The Power and Magic of Voice

People bemoan the decline in reading and blame technological entertainment in its many forms for that decline..

This post isn't meant to offer an opinion on that statement, other than to marvel at all the opportunities we have for entertainment.

Think about it.

We have literature, movies, live theater, podcasts video games, music - the list can go on. We really have no reason to ever be bored.

Speaking of music (and life would suck without music) we often forget that the human voice is an instrument...of sorts.

You see, knowing how to "play" the voice can make the difference between a so-so author reading and one that leaves folks scarcely breathing in awe.

Just like many of us are not taught to play piano or trombone, many of us never learn to play our voice.

(And yet, I used to tell the kids back in our home-school days that reading aloud, when we all used to real aloud together, is good, cheap drama_.

Again, think about it.

Words are made from combinations of twenty-six letters.

Music is made from combinations of an twelve-note scale (or less, depending on the scale).

Radio theater is made with good voice modulation, such as:

Emphases.

Pauses.

High pitch

Low pitch.

Slow pace.

Fast pace.

Knowing how and when and where and why to apply any and some of these in a piece requires coaching, discerning, and practicing.

Lots of practicing.

Like the type of practicing WriteOn Joliet member Holly Coop (center) has done with my niece Rachel, who is serving as a creative consultant for An Evening With WriteOn Joliet: Readings to Entertain and Inspire You, which eight members of WriteOn will perform on April 22 at the Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park Theatre in Joliet.

Up until the pandemic, WriteOn Joliet hosted an open mic event a couple times of year at the Book and Bean Cafe in Joliet, located inside the Black Road branch of the Joliet Public Library.

Basically, participating members stood in front of a microphone in the cafe and read an original piece that was from three to five minutes long.

We are still reading our pieces on April 22. 

But in most cases, we are not reading our own pieces.

And in some cases, several people are reading different parts in pieces they did not write.

One of the pieces Holly is reading is a poem written by Maureen Blevins (who is standing beside Holly in the below photo).

I knew this poem was right for Holly's voice. 

But when she read it aloud for the first time at The Book Market in Crest Hill, where we've been rehearsing after hours, I almost fell out of my chair at Holly's delivery of Maureen's lines.

Holly had learned to "play voice."

Writers wield a bit of magic when they can make readers think, or when they can persuade readers toward one side of a premise, or cause them to fall in love with characters, or to travel to faraway lands, or to allow the musical lines in a poem stir their emotions.

Amazing.

All this magic is accomplished with just the careful arrangement of twenty-six letters on a page.

Those reading aloud do the same.

Except they take the page and wield the above magic through the controlled inflections of their voice.

Again, amazing...