WHY THE RAUCOUS VOICES?

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 15 (Supplement)

WHY THE RAUCOUS VOICES?

(By A.H.) • Are voices indicative of character,.. OF are the many shades of difference in intonation merely the result of outside influence? Travelling in a bus one day, several distinctly unpleasant voices so jarrad upon my ears that I could not help studying the speakers. One voice sound" ed. like that of a particularly fatuous and silly girl—it was the sort of mincing tone we associate, with the giggling stage of adolescence. To my surprise, the speaker was quite an elderly woman in years, though her whole appearance and get-up was a definite attempt st youth and girlishness. It seemed as though her voice must be an index to an attitude of mind which had never grown" up! ■ ■ Another woman spoke in shrill metallic accents which somehow made me think of peacocks and parrots and such-libe feathered screamers. Her face vw sharp, with a hard mouth that seemed almost fantastically in keeping with the y sounds issuing -from it ’ . ' ■ A remark in a low, well-modulated voice came as a positive relief after aft the raucousness!

How few really pleasing and melodious voices we hear these days! Who or what is to blame? Is it the terrific noise ?n which most of us have to live that makes us raise our voices to a higher pitch in the endeavour to penetrate the din? Or perhaps the outside sounds have deadened te a great extent our personal sense of the timbre and intonation of our own voices, ’ / ,/■ a

A great deal is now. done for children in all matters educational but it seems strange that the cult of good speech and a pleasing voice is not put more in the forefront of their general training. Parents, frequently, fail to grasp, the importance of choosing a nurse whose voice is “nice” in the best sense of the word. Children quickly though insensibly imitate the tone and pronounciation of their elders. If all those in charge of young children were trained properly in. voice production, we might hope far better and more melodious- speaking tones in the next generation. At aa® it is - -