Klarinet Archive - Posting 000102.txt from 2000/04

From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: [kl] voice
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 19:26:35 -0400

At Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:09:35 EST Lelia Loban wrote:

<<
When I was a high school freshman, preparing for my first public speaking
competition, the forensics coach taped my speech. Listening to the sound of
my voice *from the outside* for the first time gave me a sudden
understanding
of a scene that had taken place years earlier, when I was nine years old and
moved to a new neighborhood. A neighbor's child, when introduced to me,
squirmed uneasily and then blurted out, "Mommy, why does that little girl
talk like a cowboy?" My reaction at the time (I'd absorbed my family's
fierce loyalties) was something along the lines of, "Hey, kid, you wanna go
out back and play Range War? You be the cowboy and I'll be the FARMER!"
And
I knew that whooping cough had damaged my vocal chords -- but still, to hear
a gravelly whiskey tenor with a Dogpatch accent speaking *my words* -- oh,
Saint Toad! At home, I sat down with my father's tape recorder and drilled
myself until I could pass for female and literate. So with all that in
mind,
I now have a bad feeling that when I think I hear Mozart, my clarinet is
probably playing the Florence Foster Jenkins version....
>>

Dear Lelia

I recognize the experience. When i heard my own voice the first time, I
asked, who that fellow was, and why he spoke with such a terrible
"Brabantish" accent... . And although I used tape recordings to learn to
speak several languages correctly, I believe right away my second son, when
he says, I speak English, German or the Frysian language with that same
accent. (Several other languages I know seem to be all right). It makes me
humble, but at the same time sharply aware of the difference in perception
I and you have of my sound, but one of my teachers once said to me, that
"the ears most to be trusted, are the players ears." So strive for the best
sound you hear yourselves, and what othr people think about it? never mind,
YOU must be happy with it.

Rien

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