Voices
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Voices
You know how it is, when you hear your own voice for the very first time in a video or in an audio recording, you almost always sound worse than what you think you sound like. I know when I hear my own voice in a video or in an audio recording, I always think that I have a hair ball in my throat with pencils stuck up my nostrils and a fist around my testicles. I always sound strangely constipated when I am being recorded, and it is worse that people have testified before that I do sound like that in real life. The truth is, and that applies for everybody out there, the voice we hear of ourselves is never the voice everybody else is hearing. We almost alway sound different through the speakers, and you start to wonder if there are really two voices in your head, one going through the vocal chord and the other right into your head. Maybe one is really the voice in the back of your head, just repeating the lines the other voice is saying as it goes out of your mouth. It's strange to think that there are aspects of ourselves that we'd never get to know what it is like for real, unless we use some devices to help us out. Like, you can only know what we truly sound like to others by recording your own voice on a recorder. Or, you can only really know how you look like to others if you take a picture of yourself. At least we can take pictures over and over again to get the best results. I don't suppose we could change our voices anytime soon, now can we.
You know how it is, when you hear your own voice for the very first time in a video or in an audio recording, you almost always sound worse than what you think you sound like. I know when I hear my own voice in a video or in an audio recording, I always think that I have a hair ball in my throat with pencils stuck up my nostrils and a fist around my testicles. I always sound strangely constipated when I am being recorded, and it is worse that people have testified before that I do sound like that in real life. The truth is, and that applies for everybody out there, the voice we hear of ourselves is never the voice everybody else is hearing. We almost alway sound different through the speakers, and you start to wonder if there are really two voices in your head, one going through the vocal chord and the other right into your head. Maybe one is really the voice in the back of your head, just repeating the lines the other voice is saying as it goes out of your mouth. It's strange to think that there are aspects of ourselves that we'd never get to know what it is like for real, unless we use some devices to help us out. Like, you can only know what we truly sound like to others by recording your own voice on a recorder. Or, you can only really know how you look like to others if you take a picture of yourself. At least we can take pictures over and over again to get the best results. I don't suppose we could change our voices anytime soon, now can we.
So, I am not a fan of my own voice, and I think it is because I am not used to it. It is difficult at first to attribute that horrendous voice to myself, but I suppose we get used to it after some time and slowly settle down with it. I have accepted the fact that my voice sounds exceptionally weird, though my friends would probably beg to differ. While it isn't god sent, I don't suppose it is nearly half as bad as I make it out to be. But it isn't the voice that I have grown so used to all these years. It just seems lower and rougher around the edges somehow. That is also why I tend to avoid myself being recorded on video most of the time, because I tend to sound very strange - to myself. I am sure most of you share the same sentiments, and know what it is to hear your mouth move in a video and not recognize the voice at all. It's frustrating, to know that what people hear isn't what you have in mind. Because in truth, I like what I hear for the most part, but there isn't a way for people to hear what I hear. It's not like we could implant some kind of recording device into our heads to harvest our own voices or anything, it just doesn't work that way at all. I suppose it has got to do with the way our skull absorbs some of our voices, which makes it different from the one other people hears. But it's true people, I do sound better in my head.
Since I was on the topic of music in the last entry, I have something else that I'd like to bring up in relation to that. I was watching a video by Emma Deigman, another YouTube celebrity of sorts, the kind that puts videos of themselves covering songs on the Internet and then making it somewhere. It's her very first video, though, and she chose to cover Human by The Killers, with a guitarist in the background. Here's the thing, I think she has a very good voice. In fact, she probably has the potential to win some kinda reality television show contest if she tries hard enough, truth be told. She has the clarity, the control, the tone, everything you'd want in a singer - she has it. There are definitely many different types of good singers out there, and she is definitely one of them. But here's my problem with her voice: it's common. It just seems like you have to sing like that in order to be considered a "good singer" somehow, the way the expression has been stereotyped. Every singer these days has to sing in that over-exaggerated manner, or that near orgasmic state in order to show that you are completely immersed in a song and feeling every word in it. The truth is, I am really sick of hearing people sing like that on the radio, and everywhere else on the Internet.
We have the whole "diva" thing ever since the early nineties, when we had the "divas" ruling the music industry. You know, the likes of Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, doing all the power love songs with their high octaves and their vocal acrobats. So the younger generation has watched and adapted their singing methods to suit into that image of being a "diva", and that gave birth to the likes of Christina Aguilera. When was the last time we saw a live performance by her where she didn't scream her lungs out and go from a high note to a low note, then from the low note back to a high note again in between verses and chorus? You probably don't remember her ever doing that, because she has probably never done that in her entire career. It just seems like the higher you can go, the longer you can hold a note, the better you are as a singer supposedly. She isn't exactly the near-orgasmic type of singer, but she certainly is the type that over-exaggerates a lot. There are times when you really shouldn't exaggerate a song just to make it memorable. Sometimes, a song just is. Singing it that way just makes it pretentious somehow, makes people feel like you are trying too hard to get the point across. It's worse when people forget about the lyrics and start to think about how high you can reach with your voice. No doubt you are a good singer, but sometimes you become an unnecessarily good one.
Then we have the near-orgasmic singers in the R&B section. As if lyrics about wanting to fornicate with men and women on the radio, we need to hear moans and groans in between verses and choruses, singers trying desperately to make you believe that they were making love while recording a song in the studio. I bet you have heard one of those singers, and you can tell by the way they end every sentence. It is usually sang in a way that is artificially provocative, when it really isn't. I don't think anybody out there can be turned on, physically, by the tone in someone's voice when they are trying that hard in a song. But that is the way things are, so many people try to sing in the same way that it becomes so hard to tell them apart. I was listening to a song on the radio the other day, a song with a whole bunch of female singers contributing at the very same time. The truth is, I can't tell from one singer to the next, because they all sound the same. I could tell Rihanna's voice though, not because she is better than the others because she is more annoying than the others. I mean, she sings exactly like how she does in that Umbrella song. Speaking of which, I think artistes nowadays are running out of ideas for love songs. They are utilizing nouns like umbrellas and tattoos just to get their point across - what's up with that?
I think I have a thing for low and hoarse voices. By hoarse, I do not necessarily mean the kind of hoarse you get when you have a cold and you lose your voice. I just think that voices with a lower register has more magnetism, if you know what I mean. It is more attractive somehow, rings in my ears like a melody. Of course, for the ladies, it'd be strange to sound so deep that you end up sounding like a man. Just deep enough to be just right, I suppose. Just go to YouTube and search for any interview footage of Rachael Yamagata, and you'd know what I mean. She is not a great singer by any standards, but emotions transcends the ability to sing, but rather how she delivers them. Her strength is in her lyrics, which is why she never over exerts herself on the vocal acrobat department and distracts us from everything else. The song "Duet" can never be sung in a different manner, because that is the way to sing it. It is perfect the way that it is, like an amateur singer songwriter with a guitar. Throwing in the near-orgasmic thing is going to ruin everything about the song. It's the same as what Emma Deigman did for Human, I suppose. Brandon Flowers' voice fits the tone of The Killers, and nothing else is going to do it justice.
I suppose if I am going to change my voice, I'd like my voice to be like Damien Rice's, or maybe Thom Yorke. Their range is just freakin' incredible, such a great blend of emotions and madness. It'd be nice to have their singing voices, but then I don't suppose I'd have the talent to write the songs that they write so very well. And as for my singing voice, I think I am good enough to satisfy myself in my bedroom (okay, that didn't come out so right). In the context of my own bedroom, I think it is good enough for my own ears. Though, there is the occasional presence of my family members and friends, but that is as far as it goes when it comes to my singing voice. I suppose my singing voice is better than my speaking voice, to myself. I don't know, perhaps adding a structure and melody to my voice just makes it that much easier to accept when I hear it over the speakers somehow. Anyway, the technology right now does not allow you to stick a strip of barcode on your throat and allow you to change your voice, like Ethan Hunt does in the Mission Impossible movies. But we can dream, I suppose, and we do it all the time whenever we mouth to a song on the radio or over our computer.
But of course, a voice is the most important part of a singer. At the end of the day, though, it really comes right down to a matter of preference. Perhaps some people just love the whole near-orgasmic voice, while others just like the whole diva-style. They are all good, of course, no questions about that. It is way better than if you are the kind of singers marketed to look good instead of sound good. You know, the kind with their voices manipulated for the album, and pre-recorded for live performances. They always give you some excuse and say that dancing and singing at the same time is a tough thing to do, which is why singers tend to lip-sync every once in a while. The truth is, if you are a singer, then do your job as a singer. You are not a singer slash dancer, so let the dancers do their job while you concentrate on your singing. Unless you call yourself an entertainer or a circus clown, stop monkeying around and start singing. It is only a matter of time when you fall off the stage and your voice is still heard over the speakers. It's embarrassing, or humiliating, which is worse. It's true, just ask Ashlee Simpson.
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