VocaliD
People lose their speech for many different reasons. It must be a very difficult experience as spoken language is so much as part of most people's lives. I know there are a lot of profoundly deaf people who use a very expressive sign language to communicate with gestures alone, but this article is about losing or gaining a voice. I tend to talk a lot and chatting is a large part of my personal life and my working life. I increasingly type a lot too. A wide variety of diseases and injuries can be responsible for the loss of speech including strokes, certain cancers and neuro-degenerative conditions which can slowly or immediately diminish people's voices. Other people find it impossible to speak due to conditions like cerebral palsy which interferes with the control of muscle groups and can leave some people without a voice from birth. For years this inability to communicate with speech led some to believe that many people with cerebral palsy or similar conditions didn't have the capability to communicate. It must be incredibly frustrating to not be able to speak and even more frustrating to be thought of as incapable of doing so.
Profound Experience
I had an encounter when I was a teenager which had a profound effect. I met a guy with very severe Cerebral Palsy when I was volunteering with the Weston Spirit Charity and I was completely fascinated by him. He had very little control over his muscles and was confined to a wheelchair. His mouth would gnash open and closed and his head would roll from side to side. He was confined to a special wheelchair with a built in table which also helped him stay upright. This was the 1980's and he had a tap board with which he could spell out letters from an alphabet with. It also had the words yes and no on it. With a bit of help from his carer we had a brilliant conversation. It turned out he had a wicked sense of humour. It helped me understand the world from a different perspective. I learned to recognise people with Cerebral Palsy and became aware that it could affect people mildly, severely or somewhere in between. I'd like to think people are more aware these days about disability. The Invictus Games and Paralympic sports , (in particular the 2012 games in London) in my home Borough of Hackney, showed the world how all types of disability don't have to be life limiting. I found watching the games quite a moving experience. It's inspiring and educational
Black Holes
The world Famous Prof. Steven Hawking who is an ALS sufferer, (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) which is a neuro-degenerative condition, lost the ability to speak after an emergency tracheotomy during a bout of Pneumonia was later given an electronic voice, which although cumbersome, robotic and with a North American accent, (he's British) gave him a unique signature in his quest to enlighten the world about Black Holes, the formation of the Universe and most recently his pioneering work on traveling to the stars. Not only is he an inspiration to many scientists and laypeople around the world, he is also one of the best public education tools to help inform people that a wheelchair user, unable to speak can contain one of the most able and gifted minds on the planet. When Steven was given the opportunity to upgrade his voice, he declined because it had become so much a part of him.
SpeechPlus
Steven's Voice is not his voice and although it is synonymous with his wit, humour and philosophical musings on the world, it doesn't carry any of the original character of his own voice. It's a generation 1 electronic voice, pioneered by Equalizer software from a company called WordsPlus in California. The inventor, Walter Wolotz had originally created the software to help his mother-in-law who also suffered with ALS to speak. It ran on an Apple II computer using a speech synthesiser made by another company called SpeechPlus*. Although the systems have improved over the years with phone apps able to take the place of previously cumbersome computers, It can still take a long time to compose sentences using a text to speech converter. Steven's system has a word bank and when you see him on stage, it's a prepared speech. If you had a conversation with him, he apparently chooses his words carefully (unsurprisingly) and the pace is probably quite different to the babble we are used to passing back and forth.
VoiceID
It's is a pioneering voicebank project which offers people without a voice a more personalised voice synthesiser. A voice is built and can be tuned. Voices can be merged from a donor bank and some vocal sounds from the recipient. People who for example, have certain types of cancers which means their voice or ability to talk will be severely affected by surgery, can bank their voice in advance, by feeding their vocabulary and vocal sounds into the system before they undergo procedures. This means that when their electronic voice synthesiser is built, it can be customised to sound like them. This is a very interesting and I think, very human project. For people who have never had a voice, it offers them a choice to help define their presence as individuals. With just a few sounds, a voice can be built and integrated with a donor voice which is unique to each user. Previously the choice of voices was very limited and younger people were often stuck with older voices.
I am Going to Bank my Voice.
I've done voice for TV an Radio and often provide a proxy voice for a film we're making until an actor or presenter fills in my place for the final product and I consider myself a good reader with clear diction. I think it would be a great honour to lend my voice to someone who needed it and although it will take a long time to complete, it's something I can easily give. It might one day help someone with a similar voice or accent to mine in recovery of their spoken identity. I'm from Liverpool in the North West of England. Although I've lived in London for nearly 20 years I still have my accent which I'd describe as having a passing resemblance to the sound of John Lennon. (we went to the same school). I hope I don't ever have to rely on my banked voice as a replacement for my own, but If I did, I'd be glad that it was available to me.
On signup the website asked for my location but not by city. I had the choice of British. There are many regional voices in the UK. In the future I hope they refine it so that if somebody from Liverpool needs a voice, whatever sounds they can make can be combined with mine to give them something unique.
A Challenge
It's not an easy task. I don't know exactly how long it will take but I've read It can take weeks to read in to the system and record all the necessary words and sounds to build a whole vocal range. I've also read that some people choose to spend an hour or less per day in their free time recording their voices until they have fed everything in that the system needs. It is an automated process via web interface and you can make it more interesting by selecting different reading material in advance from poetry and biographies to science fiction and wonderful facts.
Don't Call Us
I had to provide an audition initially to make sure my voice and recording is of a good enough quality. I hope I get a callback ! I'll use a headset mic to bank my voice. The recording will be much clearer and more consistent than if I use my laptop's built in webcam mic. I'll also be able to cut out background noise much more easily with a close to mouth microphone. I'm quite experienced at recording people's voices for animated films so it will also be a fun challenge. It's an odd experience when you hear your own voice outside of your head. Most people can't believe that's what they actually sound like. There's a cognitive dissonance between the voice inside and the voice outside. I think the voice is an amazing thing and if you'd like to find out more about how to bank your voice, visit VocalID
wow this is an amazing information. I do hope your voice will be accepted. If I would have the chance I would do the same thing, I saw Stevens life and he inspired me.. So if our voice is a great help to people in need best to donate them..
thanks @sawi. I read Steven Hawking's biography when I was quite young and I was fascinated. His books were very popular at the time and I'm not sure most people understood them. I think it will be great if someone who has a voice similar to mine can use it.
You are a really good person
that's very kind @aligurpinar, it's a project which resonates with me :)
You actually lectured me via this point, thanks. But what i want to ask is, are you going to loose your own voice after donating it to people who already lost theirs via these diseases you mentioned?
thanks for the comment @austinebizzy. I'm not going to lose my voice after I've donated it. I'm fine (as far as i know) and I'l still be able to use it normally. I'm just making a copy of all the sounds that my voice makes so that it can be used in a voice synthesiser. I hope I keep my voice, it's an important part of my life. If I ever do lose it, it's always reassuring to think that I could in theory retrieve it for my own use! thanks to VoiceID
Wow! This is so interesting and awesome. I am definitely interested in how long it takes you to finish. I also, wonder, what would constitute a bad quality voice. It would be awesome if Singers chose to will their voices when they passed. That would be such a blessing to the people who lost their voice not, that any voice wouldn’t be. I found you on Twitter :) I’m pretty new here and enjoyed this read so I’m a new follower (sorry I don’t have much influence to make that too exciting 😂)
well I've been accepted.. apparently my audition tape met the required quality, which is great. I remember a long time ago, reading Alice in Wonderland to my PC in order to teach it how to recognise my voice for continuous speech recognition.. this was 20 years ago and it was quite impressive then. I'm not sure how many hours I will need to complete my voice donation, but hopefully there's no rush ! great that you found me on twitter. influence is one thing. making a valuable contribution to the community and becoming known as a good steemian is another. I'm following you :)
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Thoughtful post @outerground. It weirds me out sometimes when I hear my outside voice. I plan on eventually getting into streaming/podcasting so I better get used to it.
BTW, came across your post in post promotion. Would be stellar if you had a look at mine. I write a script that, in theory, should help address a problem on Steem. Here's the link for your convenience.
https://steemit.com/steemdev/@anthonyadavisii/steem-comment-contest-script-released-on-github-a-productive-alternative-to-the-sbd-lottery-racket-44bebdf747506
thanks for the comment @anthonyadavisii. It is weird when you hear your voice outside for the first time. Can you imagine what it's like hearing your own voice for the very first time. That's why I think VocalID is such an interesting project. They literally have the ability to give someone a voice.
Wow, what a valuable thing to do and give! I had no idea this existed, but I love the idea of giving people a real voice instead of a mechanical one. Thank you for sharing and I'm sure you will get a call back!
I got the callback.. I think all they really want to know is if you can speak clearly enough ( I can if I put on my telephone voice) and if you can record to a minimum quality they require ! I would recommend anyone with an hour a day spare (and with a good speaking voice) to have a go. It would be great if a few celebs gave their voice. I'm sure quite a few people would love to sound like Meryl Streep, Jim Parsons, Rihanna ;)
Good luck with recording!Oh wow, there should be a campaign for this! #celebvoices - I actually know of three people in my network who are voice artists or radio makers, so I will start by sharing VocalID with them!
that's a great shout @soyrosa. I think having a professional voice artist donate their voice would be a very valuable addition to the database.. I'm only semi-pro and that's what inspired me