Hi, everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour. 歡迎回來酒館. Hi 安瀾。

Hi, lulu. Hi, everyone.

Can I propose a topic today?

Sure.

I'm gonna talk about a topic or I would want us to talk about a topic that you know has been in my reserve for some time.

Okay.

First of all, have you ever heard of this word in Chinese called 聲控.

Voice control?

No, no ,we're not talking about 聲控燈的聲控, We're talking about, for example, 什么什么控, 書控、手控、聲控，控as in complex or it like fascination or infatuation.

Oh , okay.

There are people who really get infatuated with or fascinated by or turned on by certain types of voice.

Yeah, I know a few people like that.

Are you like that?

I guess I am to a certain extent there are certain types of voices I do like.

Mm, I'm definitely a 聲控 like personally I've worked with... we started off as audio, I was also like I also did dubbing work, 我也做過配音的工作 so, and my voice is very very I would say it's quite unique. I used to hate my voice, but turns out there are a lot of people liking my voice out there. I don't understand why.

Well, we've been doing this podcast for quite some time and people still listen to it so there must be something to your voice.

Oh, I always thought that they just got used to it.

Oh, also that as well.

Thank you.

Husky is a word that we can use to describe voice. So I thought in these two episodes, we can explore a lot of the words related to voice, like how to describe voice, how to describe different styles of speaking and also some very interesting idioms.

Yeah.

First things first you were saying husky,

Yes.

Husky就是有點啞的那種聲音.

Yeah, so husky is it's actually quite positive phrase, sexy. So it's sultry.

Sultry.

Sultry, you could say.

Sultry is like very sexy, very charming, 比較性感撩人的那種聲音.

First of all, when we talk about voice, we talk about pitch.

Yes, so the pitch is kind of how high or how low the voices and all the voice qualities can really fit into those categories.

Yeah. Like my natural pitch is really low, much lower compared to women my age, and it has always been like that ever since I was like a teenager. I guess my mom would say it's because I use my voice like I always tend to shout and yell.

Well, whereas my voice I would say is quite deep, maybe.

I wouldn't call your voice deep. I would say 安瀾is very soft spoken. You're not high pitched音高不高, 但是比較溫柔的那種聲音.

Yeah, I am very very softly spoken, so I don't like to shout. I can't really shout and sometimes people do struggle to hear me because I am quite soft spoken.

Soft spoken but I would say quite firm as well. You're not... because some people they're soft spoken, but they just sound really unsure about themselves. Yeah. I would say 安瀾has a firm but soft voice.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah. Not really my type but, I like sort of like really deep, very low pitched .

Very very deep. I mean like that, very deep.

Well, not really. But let's start with pitch. So what we call like a modal voice 就是我們的真聲.

Yeah.

When you sing, if you need to hit the high notes, you have like something called falsetto

Yes.

就是假聲. And for some singers they can even hit something called whistle.

Yeah, that is incredibly high.

We won't be able to do that. No. 叫做哨音或者海豚音 you know that in Chinese we call it dolphin sound.

Yeah. I've heard it before. No, I can't do that.

But the other side if you go lower than your real modal pitch, then you get to vocal fry.

Yeah.

氣泡音.

I can't do a vocal fry.

You're doing a vocal fry but it is not very good, it's not very attractive,

It's quite harsh when I do it.

Vocal fry. It's very interesting that in china a vocal fry seems to attract certain crowds.

Yeah.

Especially when men with vocal fry because they seem to be more manly, masculine, seductive in a way.

No, I can't only do a vocal fry, it kind of hurts my throat too much.

I can do a vocal fry. I think the whole point of vocal fry originally was when your voice gets tired, like when your vocal cords get tired, you tend to have a vocal fry.

Oh exactly. But You can also get that type of feeling when you're ill as well. So you have been shouting a lot. Exactly. We say that your voice goes hoarse.

Not horse, it's hoarse就是很沙啞, 但是跟我們剛才說的husky是不一樣的. Husky is kind of like a sexy, natural, sultry voice, hoarse is more like you know something's wrong with your voice. For example, during Covid time when everyone got positive, and there's寶娟嗓, we all lost our voice and this寶娟.

Yeah, exactly, that's hoarse and it's usually because of illness or tiredness.

Exactly. But you also have like I've heard of gravelly.

Okay.

So is that because of like gravel as in this the little stones that...

Yeah, for example, it's a very deep, rough voice. So for example, this is a voice that's associated with old men. So when the voice goes a bit like this, Awesome, what you would say is gravelly.

That is not attractive.

It's really not because the person's getting older the man's getting older.

Yeah, I mean I've also heard very attractive older men voice but that is almost like in a movie that seems to be like a really mean old man, that's gonna be brandishing like a little stick and chasing after naughty boys, exactly, in the neighborhood.

We would say that's a gravelly voice.

And remember we were talking about 安瀾being very soft spoken, very gentle, the opposite of that would be a very harsh voice.

Yes,

Very rough and very unpleasant.Yeah. Can you actually do a harsh voice?

No, I can't really do it.

You are just naturally very gentle.

I think I am, but then again, I can't really do a booming voice.

I can do a booming voice. My voice is definitely booming, boom本來就有那種爆炸, 爆破的意思, booming就很有穿透力, 非常洪亮, 中氣十足.

Exactly.

My voice can be so booming to the point that when I was teaching or when I am now teaching in university, if I teach in one lecture room, all the neighboring classrooms or lecture rooms, their teachers are gonna come to me and close my door.

Yeah. I used to be like that when I was teaching, but now I don't really do it so much anymore.

You have mic.

Exactly. I got microphones.

I often say that if a room can sit like 300 people, I don't even need a microphone. Do you also call voice penetrative?

Yeah, we do. That's the type of voice that just really gets to you that you feel like in every part of your body that voice is sort of like echo, 穿透力 , it's echoing.

We also say like her voice really travels.

Yes.

Travels far.

Which can be a positive thing, and but more of the noise can be quite negative.

But booming 低沉宏亮. So I would probably... it depends on my sort of context, yeah, or I would say my physical state, I would either have a booming voice or I can have a very husky or sultry voice, and sometimes I even can have a smoky voice like a smoky...

As long as it's not whiny. That's the one type of voice I really hate.

I would never be whiny ,whiny voice is very high pitched. I don't have high pitched voice.

“Mommy, I want that...” that type of thing that's whiny.

Yeah, whiny, “to whine”, whine is to complain.

Yes.

就是中文說唧唧歪歪那種聲音.

Yeah, it's what children would do if they don't get what they want, they would whine.

Yeah,

It's always negative.

Even when I was a child, I couldn't really do whiny, but what I do have to deal with I think especially with language learners in China because people focus so much on pronunciation,yes, but not enough on intonation. 語音我們注意了, 但語調我們很少注意. So because of that a lot of people would have good pronunciation, but they speak in a monotone voice.

Yeah.

Monotone. As you can imagine, mono means singular, Yeah, so it's like completely flat. There was no change in emotion, in pitch. They would for example speak like this like a robot, Hi 安瀾. I am really happy to be here. Yes, I'm absolutely thrilled.

That's a bit annoying now.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I would say that is really, really common because as you say, intonation is in many cases more important because that's actually showing emotion that's showing how you feel and that's actually important for communication.

I have a question to ask though, a personal question, yeah. If you wanna be really attractive, what kind of voice would you put on?

I generally try to go quite deep. So I tend to make my voice go lower and I probably a little bit monotone as well, but at a constant low pitch.

Are you trying to assert dominance with that voice?

I'm not trying to assert dominance, but I have found that some people like that type of voice.

Women generally like lower pitched men.

Yes.

I think it's a primal thing, they don't tend to like very high pitched men. But I have a question because in China, a lot of men do like higher pitched women because they sound girlier. This is why I was really surprised that people would like my voice because I'm so much lower. What about in the English speaking world?

I would say lower.

Why is that what do you think?

I think it's about sounding a bit husky and sultry, higher pitch is associated with being a bit whiny really. So I would say having a sort of lower more sultry voice is actually probably a little bit more popular.

Especially I noticed that especially in the UK the voices that men tend to gravitate towards to, or tend to be attracted to are really sultry, husky like sort of smoky seductress voice.

Exactly.

“Good evening everyone”↓ like that instead of saying “Good evening everyone”↑.

I wouldn't say that sounds particularly sultry or smoky.

That's because you know me.

Well, that's a good point, yes.

Yeah, because you know me and you can see me in the studio so you're not getting attracted, but I'm sure some of our audience would find this voice sultry and seductive.

Yeah, if you could say seductive...

Okay, let's move on.

Yeah, let's move on quickly.