Am I the only person who can 'hear' voices? Obviously not
I am not talking about schizophrenia, hearing extraneous voices in my head, but about hearing tone, intention, attitude, when the voice is all I can hear, when I cant see the face of the person who is talking, for example on the phone or on the radio
The first time I can remember being conscious of this was during the Westland debate between Thatcher & Kinnock in the House of Commons in [1986?]; I had a small, tinny transistor in my office which was used mainly for keeping up to date with cricket scores; the Westland scandal caused great excitement among my fellow civil servants & we were all anxious to hear the (only recently introduced) broadcast of the Commons debate. For some reason there was a panic at work & we were only able to foregather in my room to listen to the broadcast as Thatcher began her reply to Kinnock. After a few seconds I said 'Oh, shes won'; my colleagues all turned towards me in astonishment & said 'How do you know that?'
I was confused - how could they not know? It was obvious from her voice that she was confident of, she knew that, she had won. We had not heard Kinnocks speech, but many later analyses have pointed to the fact that he was too verbose & threw away the opportunity to get the better of her; without having heard him I knew from her tone that this was what had happened
The next time I can remember such a significant 'hearing' concerns John Diamond, who used to present a late night programme on 5 Live. To be honest I never found his voice or style all that attractive, but one night I found his gabbling too much to bear, switched to another station & composed one of those 'letters in my head' to his producer, asking him/her to tell John to slow down & talk more clearly. He never did another show & I learned soon afterwards that he had throat cancer. Was it the cancer that made his voice so hard to understand?
Not many months later a similar thing happened with Vincent Hanna, who also presented an interesting late night programme on 5 Live. One week, when he had as well been sitting in for Jimmy Young on R2, he sounded so exhausted that I wrote another of those 'letters in my head' to his producer, telling him not to work so hard. Within a week or two he was dead of either a heart attack or stroke. I began to feel very spooky
What is it about voices that gives away ones age? Why are 3 year olds so distinctive? Why is it so obvious that a voice belongs to an old person? Is it just collagen, or some other feature of the vocal chords?
How do some people learn to speak 'beautifully'? For example Fi Glover speaks with almost a Mozartian or Bachian melodic line (though not necessarily with the same rhythm). Is this something to do with her physical make up, or does it reflect elocution lessons or her psychological attitudes? How can some people like her speak challengingly without aggression?
I have been thinking about hearing without seeing or watching - using just one sense at a time. Why is it that looking, eg at a parliamentary debate on tv, removes this ability to 'hear' what the politicians are really thinking or feeling? And why do I sometimes have to take my glasses off to hear?
Why is it so instructive to watch, eg on tv, the reactions of the actor(s) who are not speaking, to deliberately remove ones focus from the actor who is? One thing you do learn is that English actors have the terrible habit of reacting before they have heard what the other person has to say. American actors do not do this - or is it all in the editing?
