Your Voice

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What do you sound like? Do you like your voice? I don't like the way I sound at all and am after initial chuffed-ness horrified to think of the most popular radio station in the UK forcing people to listen to it. (Way I sound - kind of sneery and nasal and pedantic, I think, and not quite deep enough to be properly deep).

― Tom, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I usually think I sound like I'm talking too fast.

― Sean, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My voice is very low and slightly sibilant. It definitely has a boyish quality to it. I hate it. Sometimes it even has the sound of a smoker's rasp to it...despite the fact that I don't smoke. My voice is also very resonant. It's totally unbecoming.

― Melissa W, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't pay any real attention to my voice but everyone and their mother usually tells me within two sentences of meeting me, "Oh, you have a *GREAT* radio voice." As this started when I was 15, my decade-long career in college radio was predetermined. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It depends what language I speak. My voice lowers when I talk English. When I talk in Japanese, it'll sound softer. When I talk Dutch it is fast and rather sharp. French? Probably in between my Dutch and English voice. (God this sounds confusing.).
Do I like my voice? Uh, sort of. Numerous people have told me I have a *media/radio voice*. So it comes as no surprise that I was a dj for a while.

― nathalie, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I sound horrible. I speak too quickly, have a tendency to trail off at the end of sentences, my voice varies in pitch and my accent wanders all over the country. I also have a very annoying habit of picking up bits of other people's accents when talking to them. Oh, and I apparently boom.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Richard, this happens to me as well! I used to hate it but now I realize it is a bonus. It enables me to mimick accents. A friend recently said "Her accent in Japanese and English is excellent. I bet she does something with music, no?"

― nathalie, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my voice is GRATE i mean, my voice greats

― Loop, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is there anything more banal than the sound of your own voice? It should be part of the dictionary definition. I'm a bit suspicious of people of people who express a fondness for their own (speaking) voice.

Pam has said more than once, however, that I should be a voice-over artist, though this might just've been during a period when we were thinking of jobs where I could work from home. We've got a microphone and everything. I was hoping to land the "What Lies Beneath"-trailer gig for DVD release, but appear to have just missed that one.

I have a tendency to slur, more pronounced since I split my head open on that light-fitting in the Cheshire Cheese the other night. Not to worry, eh?

― Michael Jones, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I sound like godawful demon spawn. I used to have such a pretty voice then years of multiple throat ailments (the most severe being a three- month bout of strep and an ulcer in my esophogus) took my voice pretty gravelly. I alternate between my old voice, which is a slightly soft, high-pitched "young" sounding voice with a slight Queens accent (my professional voice) and sounding like Demi Moore in a bender with a twist of Marisa Tomei.

― Ally, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've been told several times that I sound like Hal the Computer.

― Arthur, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have a bass voice that is low and very soft mostly ,a bit craggy in places . I like it

― anthony, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Women often tell me they find my deep soft-Yorkshire brogue 'sexy' on the phone. Why they tell me this whilst laughing when we meet in person I've still not quite worked out yet.

― stevo, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If there was one think I could change it would probably be my voice. A bastard breed of North Northumberland and lowland Scots. I cringe every time I accidentally hear myself speak.

― Billy Dods, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I HATE MINE! It's my answer to the 'if you could change one thing about you... ?' question.
Years ago, at school, a girl came up to me to ask me out on her freinds behalf - y'know, like they did at skool - and after to speaking to her she called out to her friend, who was standing some way away, "Ooh! He's got a dinky voice!"
I've no idea, to this day, what she meant by 'dinky' or even if it's a good or bad thing. Bad, I suspect. It's gotta be a bad thing to have a 'dinky' voice. Sigh.

― DavidM, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Mine makes Paul want to claw his eyes out (see the Strange Fruit website for confirmation). And that's me with me best enunciation, too, half the time you can barely understand a word I'm saying... nnnng...

― emil.y, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm waiting for IL* to convert to voice messaging, because then you will all fall in love with me and my amazing voice. Actually, I've never been big on my voice, but now that I have the opportunity to tell one of the coolest stories of my life:

I'm 15, sitting at home watching TV with my mom. The phone rings. Woman says, "Is Robert there?" I say, "Sorry, you have the wrong number." Moments later, the phone rings again. Woman says, "I'm sorry, I just called a moment ago asking for Robert, but I found your voice so intriguing -- are you single?" I look at my mom, get all nervous and hang up. Seriously.

Please don't be one of those people who points out that a woman who calls back a wrong number to get a date is fundamentally insane to begin with, and therefore this says nothing about my voice. I don't like to think about that part. Let my ego be fed for once.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

That's not fundamentally insane - a lot of people do weird things like that. I used to work in a phone center at Ticketmaster. SCORES of men would buy me and two other girls tickets to go to concerts with them. They'd buy three and then ask if we wanted the third cos we "sounded sexy". I mean, wtf is that? Don't they watch Dateline, they always have exposes about how "sexy" phone sex operators are all either very hefty, older women who look nothing like the girls in the ads, or they are men with very female voices.

― Ally, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Except in your case, m'dear. ;-) I am jealous of Nitsuh's story and think him horrible for not bequeathing it to me as part of *my* past, thank you.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

When I was a DJ, I'd speak softly but jack up the mic volume, hoping to avoid my nasally sounding voice. That is one of the reasons I never wore headphones in the stuido either. If I consciously try not to speak through my nose, then its not that bad.

― bnw, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Shhh, Ned, you're supposed to be furthering the notion that I am a 40 year old male lumberjack.

― Ally, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Quite right. So do you sleep all night and work all day then? Hey, wait, that doesn't work, because you *do* dress in women's clothing and you *do* hang around in bars! ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My speaking voice is low and flat from inside, but having never recroded it I don't know what it really sounds like. It's not melodically low, or anything nice like that. My singing voice is clear and makes me sound younger but I cannot make myself sing loudly. I am an alto, but a relatively high one.

― Maria, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ooh, I have always hated mine, it's awful. Wishy-washy and just aesthetically unappealing.

― Nicole, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have no singing voice. I can't even sing a full octave. It's a weak, low, raspy voice. I can talk really loudly, but I can barely sing above a whisper.

― Melissa W, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Being a DJ actually made me appreciate mine, after a while. Initially I was put off in the typical way by hearing my own voice on a recording or over headphones, but being forced to hear it repeatedly for the past couple of years, I've been able to find it pleasing, as long as I speak slowly enough and enunciate. (I don't think that matters as much in real life, but hearing myself say some words quickly or less clearly can sound a lot funnier over the headphones.)

― Josh, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ingredients for my voice: - take a bit of generic west-country bumpkinness (I'm from where Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire meet, and I guess that sums up my accent, not that I know) - add a dash of posh Oxford plumminess (not sure how much; sounds overwhelmingly posh in my head, but distinctly unposh on the few recordings I've heard) - and some bewildering habits which as far as I know seem alien to people from all over the country but are definitely regarded as not native to anywhere I've ever lived or anywhere I have relatives from (eg habit of dividing "I have not" into "I've not" instead of "I haven't", which I thought was a northern thing, but all the northerners I know seem to think it just as strange as people round here do; also stress/pitch patterns) - bury it all in a muffled mumbliness and grumpy immaturity with no concept of appropriate volume (i.e. incomprehensible due to being quiet and muffled vs far too loud and embarrassing) - pepper with hesitations and ellipses and other general symptoms of inarticulacy (another annoying habit = trailing off and not finishing sentences because I think my gist is already obvious and I can't quite think of the words) - put breaths in really odd places, eg in the middle of words (don't know how badly I still do this but everyone always used to tell me I did this really badly) - plus if nervous (eg due to even the remotest chance that anyone is listening) add much fluffing and stumbling and stammering, which will probably result in sentences being abandoned halfway through - oh, and a refusal to repeat anything that the intended recipient didn't hear properly because it's just been realised how inane it was - give it an indefinable sulky little kid quality - confirm your suspicion that it cannot sing - ensure that it says nothing interesting ever - make sure it apologises at least once during every five minutes that contain any speech from it and is prone to occasional long streams of "thankyousorrythankyouverymuchsorrysorrycheerssorrythanksumsorry"

There, that's me. Don't know about the pitch; maybe the irritating childishness is because it's too high and varies too much, but then maybe the grumpiness is because it's too low, or that it doesn't vary enough. I really don't know. Sometimes I definitely seem to be whooping and squawking about three octaves above where any sane human would talk. Do I like my voice? Well, take a guess.

Oh yeah, I'm told I pronounce Ls really weirdly. This confuses me, as I can't imagine any possible regional variation in the pronunciation of Ls. Anyone...?

― Rebecca, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm from New Zealand,but more than one person has pointed out that I have a somewhat English accent,which is probably a blessing in itself as I live in white trash town.I like to think I can do foreign accents well,and I have found that having a cold is good for speaking French,and probably Portuguese.

― Damian, Friday, 21 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

well matt couch said my voice was actualey excactly like Cristina Aquilira, but that just becase he likes me. but i DO NOT like him.

― chasimino, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"I've not" instead of "I haven't", which I thought was a northern thing, but all the northerners I know seem to think it just as strange as people round here do

Rebecca - snap! I'm sure I started doing it after I moved to Manchester. I just sounds so much nicer and I'm sticking with it.

I don't like my voice a whole lot. I talk too fast and on tape I sound like an FHM editor.

― Nick, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've caught myself doing the "I've not" instead of the "I haven't" thing too. I think it sounds much nicer but I also don't know where it comes from.

Other than that I hate my voice. It is nasal and monotone and distant, dismissive and arrogant. Also, despite growing up in a family that speaks with the false British accent that try hard posh people in Australia use, I sound uneducated, coarse and ocker.

I have no concept of pitch when I try to sing too.

Please note definition of ocker from Cambridge Dictionary of International English: a type of Australian who is not well educated and does not behave in a polite way. That's *exactly* how I sound! Better not to speak at all. I'll shut-up now.

― Tabs, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My voice is fantastic, but people don't notice because the stuff I actually SAY is so amazingly brilliant that it overshadows it.

― dave q, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Voice I hear when I speak = me like.
Voice I hear played back to me from a tape or something = me no like.
However I am BEST AT SINGING and no I won't prove it at karaoke.

― DG, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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Voice I hear when I speak = me like. Voice I hear played back to me from a tape or something = me no like.

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I know what you mean, although I've read this is quite common. Anyway, I'm not really too sure what to think of my voice since I've noticed it can change depending context/language. So normal voice: deep with nasal Amsterdam accents, when doing something important/official I've noticed my voice is softer and with a posher accent and my girlfriend is amazed that when I speak Spanish I do with a noticably higher voice. Go figure.

― Omar, Saturday, 22 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think my voice is melifluous and amusing. I have been told that it is the exact polar opposite of Sarah's. It isquite deep for a diminutive man such as myself. However I also apparently talk too fast, slur constantly and am absolutely impossible for Japanese and African people to understand.

― Pete, Monday, 24 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What? Didn't understand a word of that.

― Emma, Monday, 24 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My voice changes according to whoever I'm with. It's a kind of defence mechanism. When I'm with my cock-er-nee family I find my vowels flattening and my glottals disappearing and my 'h's and 'g's disappearin'. When I'm with naice, middle class people the accent tightens up somewhat. I find I can pick and choose from a range of accents much like Worzel Gummidge had a range of heads. Although when I was young and stroppy I deliberately changed my voice to stand out, not conform.

― Will McKenzie, Monday, 24 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

six years pass...

i don't know i kind of like my voice but sometimes i think i sound kind of abrasive. but i'm a singer and can contort my voice kind of, so it has a lot of different sounds =P

― Surmounter, Wednesday, 13 February 2008 18:15 (seventeen years ago)

Diva != singer.

― libcrypt, Wednesday, 13 February 2008 18:16 (seventeen years ago)

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