Monday, December 10, 2007

Sounds like ... ?

At a writers group meeting, we discussed the difficulty of describing people's voices.

An NPR feature called Vocal Impressions is a recurring piece on "All Things Considered." Here's the blurb explaining this regular "listener challenge":

"It's where we ask you to conjure up just the right phrase to describe a handful of famous and distinctive voices.

"Our last challenge was to take on the voices of Janis Joplin, Katharine Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Joe Cocker. Except for Fred, everyone got at least one chainsaw reference. The other answers are below.

"And we issue a new challenge to listeners: Describe the voices of comedienne Lucille Ball, singers Ray Charles and Cher, and actor Harvey Fierstein."

Click here to read listeners' descriptions of Joplin, Astaire, Cocker and Hepburn. One stab at Hepburn was: "'The Ride of the Valkyries' played on a saw."

What do you think?

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