A Voice In The Dark… Of The Audio Booth

There are two sounds that everyone hates—the bone-cracking scrape of fingernails on a chalkboard… and the sound of their own voice.
No one likes hearing their voice. Personally, I always think mine is way too high and reedy.
The problem is, my voice is on television a lot, and now for the first time in thirty years or so, it’s on a commercial. It’s a radio commercial for the Adult ADHD workshop we’re doing on Saturday, Feb 27th. (Shameless Plug!)
This week I went to 680 News to record a 30 second ‘spot’, as they say in the biz, and the radio execs and technicians there were great. The recording engineer turned out to be a fan of my work. Which is more than I am sometimes.
They were happy with the second take, but I did a third to be safe. Then I joined them in the control room where they were talking about which take to use. They wanted to play them back and have me listen to them all a few times and compare. Listening to my own voice? Yikes!
I suggested, “Why don’t you pick the best. You’re the experts. You’re a better judge than me. I trust you.” Better to sound magnanimous and a team player than someone who can’t listen to themselves!
When I was with The Frantics comedy troupe we did about 130 half-hour radio shows. I never got used to hearing my voice. It sounded about 13 years old. And not in a good way.
But I’ve been told that’s distinctive. Which is a polite term for it.
One year, at the Gemini Awards, where I was losing yet again to This Hour Has 22 Minutes, I got talking with Janet Wright, the very funny actress who plays Emma, Brent Butt’s grumpy mom on Corner Gas. I introduced myself and she said, “Oh darling, no need to tell me, I recognize that voice, from the radio. The Frantics…”
Anyway, now my voice is going to be played on 680 News about 40 times this week. Sounds like a lot till you realize there are 186 hours in a week. We’re holding the workshop in the Ontario Science Centre’s main theatre and there are a lot of seats to fill. (That’s why we bought the ads. The airtime cost more than I paid for my first two cars! Mind you, my first two cars were an aging Austin American with a rusted out floor, and then a Cortina GT. The GT stood for ‘Grotesque Turd’. The stick shift once popped off in my hand. I was driving along, with a car full of people, I shift from second gear, diagonally up to third gear, and the knob, shaft and rubber cover (Insert your own dirty joke here) simply broke loose as I pushed it. There’s a small ‘CLUNK’ and I almost fall sideways onto the passenger. I hold the stick shift aloft, like Excalibar. My buddies laugh. They point. They make jokes. Then they realize we may be in trouble. I calmly drop the forked end of the stick shift down the gaping hole in the transmission hump and wiggle it… It clicks into place, and I continue driving. For a week I change gears with it completely loose like this. Smart right? And of course I surprise passengers by suddenly pulling the stick shift up, waving it madly, and yelling, “OH MY GOD! I CAN’T STOP!” The sight of the stick shift in the air momentarily stuns my friends and they don’t realize I can still stop just by hitting the brakes and clutch, right? Funny. Well, funny to me. At the time.)
Where was I? Oh, right, the sound of my own voice.
No one likes the sound of their own voice.
My friend claims George Clooney’s voice is incredibly lowered for his movies to make him sound more manly. It’s called pitch shifting. My friend said, “If you listen to him on talk shows, his voice is way more nasal.” Maybe. But it’s still a rumble compared to mine.
Sorry, I’m drifting again. It’s late in the day.
So none of us like the sound of our own voice. Or at least, I have never met anyone who did. But what’s interesting that when people hear a recording of themselves speaking, it’s not necessarily the cadence or pitch of their voice that surprises them. It’s the emotional tone. The whininess. The deadness. The cynicism.
“My God, I sound like such a nag!”
Or the best… “I sound like my mother!”
Hearing your own voice is really revealing.
Especially if we are being recorded when we don’t know it, when we are perhaps under the gun, under some stress.
We ask, “Do I really sound like that?
What we’re really wondering is, “Am I actually like that?” Am I that cynical? Tired? Nagging? Bossy? Anxious?
It’s shocking.
Far more so than the stick shift of your car falling apart while your driving down the highway.

(Remind me and I’ll blog about the commercials I did 30 years ago–a Shake And Bake Ad Campaign. Hilarious and weird.)