Matchmaker (or "The Voices in my Head")

I like public transportation, have since NYC, I suppose. Although I often find myself standing on my train these days, I do enjoy the new voice I get to hear each morning. A lovely and pleasant feminine voice informs me in the most delightful English accent that we are approaching Chester-le-Street (the one stop between Durham and Newcastle) and that I should alight carefully. Neither of those items would sound as tempting from an American voice. If her actual self is anything like her voice, she must be appealing. I like her. And I think Howard would like her, too.

Howard is the Metro-North Man...
Howard is the Metro-North Man. For about 19 months I took the Hudson Line Metro-North commuter train (after the NYC subway) to work. As I was generally quite pleased with the trains and the train service, I also tended towards fondness for the announcer. I don't know if I actually learned his name or if I named him myself, although I remember considering on multiple occasions what his name might be (I had a long commute). Howard seems to stick in my head, though, and I really think that Howard and the TransPennine Express voice would get along. Howard had a very nice, low to mid-range masculine voice, pleasant and polite, yet firm. When he said, "The next station is Hastings-on-Hudson," you knew he meant it, and you might even consider getting off if it didn't mean having to leave him. If only these two recorded voices' actual emitters could join forces! Imagine the phone conversations! Like lullabies next to a waterfall, I would think! They might tend towards the overly polite, but that is a risk I think they should be willing to take for the sake of life-long audial bliss.

On the other hand, I do not think that Howard would get along with the English Shop Queue Woman. It seems that many convenience shops like Woolworths or pharmacies and even a number of banks all had the unfortunate occurrence of buying the same recorded voice calling customers to the next available counter. "Cashieh numbeh Foh, please" is spoken by an irritating female voice that continues to rise higher and higher with each hurried syllable triumphing in a drawn out and falling numerical digit and ending with a mid-range "please." It's difficult to explain it in words, but if rhythmic counting works (think back to piano lessons), it's:
1(ca) 2&(shieh) 3(num)&(beh) 4(foah)-5-6 7(please)
(pitch- start high, then up, up, up, up, up-fall-fall-fall, "please")

There is one other voice I am fond of, though she would also not do for Metro-North Man. Those of us at the architecture school at Columbia grew quite familiar with Rhonda, the Avery Hall elevator parrot (I should point out that I don't remember who knew Rhonda was a parrot. It is very likely not wide-spread knowledge). I read somewhere in research for a project that the average person will get impatient at any elevator wait over 11 seconds. Well, Rhonda was slow. Very slow. A lot slower than 11 seconds. Yet for some reason we waited for her to take us down 3 short flights of stairs (I think having something to do with stress and lack of sleep). Rhonda dutifully announced each floor, but I don't recall when she was officially dubbed Rhonda. She also became a parrot, perhaps after a late night of computer modeling. Whatever the reason, the female voice in the elevator that rose with "third floor" and fell with "fourth" and second" became Rhonda the Parrot. As much as I liked her, I don't miss hearing her voice...

Have you ever considered how many pre-recorded voices you hear on any given day?