Every now-and-then I’ll hear a woman speak in what I call a “singing voice.” When she speaks, there is a… “musical quality” to her voice.
The best example I can think of is Madeline Kahn. I just finished watching Young Frankenstein with our daughter, and every time she spoke she just had this wonderful “singing voice.”
I am also friends with a local woman who is a singer, pianist, and mandolin player. She also has what I would describe as a “singing voice.”
My daughter was watching a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show; Tim Curry’s Frankenfurter has a male version of that musicality in his voice. Now, he is singing many of his lines, but still…
Glinda, the good witch of the north? I’m half kidding, as I realize the voice was a put on but some of it is the actresse’s true voice and it seems like it would be quite melodious.
I wonder if that is a quality that is rarer to find these days. It seems like vocal fry and valley speak would have taken its place.
Some people have a naturally beautiful voice, but plenty are also trained in voice production, which can make their natural speech much more musical than most of us: just as somehow you notice the elegance of a trained ballet dancer’s walk.
