Welcome to Indoor Voice!

You may be wondering why I’ve called this blog Indoor Voice. On the other hand, you might not be bothered at all. If so, tough, because I’m going to tell you!

Those of you who know me (and, perhaps more importantly, my partner Kieran) well, will understand. For those of you who don’t, here’s the explanation:

Having spent my entire life working on and releasing my voice, it’s probably fair to say I am not a particularly quiet person. I think I speak at a normal level. Kieran thinks I’m loud. For instance, I might ask him “Kieran, would you like a cup of tea?” to which he frequently replies, “I’m standing next to you. You don’t need to shout.”

Now what Kieran doesn’t realise is that I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, shouting. I put his inability to distinguish between shouting and a normal conversational use of the voice down to his having led a sheltered existence before meeting me.

His other favourite response to my addressing him is “use your indoor voice” or, more usually just, “indoor voice!” Clearly, the “!” is implied in his use of the imperative. I don’t know whether he thinks it will make any difference. It’s probably just exasperation.

So there you have it. Apparently I’m loud and I like to express myself in a dramatic fashion. “Why do you always have to be so dramatic?” is another favourite of Kieran’s responses. What a ridiculous question. Doesn’t he realise I’m an opera singer?!!

I’m sure there are plenty of you reading this post (assuming that anyone is actually reading it) who can identify with poor Kieran’s predicament. Those of us of a dramatic bent think the way we speak and express ourselves is completely normal. It’s the rest of you who are abnormal. And would you please stop mumbling?!

Anyway, the reason for starting this blog is, again, to keep Kieran happy. He’s been telling me for ages (years?) that I should start a blog so that I can write my rants somewhere where people who actually want to read them can go out of their own free will. Rants? Me?!

Expect lots of political thought and comment (now you really would be surprised if I wasn’t going to write anything about politics). Don’t expect lots of fluffy pictures of cats (though there may be some of those. Cleo is, after all, very cute). There will also be comments about education and, of course, music and the arts.

There’s a political blog itching to get out but I’ll save that until later. First of all, I just want to welcome you with this initial, “Hello World” blog.

Happy New Year!

Colin

BTW this picture of waves is totally irrelevant. I’ll work out how to remove it next time. It is rather relaxing though, isn’t it?

Author: indoorvoice57

I am a singer (opera, oratorio, recitals and cabaret), teacher, writer, director and impresario. I run the Opera School at the City Lit. I have opinions! View all posts by indoorvoice57