MetaFilter posts tagged with voice

Birgit Nilsson

Joe Beese — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:53:07 -0800

A big, blunt woman with a wicked sense of humor, Ms. Nilsson brooked no interference from Wagner's powerful and eventful orchestra writing. When she sang Isolde or Brünnhilde, her voice pierced through and climbed above it. It was not just the sheer size of her voice that overwhelmed recording studio microphones. It was the almost physical presence of her shimmering sound that made it so distinctive.

There's more to it than "omit the instrumental part"

Wolfdog — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:25:56 -0800

A guide to a capella arranging from SmarterMusic, including some nice analysis of examples.

Técső Banda tear it up.

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 09:13:31 -0800

Fiddle, accordion, and a singing drummer. Seven minutes and fifty seven seconds of Gypsy music from Ukraine, live in Budapest. The real thing. Totally wailing. Kickass. Técső Banda at Kertem.

Chiseled in Stone

dawson — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:31:19 -0800

"The ability to convey the depths of despair, the heights of jubilation and the serenity of an abiding faith are all that is required to be known as “The Voice.” Unfortunately, very few possess the ability to do all that and what’s more unfortunate, we lost one of those few–possibly the best of those few–with the death of Vern Gosdin at the age of 74." Hard core country singer-songwriter Vern Gosdin, affectionally known as "The Voice", who achieved mainstream success in the '80s with hits such as "Set 'Em Up Joe" and "Chiseled in Stone," died peacefully in his sleep, late Tuesday (April 28), at a Nashville hospital. CMT bio,(obit). His many timelss songs include the afore mentioned Chiseled in Stone (and live), Jesus Hold My Hand (with commentary), Do You Believe Me Now, Sarah's Eyes, and Till The End. "'The Voice' is now silenced but he left behind an incredible legacy of recorded performances. Other than George Jones and Roy Orbison, the world has never known a performer as expressive and capable of conveying the emotions of loneliness, despair, desolation and heartbreak as Vern Gosdin." Sit back with a bottle of Tanqueray, and salute one of the all time greats.

A different kind of grey scale

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:19:03 -0800

This drawing toy responds to volume.

Bbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr GAH phpbphpbphppbp / Words without meaning

Beautiful Screaming Lady — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:18:46 -0800

In a world...

evilcolonel — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:37:01 -0800

Said to be the busiest actor in Hollywood -- ever, Don LaFontaine was this generation's most prolific announcer, in the traditional sense of the word, lending his voice to all the major American television networks, and redefining the movie trailer. LaFontaine has died of complications from a collapsed lung at 68. A typical Fox promo featuring his distinctive voiceover. In the last decade or so, LaFontaine came to be recognized as the man and the name behind the voice, and was not above self-parody. Don tells his story. Previously. (via)

Read it or hear it? Say it or type it?

desjardins — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 12:43:59 -0800

Enter text, get an mp3. Make a call, get a text. Talk into your phone, send a text.

Wondertwin powers, activate!

homunculus — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:40:41 -0800

9 Superpowers made real. [Via Digg.]

Elaine Stritch as Ursula? Kinda makes sense...

ThePinkSuperhero — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:43:52 -0800

"Why (For) Pat Carroll wasn't actually Disney's first choice to voice Ursula in 'The Little Mermaid'? The casting story of one of Disney's most delightful demons.

Titans of Voice

potch — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 02:49:14 -0800

Decades of cartoons and movie previews have desensitized us to the art of the voice-over. For decades, the movies, cartoons, and commercials we watch have been given life by a relatively small group of extremely talented and prolific voices.

Mexico bans Catholics who want to investigate sex abuse

parmanparman — Mon, 16 Oct 2006 15:46:30 -0800

Mexican government bans American Catholics who sued Mexico City Prelate The Mexican government took the unprecedented and controversial step of banning Dave Clohessy of SNAP and Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer specializing in abuse cases, from entering the country for five years. The men had filed a lawsuit against Mexico City Archbishop Norbeto Rivera, who they allege covered up sex abuse in his diocese.

Sonic Postcards

nthdegx — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:02:54 -0800

Sonic Postcards - winner of the New Statesman New Media Award. Explore sound. Via the Sonic Arts Network, UK exponents of Electroacoustic music.

"My name is Mona Lisa"

nickyskye — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 21:00:00 -0800

Mona Lisa's voice finally heard. Even if you can't read Japanese, you can still click the buttons underneath each portrait to get playback. Works with Internet Explorer. Suzuki — a co-winner of the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for promoting harmony between species by inventing the Bow-Lingual, a dog-to-human interpretation device — undertook the project as part of activities promoting the Japan release of the movie "The Da Vinci Code."

Vroom vroom

Mwongozi — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 15:56:18 -0800

Honda's last TV ad was a treat for Rube Goldberg fans everywhere. Their latest (9.4MB zipped H.264 video) is an excellent demonstration of the human voice as an instrument.

Valentines for Perfect Strangers

atom128 — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 15:18:40 -0800

Otto is just looking for a little love. Can you fit the bill?

Kathleen Ferrier, "Klever Kaff"

matteo — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 08:23:30 -0800

"The extraordinary radiance of the voice. I still remember that. The extraordinary, enveloping, overwhelming beauty of Ferrier's voice."
When Kathleen Ferrier died at 41 in October 1953, she was as famous as the newly crowned Queen. A working class girl from Blackpool who had to quit school at 14 to work as a telephone operator, a young woman who lacked formal musical training and whose husband bet that she would never win a music contest, Ferrier -- under the guidance of the great conductor Bruno Walter -- went on to become an international superstar. An "ordinary diva" who humbly worshipped "Herr Doktor Bruno Walter", gave very few newspaper interviews, never appeared on television or in cinema newsreels. Her speaking voice can be heard only briefly and only twice, on a tape made at a post-concert New York party, and in a short speech she made for the BBC at an Edinburgh Festival. Her extraordinary career lasted only less than 12 years.
Half a century later, although her legacy lives on through her music, Ferrier herself -- "Klever Kaff" -- remains elusive. More inside.

Map Out Of Hell

Zinger — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 18:25:24 -0800

Fed up with navigating badly set up voice mail systems, Paul English has posted a voice mail cheat sheet to help you cut through to a real human. Which is just as well because most companies seem to set up their voice mail systems like this.

This is alpha, baby!

runkelfinker — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 14:54:17 -0800

Slawesome calls itself "e-mail for your voice" - it's a new web-based service which combines elements of audio blogging and webmail. Messages can be private or public - at least one bleeding-edge blogger is already using it to make voice posts. And it's been built using Ruby on Rails - so it's got to be good, right?

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

matteo — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 10:14:03 -0800

The Song and the Singer For many he is the greatest Lieder singer of the 20th century. As he turns 80, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau reflects on his long career.

A boy, a dog and a post...

KevinSkomsvold — Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:05:50 -0800

He broke all the rules... because there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no way out... He's a one-man army... He's the voice over king Don LaFontaine. [link to MP3 interview in case you want to skip all the text]

The passing of a GR-R-R-R-EAT man

Faint of Butt — Wed, 25 May 2005 03:53:07 -0800

Thurl Ravenscroft, voice of Tony the Tiger, one of the singing busts in Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion, and the inimitable vocalist behind "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," has passed away at the age of 91.

Photobloggers discuss subway photography ban

KirkJobSluder — Sat, 05 Jun 2004 16:17:36 -0800

Photobloggers discuss subway photography ban to the villiage voice. The proposed ban on photography in NYC subways was previously discussed on metafilter here In response to the ban, photobloggers plan a protest Sunday, June 6 starting at a kiosk for an MTA-sponsored exhibit of photographs celebrating the centennial of the subway, many of which ironically were taken during the previous ban.

peacay — Sat, 13 Apr 2002 08:42:58 -0800

The World Wide Web Consortium Voice Browser working group is developing revolutionary markup languages similar to HTML that, instead of focusing on a visual interface, will cover dialog, speech synthesis, speech recognition, call control and other aspects of interactive voice response applications. "This will allow any telephone to be used to access appropriately designed Web-based services, and will be a boon to people with visual impairments or needing Web access while keeping theirs hands & eyes free for other things. " (via: Internet Scout Report)

wiremommy — Tue, 16 May 2000 09:41:42 -0800

Voice Recognition - An Optimistic Take. A sunny view of a voice-commanded future. But I'm a little freaked out by their description of "VoiceXML"... someday will we all be saying "Metafilter, CLICK"?