Once again a new year has arrived, challenging me to find a topic for this year’s newsletters. And then among a pile of papers on my desk, I found a letter I recently received from PAVA (Pan-American Vocology Association) encouraging their members to advocate for the human voice. Aha! I thought. I will spend the next 12 months doing just that.
How?
Musing over the evolution of the vocal folds. When did humans discover they could produce sounds and how did those mutterings evolve into a language? What about non-verbal communication? Will future technology make our voices obsolete? Should we keep our voices working and present?
We use our voices everyday, assuming they will always work for us, but how often do we think about how our brain and voice work in tandem to commu-nicate through speech? How our voices reveal our inner thoughts and emotions? Do we experience healing and tranquility through its vibrational power? Are we seeking to find our unique voice to break through the noise of the world?
So what is in store for the human voice? Will it lose out to email, texting, possibly even microchips in our brains enabling us to communicate via thoughts only?
Or will we always feel the need to hear and feel the sound of our own voices to know we are alive and not alone?
PAVA newletter, December 2015
Leave a Reply