eugene stickland  

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this, but I have always been very sensitive to the tonal qualities (or lack of) of the human voice. It is said that beauty is only skin deep, but in my experience, it has more to do with the quality of a person’s voice than the quality of their skin.

Someone wrote a critique of a piece by, I believe, Beethoven saying it sounded like a cat’s claws on a window pane. I can’t remember the exact reference. It’s probably in Diana Rigg’s great compendium No Turn Unstoned. (Great book if you can find it, a collection of incredibly negative reviews of great works of art, particularly theatre. Yes, the same Diana Rigg who starred in The Avengers.)

Well, that’s just a variation of the tired old “nails on a blackboard” saying which probably doesn’t resonate as much now that we have whiteboards and colourful markers instead of blackboards and not so colourful chalk.

A horrid, terrible, irritating voice. If I hear that I run the other way. It makes me wonder, are such people aware of how grating and offensive their voices are to others? Do they never think of doing something about it? Voice lessons, for example? It’s a problem that can be fixed. I know these things. I studied with the great voice coach David Smuckler at York University in Toronto. Many moons ago now, Johnny. (Or whomever.)

(Where are we going with this, Eugene? Focus, man, focus!)

This is all by of saying that I know a man whom I see at Caffe Beano from time to time with a high screechy voice. It’s so pronounced I was describing him to a fellow patron (trying, after years of knowing him) to learn his name. I mentioned the voice and the fellow patron (whose name I don’t know) knew right away the person I was talking about.

I was looking for him because I had a book for him. That book will be the subject of Vox Humana 2 so stay tuned!

Meanwhile, I had written in my journal a description of the voice that became so, shall we say, fluid that I believe it may qualify as a literary conceit, along with Mr. Eliot’s etherized patient. This description longed to be freed from the pages of my journal and was really the impulse for writing this post in the first place. So here it is —

He has a voice like a rusty gate swinging open in the late afternoon of a cloudy day in autumn with the wind and swirling leaves. Someone in a long black cloth coat has pushed the gate open. We can’t be sure if he’s coming or going. Presumably there is an old house beyond the gate but whether our friend in the long black coat is returning, say from work, or heading out, perhaps to the library, we will never know.

Remember to check for part two of this fascinating discussion of whatever it is.

Thanks for reading!