This project can include any speeches made in the UK House of Commons. I've made space for twenty, but this can be changed. I've also given some suggestions of speeches that people might like to read (please see the first few posts of the thread). You can pick one of these, or if you're able to find another speech that you would like to record, then you can do that instead.
Hansard, the official record of the UK Parliament, can be found online here:
1) Only speeches given in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom are eligible
2) For copyright reasons, only speeches given in 1960 or earlier can be included
3) Readings should not include footnotes, introductions etc - just the words that were actually spoken
4) Participants can be of any nationality
5) The way of naming files for this project is unusual - please see below
It would be good to avoid duplication of speeches already recorded for the first two volumes, which can be found here:
How to submit a speech, and 'how it all works' here
Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which speech you are submitting to the collection. Please include all this information:
• link to the text source
• name of person giving the speech
• if this is your first recording: how you would like to be listed in the LibriVox catalogue. We can also link to a personal web site/blog.
Read points 4 to 6 below for what to do before, during and after your recording, and how to send your file.
Set your recording software to:
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
DURING recording: Make sure you add this to the beginning and end of your recording: Start of recording (Intro)
"Speech by [Speaker's name]. - This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
If you wish, say:
"Recording by [your name]"
Say: "Speech given to the House of Commons on [date] by [speaker's name]."
End of recording
At the end of the section, say:
“End of speech"
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
Please leave 5 seconds silence at the end of your recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes!
AFTER recording: Need noise-cleaning?
Listen to your file through headphones. If you can hear some background noise, you may want to clean it up a bit (optional). The new (free) version 1.3.3. of Audacity (Mac/Win) has much improved noise-cleaning. See this LibriVox wiki page for a complete guide.
Save files as
Mono
128 kbps MP3
File Name: (lower case, separated by underscores): commons3_####_surnameofspeaker.mp3, where #### is the year of the speech - e.g. commons3_1841_macaulay.mp3.
ID3 V2 tags
(To find out more about ID3 tags, go to our wiki: http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WhatIsID3)
Add the following tags to your .mp3 file (how you do this depends on which software you use – if you are unsure about ID3 tags, send me a message). Please mind upper and lower case!
• Title/Name: Speech on [blah blah blah], [Year]
• Artist: [Name of Speaker]
• Album: LibriVox House of Commons speeches collection volume three
Please ignore tags for Genre and Track Number - these will be filled in automatically at the cataloguing stage.
Transfer of files (completed recordings) Please always post in this forum thread when you've sent a file.
Also, post the length of the recording (file duration: mm:ss) together with the link.
Upload your file with the LibriVox Uploader (when your upload is complete, you will receive a link - please post it in this thread): http://upload.librivox.org
(If you have trouble reading the image above, please message an admin) You'll need to select the MC, which for this project is: cm - CarlManchester
Robert Walpole (1676 –1745), was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Septennial Act 1716 was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in May 1716 to increase the maximum length of a Parliament (and hence between general elections) from 3 years to 7 years.
Edmund Burke (1729 –1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party.
William Pitt, the Younger (1759 –1806) was a British politician of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He became the youngest-ever Prime Minister in 1783, aged 24. He left office in 1801, but was Prime Minister again from 1804 until his death.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (1784 –1865) was a British statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. He was in government office almost continuously from 1807 until his death in 1865, beginning his parliamentary career as a Tory and concluding it as a Liberal.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804 –1881) was a British Conservative statesman and literary figure. He served in government for three decades, twice as Prime Minister. Disraeli's most lasting achievement was the creation of the modern Conservative Party after the Corn Laws schism of 1846.
Herbert Henry Asquith (1852 –1928) served as the Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. His premiership is notable for major social changes, for example the National Insurance and pensions. He was the Prime Minister during the first two years of World War I before he was replaced by David Lloyd George in 1916.
Ellen Cicely Wilkinson (1891 – 1947) was the Labour Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough and later for Jarrow on Tyneside. Wilkinson became associated with the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party, helping to found Tribune Magazine and supporting the International Brigades fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War. She also created the British credit system of Hire Purchase, in 1938.
David Lloyd George (1863 –1945) was a British statesman and the last Liberal to hold the office of Prime Minister, throughout the latter half of World War I and the first four years of the subsequent peace.
Sir Eric George Molyneux Fletcher, Baron Fletcher (1903 – 1990) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was first elected in 1945. In Harold Wilson's first government, he served from 1964 to 1966 as Minister without Portfolio, House of Commons spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's Department and then Deputy Speaker.
Barbara Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn PC (1910 – 2002), was a British left-wing politician. Elected to Parliament in 1945, she rose to become one of the most important Labour party politicians of the twentieth century.CLAIMED!
Denis Healey (1917 -) is a Labour politician who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.
Michael Foot (1913 – 2010) was a journalist and MP. His 1983 election mainfesto as leader of the Labour party, which proposed unilateral nuclear disarmament, the withdrawal of Britain from the European Community and the abolition of the House of Lords, was described as "the longest suicide note in history".
Carl - quick question - this particular speech is made up of about 5 "chunks" separated by odd replies of a couple of lines each
To preseve context, should I read the short replies as well as indicate who was sepeaking at the time in between the speeches read as well?
Or just read Michael Foot?
Sorry, I hadn't noticed that. It's your reading so it's up to you how to handle it, I would say.
In the previous projects, people either just read the speech as if there were no interruptions or got other readers to voice the interruptions so they could be edited in.
It looks to me as if the speech will still make perfect sense if you ignore the interruptions, if that makes it easier.
Churchill's 'Blood, toil, tears and sweat' speech should be an awesome one to do, given its brevity and power, but I'll leave it to a deep, gruff voice that can do it justice (I'd really like to hear it myself!).
Apologies for the slight delay but I have now signed you up for the sections you requested.
Janickia: As this is your first section for LibriVox: firstly a very warm welcome and secondly, please could you consider doing a one minute test before getting down to your recording proper. This tends to save people a lot of time and effort, because it allows technical problems to be identified early so avoiding the need for re-records or heavy editing. Thanks.
I'm currently 22 minutes into Edmund Burke's speech, On Conciliation with America. I didn't claim it before because since I'm new at this I wasn't sure if I would be able to stick with it. I'm Canadian so no British accent unfortunately and I mangled the part where he quotes a latin phrase acta parentum jam legere, et quae sit potuit cognoscere virtus. Can anyone give me pronunciation hints?
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