Mr. Desourdy’s Voices

Maury Desourdy taught me announcing at Ryerson in 1969-70. He had a voice that was as smooth as felt being rubbed on a marble table. He was also a remarkable teacher.

One lesson I remember well was where we read and recorded the same commercial ten times. Our number one voice was to be our most boring, dead, dull voice we could imagine. Our number ten voice was the most ridiculous voice we could create. For our number five voice, we were to speak with what we thought was most suitable for radio, in essence our broadcasting voice.

There were more than ten of us in the class. You can imagine the marathon reading of this short commercial. By the time the last person faced the microphone, we were ready to flee the room.

After being subjected to the equivalent of hearing all of the verses of 99 bottles of beer on the wall, we didn’t look forward to the playback. That is until Mr. Desourdy gave us a little assignment. He gave us sheets of paper numbered one to ten. We were to write the person reading the commercial in the provided space, then circle the voice number that we thought was the most suitable for radio.

The results were amazing! Remember, our number five voice was supposed to be the one that was what we felt was most suitable for radio. Guess what? Nobody succeeded. Nobody’s number five voice was interesting at all. Everybody was boring. The best anybody could come up with that captured the audience was a number seven voice. One poor soul, Nadine, didn’t achieve the desired delivery until the number nine voice, one shy of what she thought would be ridiculous.

What did we learn? We had to push ourselves well beyond what we thought was the normal speaking voice to have an interesting, refreshing delivery, one that would capture others and draw them in. We might feel like a fool doing so, because it meant going beyond our comfort zone. We might go too far and look silly. What is better, though, looking silly once in awhile or being boring all of the time? It wasn’t much of a choice.

I feel this has a direct application to our lives. It is very easy to live life using your number five voice. You chug right along and it becomes very comfortable to you. It is so comfortable that it can lull you to sleep. However, it isn’t until you extend yourself and take a few risks that things become interesting for you and for others. Yes, you might look foolish. You might even fall down. You might even lose a lot of things. However, along the way you just might gain the freedom from the things that make the difference between an ordinary life and an exceptional one. Also, you just might gain everything by taking the chance of doing something extraordinary. You will have to go outside your comfort zone to do this. Some can; many can not. Can you?