V: Voices (WR)

Voices – Are you making fun of me?

I grew up with an ear for music. I could hear a tune and then figure out the notes on the piano in our house. I even taught myself how to play the harmonica by just hearing songs. You can read about that in this blog entry here: http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=68. In Junior High School, I played the trumpet. I took my trumpet home the first day and figured out how to play a musical scale on it before I even had my first lesson.  I’ve always liked to figure out harmonies to songs when singing with other people. Having an ear for music has helped me a lot as a musician.

I believe that it is my ear for music that also allows me to pick up other people’s speech patterns and dialects. I can be talking to someone from another part of the state or country and before long I’m talking using their accent rather than mine. I’ve been to the National Storytelling Festival, a three-day event in Jonesborough, Tennessee, a few times. I would come home with a southern accent. It would take a couple of days for me to revert back to whatever accent I really have. I was encouraged by my wife’s insistence that I “cut it out”. I wasn’t even aware that I was talking differently. She is also quite aware when I’ve been watching “Dr. Who” or “Murdoch Mysteries” as I am not speaking normally when she comes home from work.

The same goes for foreign accents. I was once called on the phone by a colleague’s husband who had a very pronounced British accent. I answered him with exactly the same accent immediately. The worst case of adapting other’s voices was at a meeting with an administrator in my district who stuttered. Within a few minutes, I was stuttering also. I wrote all about “Voices”  as it relates to storytelling in 2009, http://www.hdhstory.net/Storyblog/?p=136.

If I think about it, I warn the person I’m interacting with that I’m not making fun of them, should I switch into their way of talking. In most cases I’m not even aware that I’m doing it. When I do become aware of my voice change, I try to control it.

I have fun with voices. I switch them on and off even if I’m not influenced by a person I’m talking to. There are some dialects I can do better than others without being prompted. Our high school once asked me to be a dialect coach to some of their cast members for the play, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brody”. And there are those dialects that I need to be with someone speaking for me to be able to do their accent. (I really have trouble with Australian.) I use voices a lot when I practice stories so that I don’t get bored with my own telling; sometimes using voices that I would never use in a real performance. I even switch accents sometimes when I’m teaching, just to make sure students are listening (It does catch their attention). My brother-in-law likes to use dialects too at times when I’m around, so we break into a Scottish or French or Canadian conversation just because we can.

When I worked as a stock boy at J.C. Penneys for 6 months after I graduated college, I used voices all the time. I discovered this one day when a colleague, out of the blue, yelled out my name. I responded with “What?” His reply was “Thanks?” When questioned,  “What for?” His answer was, “I just wanted to hear what you really sound like.”

I guess I forgot to warn him.