Cracked Pot Meditations – Your Voice

Meditation for March 25th

Your Voice

We all have a unique voice. It isn’t just how the voice sounds, but the words we use, our phrases and slang, the accent and tone, and the volume we use. You can tell that someone you know is on the other side of the supermarket aisle just by that person’s voice. We can be attracted to voices, turned off by voices, or even presume what the person is really feeling from the voice.

You should hear how you sound before you go on with your life. You should record a conversation you have with someone and listen to how you talk. Most of the time, you will find that you sound awful. You should quit talking altogether. We rely too much on speech these days to communicate, and we have given up on physical gestures and body language to tell our stories.

Usually, if someone upsets you, your voice goes up, gets whiny, and even gets a whiny squeaking effect as you exclaim your emotions. Your voice is doing this because you are trying to fend off an attacker. This is like an audible skunk spray. You usually grunt out a question like, “Why are you doing this to me?” and the arched pitch makes the assailant cringe. Because a lot of us don’t live by the seat of our pants, our voices treat the smallest inconvenience the same way we would, as if an enemy were attacking us. You might think you aren’t overreacting, but your voice is giving you away. The distressed person’s voice is grating and nauseating to anyone within earshot.

Your voice also gets slow and molassess-y when you are sad and lonely. You might even say that everything is fine, but you sigh three times while saying the word fine. This starts at a lower pitch than everyday conversation and drops down at the end of the word. This vocal affliction is about deciding whether to turn on and fuse with you, or to buy you a coffee and ask what is really going on. For survival instincts, most will leave you there because someone that sad won’t have the ambition to live, so you would just weigh them down.

Think before you comment with a comedy bit, or pretend you are a gangsta rapper or a surfer dude. You sound idiotic when you say, “I’m Rick James, bitch!” or anything that was already written and performed by someone, not you. Trying to recreate a comedian’s bit or a funny sketch in a comedy is unbearable. If someone laughs, it is because they are remembering the original bit, not because you are using any hip-hop slang or surfer-skater lingo. You sound ridiculous. It might be funny for a second, but it just makes you sound tired, old, and white.

Only a few of the proud can pull off the snarky, sarcastic voice. Most of us, though, especially now that TV has adopted gay men to be judges of the rest of our culture and fashion, shouldn’t even try. Sarcasm is a psychological phenomenon, according to the American Psychological Association. Hence, this isn’t something to be light about because it means you are absolutely unable to connect with another human being. When you are perusing the dating apps, stay away from those that claim to be fluent in sarcasm.

Learn your own voice. See what happens when you get angry, sad, frustrated, or even happy. Listen to your voice and see how most of the time, when you are reacting to an emotion, you are probably sounding either like a drowning dolphin or a Disney Australian sea turtle.

Prayer

Milil,

You are the Goddess of song,

I sing to you every dawn,

But yet I sound like a dying pig whose throat is sore.

Please help me sound different.

My voice is up for it, and I have to make it up with an excellent personality.

My good looks can only go so far.

When I sing, I sound like Gordon Gano and Black Francis’s baby who has a cold.

When I laugh, I sound like a banshee sucking mud.

Please help me sound better.

People keep thinking I’m more upset than I am.

People keep thinking I’m more needy than I am.

People keep thinking I’m more emotional than I am.

People think I’m a crybaby.

People think I need to lighten up.

All of those assumptions are from one of my voices.

Since I have a face and body for radio,

I’ll at least need the voice for it.

Please help me.

Gelos,

I see you laughing at me.

I see that I make you laugh.

Especially when I’m like,

sup duh?

You like grinding on the gnar gnar pow pow

or when I do this:

Yyyyyyeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!

Wwwwwwhhhhhhuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttt!!!!!!!

OooooooookkkkkkkkkkkaaaaaOraaayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Or when I’m all like,

What’s up, playah?

You be trippin on my tip?

schnizzle my frizzle my nigizzle!

I also do a great rehash of C.K. Louis’s stand-up.

Every impersonation of every character in all the Austin Powers movies.

My impersonation of Worldayne from Wayne’s World is uncanny.

I sometimes speak in movie quotes

And find that many people can’t keep up.

Keep making me funny.

Have you seen Anchorman 2?

“Newton-John of Olivia Newton-John!”

Hahahahahahahahaha!

I bet that is as funny when I say it as Will Ferrell does it in the movie.

Amen.

Craft

Record yourself with your phone or a recorder as you go about your day. Pay close attention when you are having an extreme emotional reaction to something, and listen to it later when you are calm.

You might find that you don’t want to sound like that anymore.

Goal

Sometimes, when you talk with your emotions, you sound really terrible. Maybe we should try to keep the voice calm and steady instead of running the gamut across the tonal scales and even hitting tones humans can’t even hear.

When you do comedic voices, especially ones that already exist, you sound unoriginal and not as good as the original. Stop doing gangster speech because you are being racist. The actors and comedians do it best, so leave it to the professionals and maybe try some original jokes.

Put down the Austin Powers impersonation and go back to trying to cover Hotel California on your ukulele.