It always surprises me when someone else is surprised by how seriously I take my voice. My whole life, I’ve made my living with it. Don’t accountants take numbers seriously? Doesn’t the artist learn all about paints?
Maybe it’s because we all have a voice. It comes out when you want it to and what’s the big deal? Thanks for asking! I’m happy to tell you. So many people give little thought to their own voice. And beyond that, there are ways to truly improve it if someone so desires.
A Voice Book That Moved Me
It feels like Lake Bell’s book, Inside Voice: My Obsession With How We Sound has a narrow market of voice nerds only. I’m probably wrong. Publishers don’t put out books for such small potential audiences. But it gets so deep into the weeds of the voice that it felt like she wrote it for the likes of me.
I just finished listening to the audiobook version. If you’re in voice acting and you’re not familiar with Lake Bell, you’ve been missing out. She’s a primo voice actor, film and TV actor, director, screenwriter, and author. She’s got the kind of career in voice acting that the rest of us would kill for. Perhaps not kill but seriously maim. She was the first woman to voice an Apple Music commercial. That’s a massive accomplishment because at that time, the brain trust in the advertising world only hired men to represent a major brand. Women were sultry whisperers or harried housewives. She wrote and directed the movie, In A World. (If you’re not familiar, “in a world” is a cliche phrase from old-school, deep voice movie trailers.)
Lake Bell can do everything with her voice and you’d never know some of her work is hers. She portrays cartoon characters as children, foreign language adults, and every type of woman you can think of. And she doesn’t imitate, she inhabits. She’s incredible. In the book, she delves into how people perceive different voices, and talked to some people whose voices you know as soon as you read their names: Jeff Goldblum, Drew Barrymore, Tracy Ullman, and others. Eric Bauza’s name isn’t as well known but his vocal work is everywhere.
It’s All in How We Hear It
We have been conditioned to interpret womens’ voices as less confident and commanding. Did you know that British PM Margaret Thatcher took voice lessons to lower her register and make herself sound more like a leader, aka, a male? And that in North America, we have an inherent bias against English-speaking voices with certain accents. (This isn’t the case in Europe.) We often view ourselves as not having accents, which is ridiculous. Everyone has an accent. Bell also talked to a writer who worked hard at eliminating her Southern accent to gain acceptance in New York City and now she regrets it.
Bell also talked to a Black scholar about the so-called “Black voice.” He shared how slaves were separated according to language to keep them from communicating with each other and therefore plotting to rise up. It’s more than how we speak but also what we speak and how it changes depending on our environment. I found the book fascinating while admitting it’s probably too deep into vocal minutae for most people.
You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone
When I left my full-time radio career in 2018, it wasn’t long before I lost my voice. After using it predictably every day, it fought back against times of total rest broken up by long recording sessions. Vocal cords are muscles. Use them or lose them. And expecting them to fire up when they’re cold is just like running a marathon without doing stretches.
I had an intense session with a voice expert in Chatham back then. I still have all of the vocal exercises she gave me but I rarely need them. One instruction I do not follow is “drink so much water that you want to move into the bathroom.” I drink lots of water. But peeing every ten minutes is no way to live!
We would all be better off if the shrill could tone down the sharpness, the low-talkers pump up the volume, and the rest of us become a little more patient with those learning our language. You don’t have to be aware of every pitch change, gravelly moment, and your projection level like I do. Just know that in most cases, the way we interpret a voice has more to say about us than it does about the speaker. So, if we’re irritated by an accent, that’s on us. So says Lake Bell and the experts she spoke to.
Voices are important and they’ve been very important to me for the past 45-years since it’s the primary way I identify who you are when you don’t tell me your name. Digital voices are equally important since it has allowed me to work with computers.
Female voices are much harder to distinguish than a male voice for they fall within a much narrower frequency range so I’ve always tried to identify something unique within an individuals voice especially in the beginning, once I get to know you your voice pattern is easily recognizable. Your perfume is also a key to figuring out who you are.
Being blind, I’ve probably been more attuned to the sound of voices than most and my training as a sound engineer likely enhanced that awareness.
My voice today, likely isn’t as strong as it once was and tires easily since I rarely engage in conversation or discussion. In the past I had received numerous compliments on my voice and ask if I had ever considered going into radio.
Fascinating.
Human voices matter, which is why I gotta believe there will be a reaction against AI voices coming down the line.