By Chris Cosci

The other day, I had to send a phone message to a group of people. Instead of calling each person individually, I used a service that allows me to record a message and send it out to the entire group. After I recorded my message, I pressed a button to review my message. Upon hearing my voice repeated back to me, I had the same reaction I usually have: "That's not really what I sound like, is it?"

When I'm speaking to someone in person, my voice sounds marginally deep and fairly normal. However, when I hear a recording of my voice, I hear this high-pitched, freakish-sounding voice that sounds nothing like what I'm used to hearing. I have to wonder, is that really what people hear when I speak to them?

I know I'm not alone in this matter. Plenty of people are uncomfortable hearing their own voices. Granted, I can't imagine that everybody has this problem. I can't imagine James Earl Jones ever saying, "listen to that voice -- so whiny and nasally. That's not really what I sound like, is it?"

But for every James Earl Jones or even Mr. Moviefone, there's someone like me -- someone who wonders how a voice can sound so radically different on tape. What's worse is that after hearing such a recording, I immediately become self-conscious. The next time I start speaking to somebody, in the back of my head I hear this small voice (usually high-pitched and freakish-sounding) reminding me of what I really sound like. Suddenly, I find myself consciously trying to deepen my voice and make it sound more moderate. Of course, all I'm really doing is making myself sound like a cassette player with dying batteries.

Having a pleasant voice is the auditory equivalent of being photogenic. As my brother and sister can attest, cameras and I have not always gotten along well. For some reason, as soon as the flash goes off, the molecules that govern my facial expressions skew and twist so that my eyelids droop, my smile falters and, occasionally, a little stream of drool forms around the corner of my mouth. Okay, maybe I don't really drool, but you get the idea.

Again, just as there are people who seem to have naturally pleasing voices, there are people who seem to photograph well no matter what. They'd look good even if their faces were ravaged by a pack of rabid squirrels and their eyebrows singed off in a freak candle accident.

People who are not naturally photogenic are often unhappy with pictures of themselves. Sometimes, the concern is justifiable. Few people photograph well when they blink or have a mouthful of food. However, people will often come up with the most outrageous excuses for not liking a photograph. "I hate that picture -- the lighting makes my face look half a shade too pale." "Look, one of the thousands of hairs on my head looks slightly askew." "Doesn't my left eyebrow seem slightly higher than my right eyebrow?"

At least in this day and age of digital photography, if one picture doesn't look so great, you can just take another picture and try again. However, when you speak to somebody, you can't say, "oh wait, I sound way too high-pitched -- do you mind if I start talking again?" No, it's too late.

Still, in the long run, the voice issue isn't really going to have a major effect on my life. I'll just have to live with the fact that I'll never be asked to tell Luke that I'm his father. And I probably will never get to tell all moviegoers that the next showing of Batman Begins is at 7:15. But if you need someone for a rabid squirrel voiceover...