BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices

Subject: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: mg
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 01:40 AM

There are a number on the air right now..awful sounding..regardless of the content of what they are saying..if people have any say whatsoever on where they go to church...how can they listen to that? Wouldn't they tend to go to someone who doesn't have a hideous voice? Fortunately I was raised with a priest with a deep Irish brogue who was quite melodic actually..mumble mumble...

To each his own..I guess I hate screechy voices in general...mg

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 02:20 AM

'Fortunately I was raised with a priest'

Well that conjures up a whole new can of worms!!

My first vicar had a wonderful deep voice too... mind you, I can't remember any of his sermons!

I've often felt that if the message was good enough, the speaker shouldn't matter, but obviously, this isn't the case. We listen to the voice first, rather than what the speaker is talking about. Deeper voices tend to attract attention rather than the higher, shriller pitches - I have no idea why, other than it could be a deep seated instinct towards the masculine. Women in literature who are the most striking tend to be described as having low pitched voices: Harriet Vane in the Lord Peter Whimsey stories by Dorothy L Sayers is described as having such a voice. They tend to be given the better character parts too.

I've a feeling that if I were ever to be encumbered with a squeaky voiced priest, I'd be at church even less than I am now!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 05:13 AM

Does God care? He himself might have an 'awful screechy voice' for all we know. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 08:22 AM

Actually, the world would be a better place if they all caught laryngitis and stayed that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: kendall
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:04 AM

I'm with mg on this one.It's not just preachers that get to me, but there are so many irritating speakers in broadcasting and politics. Bad grammar will drive me to another channel, people who say "ah" or "you know" every other word, (Hillary is one) drive me away.

When I see a very attractive woman announcing the weather report and a nasal voice that would shatter Tupperware, I have to wonder how she got the job.

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:17 AM

Alas, with TV, it's the face/body that counts... on the radio things were much better.

Kenneth Horne
or John Snagge wouldn't have even got an interview for TV but their voices were perfect for radio. I could listen to Mr Horne all day.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:19 PM

Right....

The content doesn't matter. It's the voice that's crucial.

Okay, let's have a national pogrom and just kill everyone who has a loud, screechy voice and the problem will be solved! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:33 PM

Pogroms have been mounted for worse. Or just consider it pushing evolution in the right direction.

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 01:36 PM

Some of the most dangerous people in history have been "eloquent speakers".

I really don't give a rat's ass how people sound. It's the "person they are" that matters.

Good one LH !! LOL

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:14 PM

Glad you got the humor. I was afraid I might be taken seriously...you can never tell.

If there was a national pogrom on screechy voiced people then my mother's elderly friend Helen would be the first to go. She has a voice that sounds like a squawking chicken that is going berserk about something.

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: sapper82
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:26 PM

The sort of voice I can't stand is the "I'm such a lovely nicey nice person and I have such lovely nicey nice ideas that you couldn't POSSIBLY disagree with me, so if you do disagree with my nicey nice ideas then you must be nasty and not worth listening too," you get from so many of New Labour's female MPs, especially Blair's Babes!

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:28 PM

LH ... or my favourite teacher in High School who introduce me to the writings of James Joyce. One session in her class you would have a splitting headache ... oh, but what a brilliant woman.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Megan L
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:48 PM

ye kin be the best person in the world but if ye squeek fowk will aye hear a rat

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 02:51 PM

..."Women in literature who are the most striking tend to be described as having low pitched voices: Harriet Vane in the Lord Peter Whimsey stories by Dorothy L Sayers is described as having such a voice. They tend to be given the better character parts too." ...

I suspect that is just a Wimsical notion, Liz ...

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:02 PM

I think there's something to it, Murray. A lower-modulated voice frequently indicates a more relaxed personality, because people's voices tend to go higher whenever they're stressed. A relaxed personality is more attractive than a stressed one. Fear is not attractive.

I knew a young woman in the 70's, a small delicate person, and she had the most marvelously nice and low pitched voice. She was also a person who tended to be even-tempered and calm, very good to be around. That woman was worth her weight in gold as far as I was concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: number 6
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:29 PM

your on to something there LH ... "A relaxed personality is more attractive than a stressed one. Fear is not attractive."

Henry Kissinger, comes to mind with that statement ... funny, though I don't find it attractive, but do find it somehow invokes fear.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:57 AM

Rabbi Lionel Bloom- there's a voice to murder for.

We had a priest when I was a kid, a lovely rawboned Irish bogtrotter caller Father Kevill. He once gave a sermon based on "Domine non sum dignus..":

The centurion's servant was healed. And we say his words to this day in the Mass, but instead of saying "servant" we say "roof"...

Say but the word, and my roof will be healed?

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 05:50 AM

Megan - I think I take umbrage at that remark!

I'm not at all ratty.

Catty at times, but not ratty. Not if you feed me my chocolate regularly.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: Megan L
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:35 AM

Lassie That jist proves ma point in oor auld hoose the mice wur awfy fussy pit doon cheese an they turned their noses up but pit doon a cube o chocolate and they all lined up tae give their opinion :p

Subject: RE: BS: Preachers with awful screechy voices
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 10:30 AM

There's a lot of powerful, screechy sound on the media - singers, instruments, speakers, sound effects...

The reason is that people tend to use the media merely as background to other activities. The providers know this, so they insert as many disturbing, distracting sounds as they can to pull the attention of viewers/listeners back to the set. Beauty and meaning have nothing to do with it.

No doubt there are visual equivalents to these attention-grabbing sounds. I don't have these things going in my house, so I'm out of touch.