Oh, it’s all about the voice

Like many of us, I simply cannot bear the sound of my own voice, so I have yet to listen to this interview which appeared on the Danny Pike Show this Monday – it starts at 1.09 in.
I do know that the aspects of voice are many, that it means many different things, but that each one of them is down to identity. Whether it’s authorial voice, the voicing of a chord, the collective voice of a populus, or the simple result of air being moved over vocal chords, the voice is something that is instantly recognisable. Why do we not like the sound of our own voice? Is it because we don’t want to be confronted with who we are?
Parkinson’s affects your voice. It gradually softens, slurs, diminishes.
As it does so, another aspect of what makes you you slowly fades.
Eventually, the words ‘I didn’t recognise you’ will be the one I hear most.
Sometimes, I don’t recognise myself. Perhaps that’s why.
I’m truly not convinced I can listen.

 

For more on early onset Parkinson’s, see my book Slender Threads, available both as an e-book and a real, paper book. 30% of royalties goes to fund research into Parkinson’s.

3 thoughts on “Oh, it’s all about the voice

  1. I’m not sure that it is much more complex than the fact that we each hear our own voice with the benefit of more bass and therefore, perhaps, greater gravitas. I have never enjoyed listening to my recorded voice either. I thought that Danny Pike asked some intelligent questions and you answered them very well.

    • That’s certainly part of it, but we are also confronted by the mismatch between what we hear and what others hear, and that’s always uncomfortable on a deeper level, I think. When you know your voice is changing too, and why, it brings a whole new tureen of neuroses to the table …

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