering framework. They may just come on and say their ums and do their thing and leave and never have a second thought about how a podcast gets made. So that's definitely something to bear in mind, is the style of your show is going to impact the way that you edit.

I go more into this on my episode, How Much Should You Edit Your Podcast? That's in the way back from when I first started this show. And I gave some of my philosophy there, but in general, I'm so much of the belief that we are our own worst critics. And I hear that when I'm working with my clients. I see it come to life by the things that they pick apart.

And I have a one client who every time that she breathes deeply, she just hates it. I almost think it's like a misophonia thing for her, where if she has a really big deep breath, she just loathes that. And she's like, please, I don't care if you have to cut the whole sentence, just take that out. And that's totally fine.

But in general, there are so many things that I think we notice more for ourselves than anyone else notices. And for me, that's a huge thing with, you know, I've talked about my new setup that I'm in a big old echoey open space and I hear that and I'm currently working to figure out some audio driver stuff, which I'll share once I have some solutions for I just have a lot of fuzz on my microphone that So Is pervasive throughout all of my microphones.

And if you've been hanging out with me for a while, you know that I am a bit of a microphone collector, so I know it's not my mic. I'm trying to figure out where in kind of the chain this buzz comes from because it's really irksome that I talk about podcasting all day and I know a lot about the industry and for myself, I'm like, Oh, what is this tech hang up that I'm having?

But I know. That it's probably bothering me a heck of a lot more than it's bothering you. Just be gentle with yourself and realize that saying um doesn't make you sound like a goofball or an idiot or whatever damaging self talk is in your head as you're editing and hearing that. I also challenge you to listen to some of your favorite podcasts and listen to them critically.

Listen to them for ums and uhs and inconsistencies that you hear. And see what they have edited out and I challenge you to listen to a smaller podcast as well as a top ranking podcast and see what choices are made. There are some shows that I can think of where it's kind of warts and all and it's a very, very, very light touch with editing that you will hear sneezes and throat clearings and they're still wildly successful.

All And there are shows that I listen to where people call in and it sounds like they're calling in, like on a phone, you can, you can almost hear that. Uh, you know, we talked a lot about it in the equalizing episode. It almost sounds like walkie talkie and in some cases that can be more distracting, but in some cases it can add to the authenticity.

And so, you know, I'm kind of diverting, lost my word there. Into a bigger conversation on editing as a whole, but to me, the two really go hand in hand because filler words to me are the gateway to that authenticity and because I've just, I've seen shows be really successful and leave those filler words in.

I really think that the biggest thing that you can do if they bother you is to try and self correct in the moment. You know, there's the, the kind of joke about like, Oh, we'll just fix it in post said people who don't have to actually fix it in post that, you know, it's, it's really easy to be like, Oh, cool.

We'll just, you know, make that happen. And it's like, Okay, well, I can't do that like that's, that's witchcraft and that far exceeds me. So if you can just become more cognizant about the choices that you're making in real time, you're going to get a finished product that is much more satisfactory. So let's talk about how to actually edit your filler words out.

So, Assuming that we're in Audacity, because that's my favorite DAW, uh, digital audio workstation, if you're not familiar with the acronym, the, the thing that I will do is first, I want to address just a solo one track is on those clean ones that I talked about, where it's, I'm speaking, um, I'm speaking some more.

The easiest thing to do right there is just to, to silence it. And you can do that with going up to effects, noise reduction, amplify. Minus 50, and then putting it over where that um, or uh, or whatever you're removing is. You may have to do it a couple times, uh, and then you can kind of trim it down so that the pause sounds more natural, because to me, just as grading and sometimes more grading is having a blank space where the um was, that sounds like it's where an um was.

That, that can sound just as clunky, for example, So, um, that's what I was doing yesterday. So, that's what I was doing yesterday. You can hear the difference from one to the next. That's kind of my philosophy with that. If it is one of those where someone, um, kind of trails off, you can go up to effect again and then with the, the segment, the, um, and a little bit of the tail of the, the preceding word highlighted, you can just kind of fade it out, trim down what you can, fade it out.

And this is less ideal. Because it does augment the cadence, but if you are really anal about having that word removed, that is your best approach for that. I'm also just a big fan of fading in general, just because it adds a little bit of softness and helps things sound a little bit more natural. When that is an issue.

Hi, I'm interrupting the show to tell you about something special. A chance for us to connect one on one. Whether you're thinking about starting a podcast and aren't quite sure where to begin, or maybe you've got a show already but you're not sure how to grow, I want to let you know about my free consultations.

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If listening to me here isn't enough and you're ready to take the next step, let's chat. Find the link to book in the show notes. Now back to the good stuff. Now, if we are working with multiple track, if it's you and a co host or you and a guest, Make sure that you are tandem editing, and this is always, always, always the case, but I just, I haven't talked about it in a little bit, so I want to just bring it back up, that tandem editing is so significant.

So, with tandem editing, there are a couple different ways that you can do this, if you are in Audacity. You can actually lock the tracks by going up to track, and then sync lock tracks on and off. Then when you highlight one of the tracks, you'll see a bunch of clocks on the other one, and that just shows you that when you delete from one track, you are deleting from the other.

And this is important because if you are accidentally only deleting from one track, the timing's gonna get off, and then it just becomes A complete and total pain to try and reconfigure and add space and da da da da da to get the timing right. So, making sure that you are tandem editing when you are taking out those filler words is beyond incredibly helpful.

So. Working on your actual podcasting etiquette, this can be as simple as just making sure that you are spending more time in that planning phase. I talk so often about the three P's of podcasting, plan, produce, promote. And within the planning phase, that is such an important time to make sure that you actually know what the heck you're talking about.

Even if it's something that's so within your niche that you are always ready to talk about. Making sure that you understand how you're going to present the information, because so often those ums come from not being sure where you just were and how you're going to get to where you're going. So if you can kind of create yourself a better outline or something like that, that can help you kind of keep focus to create that straight through narrative.

And also slowing down, and this is a luxury if you are a solo podcaster, is that When you feel like you're getting a little tangled up, just pause, think it through, and then continue. And I believe that that's where a lot of speakers, whether it's, you know, public speaking or podcasting, get themselves in trouble is because they feel the need to just continue speaking.

And it's interesting, in the years I've been doing this, I've noticed that women Or, people who are female identifying are more likely to pause and collect their thoughts, whereas I've had so many instances where I edit men who are being interviewed and they will just fill the space, even if they've lost their train of thought, they will just continue to talk and talk and talk and um, um, um, um, um, they, um, well, they, they, they kind of get off a little bit on a tangent and, and, um, uh, they, they, they, they, um, they bring it back.

And whereas I've noticed more often that women and female identifying people will sit and they'll say, that was a great question. So what I've noticed, and it's just fascinating to me to see those differences that I just, I wonder how much of it is just the way that we're socialized or this idea that, you know, men have to be authoritative.

I don't know, I'm kind of getting into like gender theory at this point, and that's so not what we're here for. All that to say, getting more comfortable with just pausing to collect your thoughts and decide where you'd like to go next can help you to break the habit of ums and uhs. And also, and this one's a self confidence thing, which I talk about so often because so much of podcasting is a self confidence thing.

Just believe you know your shit. That's really it. Believe that you know what the heck you're talking about. You are here presenting this information for a reason. Believe that you know what you're talking about. And that's where I see so many of the other filler words coming in. The, you know what I mean?

Or the, I think, is this making yourself small as to not Allow people the opportunity to discredit you say, and that's, I've worked really hard to change my own verbiage to I believe when I have these times where I'm like, I'm sharing a personal notion that not everyone needs to agree with. But this is my belief, and for me, that is stronger than I think, because it's one of those, do you think or do you know?

And when you are positioning yourself as the expert, my hope is that you know. Even if you know that that may not be everyone's truth, you know that in the space that you are occupying on your own dang podcast, this is what you believe to be the way. Getting a little philosophical, which has been a lot of this episode.

But taking that time to step into your power and to own what you are positing on your podcast, that's so important and that will make you a stronger speaker as well. As we come to a close, oh, so is another one and so is a big one for me, but as we come to a close, consider what matters most to you. Now, which words really grind your gears?

What you really want to make sure you're eliminating, focus on that podcasting etiquette, becoming a more confident speaker and use a lighter touch. Just consider it because I'm always going to favor. a show that has a little bit more of that human quality as opposed to being so edited that it almost sounds like very staccato and choppy and, you know, broken up.

That if it has a little bit more ums and uhs, you know, embrace some of your Jeff Goldblum energy, but keep the humanity, keep your special sauce, keep your you-ness. and just consider what choices you might make differently in the future. All right, that's it for today. I will be back next week passing the mic to Shelby Forsythia from Dear Grief Guide, among other podcasts.

I'll have links to binge her show in the show notes. In the meantime, come hang out with me over on Instagram at Sonivia Studios where I share even more podcasting tips and tricks. Please share this episode with a podcasting pal who needs to hear it. And I will see you next time. Thank you so much for helping me take podcasting up an octave.