My wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I – we’re sick. Not morally degenerate (although you could make a case for that), but rather, physically ill. We don’t know what it is – but it might be pertussis, otherwise known as whooping cough. Medieval, I know, but we didn’t really have any choice in the matter.
My wife is by far the worse afflicted of the two of us – in fact, she’s unable to speak above a whisper, and it’s been like this for more than two weeks. It’s driving her around the bend – she can’t answer the phone, for instance, lest the caller think they’ve made an obscene phone call by mistake.
But in more important ways, she hasn’t lost her voice at all, because my wife is not a performer; rather, she’s a writer, and failing a really severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome, she’s just as vocal as she ever was, out there on the Intertubes. And this got me thinking: what’s all this about voices, anyway?
The idea of an artistic “voice” really reveals some terminological underwear, there. There’s verbal performance, right there at the heart of artistry. Not scrawling in your garret; not turpentine in your hair; not rosin on a bow; not leotards, not marimba mallets, not pantomine boxes and staircases. If you’re not making noise with your mouth, you’re not arting, says our linguistic heritage.
I suppose I’m momentarily tempted to lord it over the dancers and painters; but the echo of my guitar strings gives me pause. After all, I somehow doubt that a dramatic reading of my lyrics would hold anyone’s attention. And I can assure you that a lyric-less performance of my latest album would be pretty much of a snooze as well. So I’ve got no business taking this “voice” thing literally, anyway; I need the whole act.
And when you think about it, it’s a bit pompous, after all, this idea that there’s some message that your favorite artist is delivering. I don’t go to concerts to be lectured to, or even necessarily informed; I go there to be entertained. Anybody who’s talking about an artist’s “voice” is misunderstanding the public nature of art. Even the artist who isn’t interested in listening to her audience, or buying into the idea of community, is in a conversation; it’s just a conversation where one side votes with their eyes, and ears, and time. If you don’t entertain me – if you don’t do something with your art that appeals to me – I’m not going to pay any attention. And that’s my side of the conversation.
In the end, then, an artistic “voice” is a monologue. It’s the guy with the glass of wine, holding forth at a party. If he’s good – if he’s entertaining, or compelling, or funny – the audience will stay, and grow. If he’s not – no matter what message he wants to deliver, no matter what his “voice” is – there will be a lot of people on their way back to the buffet table.
My wife is silent, for now. But she can whisper her few chosen lines, and she still makes me laugh. It’s not really about the medium, anyway – and it sure as hell isn’t a monologue.