What does a ‘voice to be heard’ mean? Type, frequency, timbre, invisible, ignored or getting across a message driven?

Voice timbre is not an affectation. You can mimic style for a short while. But your everyday voice presentation is there for all to hear. Monotonous or vibrant? Deeper voice? Lighter voice? Shout out voice? Whispery voice? A voice that can produce a well delivered ‘Sssshhh’……..and the room goes quiet.

The Philosophy of ‘Why a voice is important?’ It’s to push a message. If a Video/Audio ambition here on WordPress has to have any success? Record it first thing in the morning when relaxation of the vocal chords are at their peak. Later? Life hits your reactionary response buttons and you become Donald Duck. The true meaning of listened to voice? It is to relax peoples’ fractious senses. Can you imagine listening to a continual high end top note frequency voice narrating an audio book and truly feel you could hunker down, chill and finish the book listened to? Nah! It has to have balance. Characterisation. A combination of everyday expectation. High and low frequency. Loud and quiet volumes. Cultural warm or cold tones. What and how do we listen to in someone’s voice delivery when we are focussing upon escapism? Upon learning. Upon connections as friends.

Relaxation. Meditation. Mindfulness and similar relaxation techniques on YouTube/CD listening. These voices are set at specific resonance/timbre in order to assist well being. Escapism. I write songs in certain keys in recognition of historical tried and trusted musical or vocal styles that suit the situation. An instant style that suits your own response. Voices that provide gentle experiences and complete acceptance? My favourites? Ian McShane’s, as Lovejoy, voice. Well his voice in anything really. Richard Briers voice is opposite, but equally calming in its recognition of ‘I trust it’. Deep and light but both satisfying. Akin to a Mother singing her infant to sleep has a higher frequency, yet soft and yielding. Or a Father or Grandfather ‘song sing whispering’ a deep Buddhist ‘Om’ chant. Yup! Guilty! Voice matters in the situation it is used for. That this heard and considered resonance voice is going to carry your anxiety to deep welcomed dream state and ultimate escapism and to heal you to the culmination of realising ultimate well being. Learning. A lecturer who stimulates with interesting delivery. As a teacher I both failed and succeeded in this. No techniques. Just fair exchange between myself and my students.

Myself, if alone? I hum lower tunes of ‘I was born under a wandering star’ by Lee Marvin level. It vibrates my holistic biological, psychological and social ‘me time’ body into total meltdown and ultimately into an ever and welcoming lessening to my anxiety mode. When I listen to both Female and Male voices to seek inner calm, it always has lower frequency. Same as my picking up my guitar and strumming, with singing gentle harmony alongside, a beautiful well known musical chord. Hit a low ‘E’ chord, or, at a push maybe, “A” chord and you instantly have the World listening. It’s called Rock and Roll. You just dance from the word, or chord strummed, GO! Strum a ‘D’ chord and the World recognise a song that may be interesting. It just has to follow up with an insightful sing along tune.

With voice in mind I bought this book from Amazon after reading this review quote.

“In other words, the vocalic immediately communicates the uniqueness of the speaker without recourse to the signifying content of his or her speech. The voice is essentially relational—a relation that is described as “the condition of every communication. . . . the communicability of the com- municable, or the significance of signification”

For More Than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression Paperback 31 Jan. 2005 by Adriana Cavarero (Author), Paul A. Kottman (Translator)

Why? I am interested in how people have the ability to verbally and vocally challenge peoples’ thinking by how we portray and express our own values, beliefs, thoughts and opinions. We either win people over. Or project a persona of ‘Not worth listening to’. Generic intrinsic or learnt failure before we start persistence in wanting to be heard/listened to? Or re-learning how to change how you present yourself to being someone who can, by default, actually express inner strong belief agenda. Own your beliefs and project them with your own unique voice, which massively positively expresses your thoughts and their content, whatever they include in their meanderings, expressions or inherent beliefs. Your voice can betray you. Stumbling in it’s belief it has no credence and no strength in purpose. In your speaking out to people, you ‘let your guard down’ through insecurity of inner confidence in expressing your valued opinions. You know and believe in them. But you simply cannot express.

All of these reflections on ‘voice’? For myself it is extremely revealing…….you know and understand the inner YOU……which can ultimately dictate how others perceive you. If you perceive or actually believe that you have no voice to carry the message of how you want to expound your thoughts and stories. You will fail to truly communicate. WHY? Because you have already determined how people will judge you and your thoughts/stories. It may be by the way you have witnessed past reactions and how you are still being received in the present. Or it may be in the awareness that this is something new that you are now aware of and you will ultimately stutter in expressing yourself.

The answer? As Rumi says

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”