Power of Human Voice

Power of Human Voice – Hi, Ella

June 27, 2011 by George 1 Comment

Hi, Ella.

It’s your daddy. I’m that low rumbly sound you hear talking to you through you mommy’s belly. I try to talk to you every day, so you know what I sound like when you make your big arrival in October. I know, it will be different when my voice comes through air instead of skin and fluid. But I want you to hear me and know me.

Did you know your mommy sings? You found out just how good she is a couple of weeks ago, when she sang “Quando me’n vo’” from La boheme and “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess when her friend Keri was here and played for us. Mommy sings MUCH higher than Daddy does, and wow, she can hold a note for a long time! I sang “I Got Plenty of Nuthin’,” but you probably didn’t hear it quite as well as you did your Mommy.

One of the coolest things you do now is when I talk or sing to you, Mommy tells me that that you pat inside her when you hear and feel the low frequencies. So I know you can hear me…and you probably can feel me. Until you are big enough to see when you move, it’s nice to know that you are responding by Mommy pointing to where she can feel you move. Oh, did you know all your brothers and sisters sing too? Jordan, Grace, Logan, Naomi and Sean all sing in one thing or another. They all love music…big brother Jordan, you almost never see without a headphone in his ear. All the others have been in musicals, choirs, everything…using their voices with music to communicate, entertain, and have fun.

Daddy sings, but he also talks a LOT! People ask him to talk like an announcer, like their best friend, like someone they have never met…like all kinds of things. Just this past week, I had to sound like a guy who needed to go to the hospital, needed to take his wife to the hospital, talk about a sad moment in North Carolina history, and give people options for going to college. I love doing that, and I can’t wait to do the same for you, when I get to read stories about saying good night to the moon, or that Velveteen Rabbit, or any of the hundreds of books you will get to grip and mouth and watch and listen to and eventually read yourself.

Ella, did you know who you are named for? Your name comes from someone people think is the greatest jazz singer of all time, and one of Mommy’s favorite artists, Ella Fitzgerald (we’re still working on a middle name). She was incredible, and she could scat sing better than just about anyone. When you get older, we will show you this video of her scatting to “One Note Samba.”

You know, you will do something like this as you learn to talk, making up syllables that make no sense to anyone but you. And we will love every minute of it. I keep talking about singing and talking. Ella, there is no pressure on you to be a singer. You go ahead and be a teacher, or a scientist, or a basketball player or anything you want to be. We love you so much already. I just wanted to tell you that, Ella.

We love you, and we can’t wait to see and hear you. Looking forward to meeting you in October, baby girl.

Stories for Japan

March 21, 2011 by George Leave a Comment

I know you all have been transfixed by what has been going on in Japan. The sight of the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami, as well the fears of the nuclear problems at Fukushima–Daiichi have gripped us all.

My friend Neil Gardner, owner of Sporkenwordsaudio.com in Surrey, England, asked a number of voice actors to contribute to a wonderful project – Japanese Fairy World: Stories from the Wonder World of Japan. Neil, my friends Fran McLellan, Justin Barrett and Natalie Cooper, myself, and many others have recorded 25 short stores from Japanese fairy tales, and Neil has compiled them and made them available on the Spoken World website here.

All 25 stories (3.5 hours of tales!) are available for £10 ($16.28), or individual tracks for £0.79 ($1.28). Proceeds from the sales will go to the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal (for more information, go to the Red Cross UK website). Neil is taking NO overhead from this, and none of the voice artists are being paid for their work.

Please feel free to donate as much or as little as you can. And please pass it on: we want to get these in the virtual “hands” of everyone we can. Thank you!

Power of Human Voice – A return

February 6, 2011 by George 2 Comments

Surgical Instruments photo © 2007 Amazon CARES Amazon Community Animal Rescue, Education and Safety | more info (via: Wylio)This post sat for a while, and even though I know many people have already hear the story, I think it bears repeating.

Driving home from a session one evening, I was listening to NPR and this story caught my attention:

A surgical team in California on Thursday announced they had done something spectacular: They replaced the larynx of a 52-year-old woman who hadn’t been able to speak or breathe on her own for more than a decade.

What?

Brenda Jensen, 52, damaged her own larynx so severely when heavily sedated back in 1999, that she had to use a voice synthesizer to speak. Her granddaughter had never heard her natural voice.

Read on:

During an 18-hour surgery last October at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center, doctors removed Jensen’s voice box, her thyroid gland and her trachea. Then, they put a donated organ — from an anonymous accident victim — back into her throat, reconnecting the intricate nerves and muscles needed to bring Jensen’s voice back to life.

This is absolutely astounding. A medical miracle. To have lost something as fundamental as one’s voice, then have it returned to you by the gift of an organ donor, is beyond incredible. Considering the complexity of our vocal instrument (pointed out in Pamela Vanderway’s post from a few weeks ago) and how little we know about how it works, I am overjoyed at the good fortune of Ms. Jensen.

I strongly encourage you to read or listen to the entire piece. Then consider being an organ donor, because it really can save a life. Or a voice.

Power of Human Voice – Eddi Reader and the Scottish Parliament

December 31, 2010 by George Leave a Comment

Eddi Reader is one of my absolute favorite pop singers. Born and raised in Scotland, she was a member of the band Fairground Attraction before striking out on a solo career. One of the high points of her album output was 2003’s Sings the Songs of Robert Burns. Reader sets some of Scots poet Robert Burns’ poetry to music, including such old charms as “My Love is Like a Red Red Rose,” complete with her usually well hidden Scottish brogue.

The final track on the original release is the New Years chestnut “Auld Lang Syne.” But she sings it with a different melody than we in the States are used to hearing. Pardon the quality of the recording, but here is Eddi Reader performing “Auld Lang Syne” for the Scottish Parliament in 2004, where Burns is considered a national treasure.

And to all of my friends and colleagues, Happy New Year to you and yours!

The full lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne”

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pou’d the gowans fine;
we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot
Sin’ auld lang syne

We two hae paidled i’ the burn,
Frae mornin’ sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne

And here’s a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine;
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne

Power of Human Voice – Your Gifts

December 16, 2010 by George 1 Comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA45TnJQxhU]The last few weeks I have posted a “Power of the Human Voice” post, spotlighting some vocalists and performers that I thought I wanted to to share. This week, I’m going to take a slightly different tack.

One of the many things I see suggested to beginning voice talent is that they volunteer to read for the blind. Organizations like RFB&D help create and distribute content to those who cannot read or struggle to do so through no fault of their own. For the voice artist, it give you the chance to work on your chops, your characterization and your endurance, as well as giving you a chance to give back to the greater community.

I have not done this, but I wanted to let people know that what you do can have an enormous impact on people you don’t even know. This came to mind after an event I have been involved in the last few years. Here in the Charlotte area, The Havens, an Alzheimer’s and dementia home for the elderly, has asked me to come in and sing Christmas songs for the residents for the past 4 or 5 years. If you haven’t experienced what being around Alzheimer’s patients is like, it can be heartbreaking. Many times they move around in their own haze, or not at all. Even with the caring staff around them, they can be unresponsive. Those who are responsive often struggle to make sense of things around them, and comments can come out of the blue. One year I sang there, a little lady very earnestly discussed her little dog with me for 3 minutes, and abruptly turned away to speak on some new topic with a neighbor.

However off-putting it may seem to be, I try to make sure to do it every year. Because for those few minutes that I sing for them, I can see the impact for many almost immediately. Some sing along lustily, some merely murmur the words. And some just cry.

When I sing for them, I have learned that the most important choices I make for music are the ones that bring them memories. No unique Christmas tunes here: “White Christmas” never fails for the good people in the Havens. “Winter Wonderland,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” and more of the all time favorites are the way to go. And I hear it from the families who come year after year that they appreciate having Mom or Dad hear those old songs at this time of year.

This is the impact you and your voice can have on those who need it the most. As a voice artist, you are already used to not having people leap to their feet in applause after your finest performance. Keep in mind that sometimes what you do with your voice affects people in very small, but still very important ways. Reading for those who cannot, singing for those who need it most, using your gift in the finest way possible. Especially this time of year.

So go ahead and start doing some reading or singing. For you, because it is always good for your soul. And for the people who need your gifts. Even those who cannot tell you they need it.

Power of Human Voice – Bobby McFerrin

December 6, 2010 by George 1 Comment

I tend to think that “Don’t Worry Be Happy” was one of the worst things that could have happened to Bobby McFerrin.

I had the album that the ubiquitous song appeared on for a full year before it came out as a heavy rotation single in 1988. By the time it became overpoweringly popular, it was old hat for me and my friends. It made a lot of money, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing it.

But what it obscured was McFerrin as one of the most flexible and incredible artists we have seen in this generation.

He is not just a gimmick song singer. He has won 10 Grammy awards, been a guest conductor at the Cleveland, London, Chicago and London Symphonies, and worked with giants of the jazz, classical, and folk music worlds like Chick Corea, Bela Fleck, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O’Connor. Because he can so easily flip into his falsetto and use it so quickly and subtly, there is simply no one like him.

This video is a great example of how he works with some of those greats. Ma, Meyer, and O’Connor have done multiple albums together, including one of my favorites, Appalachian Journey. Together, the perform “Hush Little Baby.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GczSTQ2nv94&feature=related]

Power of Human Voice

Contact