Who has noticed the speech characteristics of what I call the "folksy mature priesthood holder imparting wisdom"? I went to the National Center for Voice and Speech website to find out what this sound is called (not the wisdom part, of course). I found this description:

pitch supplemented with another pitch one octave lower, roughness usually apparent.

I was just listening to a podcast with a guest who was an exmormon. Whenever he talked about his mission which he said he was thankful for, he switched from his normal voice to this very voice!

It is also called "voice roll". It is one of the techniques of mass hypnosis and crowd manipulation.

I have always wondered about this while watching conference sessions back in the day. Tommy Oz Monson is a great master as well as many of his Great and Powerful Butt Buddies. Ive heard it described as a Sing-Song voice, where they talk, but in a mesmerizing way, they sing to you. I don't know how to insert a link, but you can Google or U-tube sing song voice and learn more.

If you watch past conference sessions, many of the speakers do this. Tommy is very good. Once I was trying to explain it and I simply started talking like normal, and then went up high, and then down low, and stretched out the last Syllable of certain words. Conference is coming up, if you catch some of it, watch for this speech pattern. I doubt Tommy will be around to speak, but he has mastered this.

It's its own dialect. One can hear 5 seconds of GA-speak and know it's a bigoted fraudster pontificating to the masses. Some stake presidents have mastered it, bishops aspire to it, and TBMs emulate it. The linguist's Boner.

When I was on my mission, there was an AP who had this down!
My comp and I used to make fun of him "auditioning to be a GA". That schmoe probably is one by now!

Years ago I was in Utah flipping channels and came to a visual
of a seed sprouting in the ground (time-lapse). Ah, I say to
myself, nature/science programming. But the voiceover that's
describing the process is using the priesthood voice. So I
realize that this isn't a science program but a Church talk.
The speaker made no religious references, he just talked about
the details of the sprouting process, but I could tell just from
the cadence and sound of his speech that it was Mormon-Churchy.

Sure enough, in a few seconds it cut back to the BYU devotional
talk where the proper parallel was drawn between some "gospel
principle" and the sprouting seed.

It's how you know that Holy McGhost is with them.

I believe this is a cultural phenomenon that early church leaders used. It's intrinsic to the cult, and the break off cults. If you ever listen to a sound bite of warren jeffs speak, he uses this voice. It's creepy, especially when you know he used this w/ his young victims in his horny temple.

It's common in *lots* of religions.

http://whale.to/w/mind.html

(note: that page has some interesting stuff, but also a fair amount of woo-conspiracy-nonsense. Enjoy.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2016 09:56PM by ificouldhietokolob.

Oh thanks. I'll give it a listen. I will say this - I have witnessed sermons by a lot of other non-Mormon religions in my day, from extended family here in the states and then as a missionary in Europe, i.e. Catholism, Church of England, Spiritualists, Baptists, 7th Day, JW's, Lutherans, Methodist, non-denom, , Preb's. I have never heard anything as unique at the Mormon GA voice. The GA voice is quite unlike anything that I have experienced. If there is anything that comes close - I haven't heard it yet. Which other religion comes the closest in your opinion?

There are speaking classes GAs go through to perfect the tone and cadence. No lie!

Thank you, everyone, for your wonderful comments. I scrape off another layer of bullshit whenever I can analyze what was happening in the "good old days" when I was a TBM.