Taking forward the Afro-American thread, I have a question: Do you think you can identify a person as Afro-American or white American, on the basis of the voice? For that matter, can you identify an Indian voice? Mind you, I am not talking about the accent b’coz more often than not, it’s a complete giveaway. Just the voice quality, the tone, the modulation. I think I can do it… or am I way off the mark here?
I feel Afro-American voices are distinctly richer. They are deeper and more throaty. The voices of women also fall into the same category.
Most Indian male voices are stuck in mid-range, not too basal not too shrill. However, I feel that the voices of Indian women embrace a far larger range than those of Indian men.
Of course, I know that talking about the voices of a 1 billion strong population in a single sentence is mighty presumptuous. Please play along, guys….:-)
radhika74 says:
the afro bit,i agree with..but indian voices ..i’ll have to observe and think about…
October 14, 2004 — 8:31 am
splitpeasoup says:
In Ranchi, my parents knew a lot of Bengali people and they all loved to sing at parties, and they sang really well.
I observed that many Bengali men of my parents’ generation, whether as a result of vocal training or as a result of many years of whisky and cigarettes 🙂 had rich deep voices.
One thing I have noticed about Western and Indian pop music male singers is that the lead singer is almost always a tenor. There are exceptions like Dire Straits and Cat Stevens, but these cases are few. My own voice is about half an octave lower, which means I can’t sing along at the same pitch; but at the same time my lower range is not good enough for me to drop a full octave either. Also, it’s hard to sing very loud at an octave lower.
October 14, 2004 — 9:15 am
Lakshmi says:
Know what, I have the same problem as yours, if you can call it a problem. My voice is pretty basal (almost like a guy, in fact, I’ve been mistaken for my Dad on the phone quite a few times!) and that makes it tough to sing along at the same pitch as the lead singer.
October 14, 2004 — 9:53 am
lalunadiosa says:
I think it is pretty easy to identify a person as an African-American from his/her voice but it’s tougher to identify someone as Indian based on voice quality alone, keeping the accents aside….
I remember the first time an African-American man talked to me…and I mean one-on-one…not like MJ giving an interview…I was 10 and interviewing with the US consulate for a visa….when my name was called, we couldn’t see who was calling it out but my Mom mentioned to me that it sounded like an African-American ‘cos of its rich deep quality and I honestly thought my Mom was nuts then….but then she did turn out to be right and since then I think my ears are tuned!!!
October 14, 2004 — 9:49 am
99kanitas says:
Accents aside, I can’t tell the difference between an african-american, an indian who’s grown up here and a caucasian on the phone.
October 14, 2004 — 2:53 pm