One person. One passage. Two vocal patterns.
Both files use the Rainbow Passage and were archived on 5 February 2024. One sound was familiar; the other was available but strange to use. The diary follows what happened as I tried to make that lower voice part of ordinary life.
Archived 5 February 2024 · Same reading passage0:46
Lower register
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Lightly edited for readability. Diary recordings contain strong language. These are my words at the time.
When the sun strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colours. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Although the centuries, people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Some have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. To the Hebrews, it was a token that there would be no more universal floods.
Archived 5 February 2024 · Same reading passage0:49
Habitual falsetto
Captions appear here during playback.
Read the transcript
Lightly edited for readability. Diary recordings contain strong language. These are my words at the time.
When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colours. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries, people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Some have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. To the Hebrews, it was a token that there would be no more universal floods.
The part you don’t hear in a short clip
Pitch is the most obvious contrast in these two short readings. You can also listen for the continuity of the sound, breathiness and expression. Playback volume depends on the recording and your device, so these files cannot establish how loudly either voice carried across a room.
They also do not show what happened after a long conversation or how much effort I felt while speaking. In the March diary I describe those differences directly: the familiar voice's response to tiredness and noise, then the lower voice's greater volume and stability. Listening to that explanation gives the short comparison more context.
Hear the March comparison with that context →Read the shared passage
When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colours. These take the shape of a long round arch with its path high above and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries, people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Some have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. To the Hebrews, it was a token that there would be no more universal floods.
Shared reading text from the supplied transcript. The archive transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
Hearing it was only the beginning.
I could listen back and hear an ordinary voice. Using it around people still felt like doing an impression. If that contradiction sounds familiar, the diary is where I tried to put it into words.
Why making the sound and using it felt so different →