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Studs Terkel on the Sound of a Human Voice

By Trent Gilliss, senior editor | Tuesday, January 8, 2013 - 5:20am

Studs Terkel is legend in the world of public media. The late oral historian interviewed thousands of people from all walks of life during his lifetime. You could say he's a connoisseur of the human voice.

In this era of Auto-Tuned singing and electronic guidance systems and mic'd elementary school teachers, we can feel disconnected from each other. Human contact is a one-off. This animated short from StoryCorps shares one of Mr. Terkel's hope-filled stories about the power of the unfiltered human voice, a baby's voice, in our modern life.

storytelling, human voice, StoryCorps, video, animated short, digital life

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3 Comments

Submitted by Neil Friedman on Tue, 2013-01-08 06:52

What will we be when we are no longer familiar with the sound of the human voice, or the bird's song, or the howlings of teh wolves, or the trumpeting elephants call. . .? They tell em silence is golden, but I doubt this is the silence they were speaking of, this stoney gray silence that is slowly falling over us, covering our ears under a deathly cloud of indifference

Submitted by Shelley McEuen on Tue, 2013-01-08 10:44

I needed this today. In a world of self check out and do it yourselfism, it becomes so easy to become stoic to interactions with others. The human voice and how we use it is what connects.

Thank you.

Submitted by Evelyn on Wed, 2013-01-09 17:49

How could the makers of this video end it without letting us hear the sound of the bqby's human voice laughing?!

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