"Person" from the Latin personare "to sound through"

September 7, 2016 8:02 PM

"It's as though we are imagining the sound of our voice as physical stuff we are manipulating." Listen to Jeremy Fisher, Gillyanne Kayes, and Steven Connor demonstrate and discuss the prosody of a laugh, the distinction between healthy and unhealthy vocal creaking (fry), and the dynamics—and difficulties—of Hillary Clinton's oratory. And if you're so inclined, try out a series of voice training exercises from Fisher's and Kayes' new book, This is a Voice.
posted by Taft (4 comments total)

beatboxing instructions as well in the voice exercises!
posted by thelonius at 4:53 AM on September 8, 2016

Thanks for this. Those vocal exercises definitely look interesting and I'll be sure to try them out.
posted by sardonyx at 7:57 AM on September 8, 2016

"... unhealthy vocal creaking (fry).."

There is no such thing.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:15 AM on September 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

The mention of "unhealthy" vocal fry makes me nervous. There is a lot of prejudice against creaky voice, and it used to be accepted unquestioningly in some circles that creaky voice is damaging, despite a total lack of evidence. This idea was especially popular among voice coaches. Even some doctors believed it.

There is more awareness now that creaky voice is a normal--and sometimes even required--part of language, but it feels like instead of questioning the initial assumption, we're just chipping away at it. It's not always unhealthy, it's sometimes unhealthy..

I can't listen to the podcast because I have poor internet right now, so I would be curious to know what they actually say. It looks like they're both voice coaches, which immediately makes me skeptical.

(There's no standard of education for voice coaches -- they can basically be anyone who can sell their services convincingly, so there is a LOT of variation in how much they actually know about the voice. Like dialect coaches, some are actually laughably bad, while others are okay.)
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 3:41 PM on September 8, 2016 [2 favorites]