Hearing Voices
One of the tasks the secular scholars of the Renaissance
set for themselves was the purification of Latin, which was the international language of
the Western World at the time. In reality, Latin had changed relatively little in the
millennium or so since the power of Rome had collapsed, but the scholars were determined
to undo any evolution that had occurred in the intervening years.
It was simple enough to revert to the written words and
style of the original language, as there were thousands of documents surviving from
Imperial days. A much greater challenge was to figure out how the ancients had pronounced
their language, as there were obviously no recordings of Caesar or Cicero. Poetry and puns
and misspellings were used to deduce how the Romans might have said things, but nobody
knew for sure.
We have a pretty good idea of what history's chief figures
looked like -- as there have always been artists and sculptors who could catch a likeness,
and their words and actions have come down to us in writing -- but we have no idea what
most of them sounded like.
And yet, the voice is one of a person's most distinctive
features. That's why impersonators are such popular entertainers -- they can make a
familiar voice say things its owner never would -- and why voice printing can identify
criminals by electronic analysis. Many mothers can even recognize their own baby's cries
in a room full of howling infants immediately after birth.
That's probably an instinctive response when it comes to
babies, but it continues into adult life as well, especially when it concerns the voices
of those we love.
One of the more remarkable technological changes that have
become a reality in the past century or so has been the ability to capture voices for
posterity. At first, that mostly meant commercial recordings of music, but in my lifetime,
the ability to preserve vocal images has become available to everybody, thanks to the tape
recorder. Only a minority has usually taken advantage of this technology -- although
camcorders are beginning to change that somewhat, adding pictures to the sound -- but it
can create some quite startling and emotional moments.
Not long ago, I was rooting through a box of old open-reel
tapes when I came across one that had belonged to my father. I knew it was his because it
was made of paper rather than plastic, as some tapes were in the early 1950s. My father
had bought a recorder mostly to dictate letters at home that could be typed later at the
office, but on one occasion he had hidden the microphone behind a curtain during a
cocktail party and recorded the proceedings.
The tape was played later to the assembled group, to much
hilarity, no doubt, then tucked away in a drawer and forgotten. This was the tape I found
and, to my knowledge, it is the only existing recording of my father's voice.
He died more than 25 years ago, and this tape was made more
than 20 years before that, so the voice it contained was much younger than the one I can
now just barely remember. (We have a surprisingly poor memory for voices, considering how
sensitive we are to them.) Yet in spite of the tinniness of the microphone and the
unsteadiness of the old tape, and in spite of the babble and hubbub of the party, the
voice was absolutely and instantly recognizable. I have numerous photographs of my father
at all ages, but nothing comes close to bringing him back to life like this snippet of
speech.
These sensitive auditory mechanisms can apply to the living
as well, as I had occasion to note a couple of years ago, when my wife Susan and I played
weekend hosts to our friends Joe and Edith.
Joe and I became buddies at university, drawn together by
our shared passion for theater, pop music, radio and audio in general; we were notable for
spending far more time hanging out at the campus theater or disc-jockeying dances than for
any sort of studying. At that time, we often headed for the little studio I had set up in
my basement and recorded fake radio programs, mostly for our own amusement but also to
hone our skills; we both hoped to work in radio, and Joe did eventually become a radio
announcer. But the programs tended also to become a chronicle of our musical interests
and, between the songs, an informal record of what was going on in our lives. Over the
years, we have continued to record these tapes occasionally, either in my studio or at
whatever radio station Joe happened to be employed by.
Now and then, when we get together, Joe and I will listen
to one of the old programs, although we have learned to be sparing about inflicting them
on our wives, whose eyes tend to glaze over and whose faces take on a
boys-will-always-be-boys look. Mostly, Susan confines her comments to her perception that,
while Joe just sounds like Joe on those tapes, my voice sounds incredibly young. I can't
hear any difference.
But I suppose there are tiny nuances a wife can pick up on.
During the most recent visit, I dug out a program that had been taped exactly 30 years
ago. After a few minutes, Edith said to Joe, "you know, Ian sounds just the same as
now, but it's amazing how young your voice sounds!"
It was a reaction that points up how sensitive we are to
the tiniest details of the voices of those closest to us. It was also a reaction that
could not have taken place at any other time in history.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
|
