Seven things you need to hear about your voice
Listen up! You use it every day, but how much do you know about your voice? Hannah and Adam celebrate our marvellous human instrument in The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry.
1. You've had an accent since birth
Babies begin to pick up their parents' accents while still in the womb. Researchers studied French and German newborns and found that the lilt of their cries mimicked the intonation of their native language. They showed it was possible to tell babies from different countries apart, by the way they cried.
2. What your voice box sounds like from the inside
Your voice starts down at the ribcage, when you squeeze air out gently to provide a controlled flow of air through your voice box. Two pieces of tissue, called the vocal cords, vibrate back and forth as the air passes through producing a bizarre buzzing sound which you can hear in the clip below. Then by manipulating the rest of your “articulators” – lips, jaw, tongue and your soft palate at the back of your throat – your voice is formed.
How your voice sounds before it reaches your mouth
The sound that emerges from your vocal cords before it's shaped into speech by your mouth
3. Why it gets deeper
Men’s voices break in adolescence. The male voice box moves down inside the throat and starts to stick out – it’s commonly known as the “Adam’s apple”. The distance between the voice box and mouth – known as the vocal tract – becomes longer. A longer pipe produces a lower note, so men’s voice becomes deeper.
Women go through a similar, although less dramatic, process during the menopause, and the pitch of their voices can become lower.
4. You mimic people you fancy
The more you like someone, the more you’ll adjust your voice to sound like them. So if a man likes a woman he will often raise the pitch of his voice when talking to her.
5. When your folds go floppy
As you age, your vocal cords become floppier and so air leaks out when you talk, giving your voice a more breathy sound. It also means you can’t talk in such long sentences, as you run out of breath. Plus as your muscles weaken, the pitch of your voice can go up again in old age.
6. Your voice stays younger for longer
The good news is that your voice ages slower than the rest of your body. If you try to guess someone’s age just by listening to their voice, on average you’ll judge people to be younger than they really are.
7. How to keep your voice fit
Just like your body, your voice needs to be exercised to stay healthy as you get older. Try this vocal exercise (by clicking play below) which will stretch your vocal cords to keep them in tip-top condition. Just maybe not in public…
How to keep your voice in shape
Acoustic engineer Trevor Cox demonstrates an exercise to stretch your vocal cords.
