Monday, April 11, 2022

What a gorgeous laugh!

Over the years I have written about the strange seductive power of a voice over the airwaves, where one has no idea of the physical attributes of the speaker.  I've wondered about "the most beautiful voice on the planet", one that I would bet belongs to somewhat tall (a voice like that needs an appropriate vehicle) and I just know that she has a long, elegant neck. Not as long as Parmigianino's Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Madonna with Long Neck), but she'd make a perfect model for a contemporary interpretation of that Mannerist masterpiece. It takes a breath-taking neck like that to deliver the melody that is her voice.

I've also mentioned another interesting voice in the air is that of WMAL's Maria Leaf and discussed the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, who is an American journalist and the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily.

I also lamented and discussed the uniquely young American female phenomenon of "vocal fry." Young women, that is, until Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's spectacularly annoying voice made its debut during the attempted lynching of now Justice Kavanaugh.

WAMU's Lauren Ober and Lauren Landau's radio voices  have also been commented upon.

And now my new voices that have seduced my ears across the FM airwaves - they belong to a couple of morning hosts for Radio Sputnik, a commie radio station blasting Russian-funded noise at 105.5 FM in the general DC area - it's pretty hard to get it once you start heading north to Baltimore on 95 from the Beltway.

“This radio programming is distributed by RM Broadcasting on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Moscow, Russia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.” 

One voice belongs to someone named Jamal Thomas and the other to (and I am not sure of the name as it is hard to distinguish it when either hosts says it, and I always try to avoid seeing what the owners of the voices that catch my ear look like - so no Googlin' of them) Erin/Ferin Fransac/Fronsek (????).

Thomas' voice is not the usual voice that one finds on the air.  His voice pedal drives at normal speed and then in the middle of a sentence steps on the gas on a word or two and ramps it up.  It is a constant and interesting change of speed cadence which "wakes" up the ear.

His show partner - since I can't figure out her name let's call her Erin - has a most seductive voice (different from my NPR ad lady's glorious voice). It is a young voice, probably coming out of late 20s-early 30s vocal chords, and crucially wedded to a spectacularly gorgeous laugh and an even more hypnotizing chuckle.

It is that combo (voice plus laugh) which makes Erin such an interesting case.  I have no idea what she looks like or how old she is, but Erin's voice and laughter belongs to the lady whose laughter, catches the ear and subconsciously draws attention as in the following example:

Let's say you are in a large party - like a wedding reception - and everyone is standing around talking in groups. The bride and groom have not arrived yet and all the guests are chatting.  Erin laughs in whatever part of the room she is in... as soon as the laugh sounds travel, every male in that room who hear the laugh subconsciously turns an eye to seek the source of that chuckle or laugh.  A few women look as well.