Why does my voice sound so old?
As people get older, the larynx (voice box), vocal folds (cords), and voice-producing mechanism age along with the rest of the body. Age-related voice changes develop as muscle and other tissues in the larynx and vocal cords shrink, thin, and stiffen.
Weakened and dry vocal chords become stringy, which prevent normal vibration, causing higher pitched voices that sound thin. And the transformations in the respiratory system and chest mean we have less power behind our voices.
- humming.
- lip buzzing.
- tongue trills.
- loosening your jaw by opening your mouth wide, then gently closing it.
- yawning.
- deep breathing.
- gently massaging your throat to loosen tense muscles.
Before your growth spurt, your larynx is relatively small and your vocal cords are relatively thin. So your voice is high and kid-like.
Laryngitis is one of the most common causes of hoarseness. It can be due to temporary swelling of the vocal folds from a cold, an upper respiratory infection, or allergies. Your doctor will treat laryngitis according to its cause.
Puberphonia is also called “functional falsetto.” Normally during puberty, the male voice lowers by approximately one octave, while the female voice lowers by one to three semitones. However, if this natural change does not take place, the person has functional falsetto. This condition occurs more frequently in males.
To try out Feeser's trick, simply straighten your hands in front of your ears, just behind your jaw bone. Now speak! See how it seems to throw your voice, but in a slightly higher pitch? That's what you sound like to other people.
When recorded, you might hear your voice sound shallower than you're used to. This is because the recordings are not affected by the internal resonance and bone conduction that affects how your voice sounds. However, the way your voice sounds on recordings is the way people perceive it in real life.
Changes in the structure and tissues within the larynx (voice box) can produce changes to the aging voice, known as presbyphonia. Some of the differences you may hear involve shifts in pitch, volume, and resonance. These differences are telling of age, but is it possible to sound younger?
- Get to know your voice by listening to recordings of yourself. ...
- Note what you do and don't like about your voice. ...
- Slow down and speak deliberately. ...
- Drink water. ...
- Be mindful of your body. ...
- Listen carefully to other voices you like. ...
- Invest in high-quality equipment.
Why do I sound like a kid when I talk?
If you sound like a child, it is most likely that you are not using enough diaphragm support to release your singing voice in a relaxed mode; instead you constrict your throat more, in order to squeeze out your voice.
The biggest changes to your voice will happen during puberty and will usually end by the age of 18. Your adult pitch is then reached 2 or 3 years later. But your voice won't completely stabilise until early adulthood. Your voice can carry on changing through your 20's, and even into your 30's.
Humming, for example, allows you to warm up your voice box so you can have more control over your voice. Hum often, and you'll be able to lower your voice's pitch, talk a bit deeper, and eventually make your voice sound deeper on mic or video.
She explained that younger children tend to use this form of vocal regression to cope with anxiety, when they are feeling overwhelmed or battling intrusive, distressing emotions and thoughts. For older children, she said, “it can stem from low self-esteem or is used to seek attention from peers and/or adults.”
Baby talk shouldn't be a huge cause for concern. Sometimes it stems from a stressful situation, such as having a new baby in the home. Other times, children revert to baby talk because they miss being a young child and they want to be coddled again.
Well, studies have shown that “husky” speaking voices in both males and females are sexier and more universally appealing than a higher, squeaky or nasal voice.
Vocal hoarseness can be caused by several factors, including: A cold or infection – A cold or upper respiratory infection, such as the flu or COVID-19, can make your voice hoarse, but the hoarseness should resolve on its own within about two weeks.
Sometimes a husky sound is cool, adding a great effect to your singing voice, but if your voice is always husky, raspy or rough, then your vocal health may be at risk.
Research confirms that deep voices give men an aura of power and sexual allure. Men with low, resonant voices are more likely to be perceived as attractive, masculine, respectable, and dominant.
Apparently, it has to do with testosterone levels. Generally speaking, men with lower voices have more testosterone than men with squeakier voices. The researchers said: “Testosterone and the characteristics dependent on testosterone can be reliable indicators of quality-dependent conditions or behaviours.”
What is Diplophonia?
Diplophonia is the production by the voice of 2 separate tones through quasiperiodic variations in the vocal fold vibration (Ward PH, Moore GP.
People perceive their own voice to be the combination of those two sources of sound, but everyone else just hears the external stimulus. This is why when you listen to your voice in a recording, it sounds different than the voice you're used to.
When you hear your own voice when you speak, it's due to a blend of both external and internal conduction, and internal bone conduction appears to boost the lower frequencies. For this reason, people generally perceive their voice as deeper and richer when they speak.
That earpiece is called an in-ear monitor. It allows her to hear exactly what she wants. For example if you are a singer singing with a live band, there is a lot of noise onstage with you, especially from the drummer. It can be very hard to hear yourself which can make you sing louder and even shout.
You're Not Alone
We're predisposed to hate the sound of our own speech. It's irrational, and it's normal. Embrace it and don't worry about it. It's worth remembering, the way you hear your voice is different from the way other people hear it.
Your voice sounds louder inside your head than it does to other people. The reason is that the sound that you hear is amplified through the bone-conduction in your head, while other people only can hear the sound that is carried through the air in the space around you.
When you hear your voice on a recording, you're only hearing sounds transmitted via air conduction. Since you're missing the part of the sound that comes from bone conduction within the head, your voice sounds different to you on a recording.
Humming into straws, singing your favorite songs, reading out loud — these and other exercises can help keep your voice youthful. But you have to practice them correctly to benefit. To do that, seek out a vocal coach, a singing instructor or a vocologist, a speech language pathologist with additional training in voice.
If the vocal cords separate a bit and no longer connect, you get presbyphonia. It causes you to sound hoarse, or have a weaker voice. When do people's voices start to age? I can't answer that definitively, but it usually starts around the age of 60 to 70.
The best thing you can do to improve your singing is singing regularly. “Practice makes perfect” is a cliché, but practice really does make you better. Singing every day strengthens your vocal cords, improves your vocal range, and will gradually lead you to a better vocal tone.
How do you know if your voice is attractive?
Their study revealed that males find female voices that indicate a smaller body size—high-pitched, breathy voices with wide formant spacing—most attractive. Females, on the other hand, prefer to hear a low-pitched voice with narrow formant spacing, reflecting a larger body size.
Well, by starting from the basic principles: good breathing, good support, a feeling of forward clarity and lightness in the voice, a loose throat, a healthy tone onset and understanding and having an imaginative picture of the vocal space, and …
- Yawn-sigh Technique. For this quick vocal exercise, simply yawn (take in air) with your mouth closed. ...
- Humming warm-upS. ...
- Vocal Straw Exercise. ...
- Lip buzz Vocal warm-up. ...
- Tongue trill exercise. ...
- Jaw Loosening ExerciseS. ...
- Two-octave pitch glide Warm-Up. ...
- Vocal Sirens Exercise.
It grabs attention.
The reason for this is likely the higher pitch, which is an attention-grabber in other species, as well. So that baby talk you're using might be to grab the attention of your object of affection, whether you realize it or not.
In a paper published to the Journal of Neuroscience, it is explained how researchers found that being annoyed by certain sounds comes from high levels of activity between the brain region that processes emotion (the amygdala) and the region that processes sound (the auditory cortex).
Hyperacusis (say it with me: HY-per-uh-CUE-sis), is an increased sensitivity to sound that is commonly found among people with autism. This means that certain noises, such as classroom bells, the radio or the TV, may be uncomfortable for your child to hear.
Between the ages of 18 and 21, your voice stabilizes because the vocal folds and larynx have reached their full growth. While there can be some changes into your 30s, most people's voices are finished with physical changes due to hormones by the age of 21 or so.
Everyone's timing is different, so some boys' voices might start to change earlier and some might start a little later. A boy's voice typically begins to change between ages 11 and 14½, usually just after the major growth spurt. Some boys' voices might change gradually, whereas others' might change quickly.
When you go through puberty, your larynx, aka your voice box, gets thicker. This causes your voice to get deeper. For girls, their voice doesn't deepen too much, while for boys, there is a more significant change. In boys, the deepening of their voice can start anywhere from 9–15.
Chronic hoarseness for more than two weeks (such as a raspy or breathy voice, a voice quiver, or a strained or choppy voice) Pain or a lump in the throat when speaking. Changes in pitch. Odd sounding speech.
Why does humming feel good?
Research has shown humming to be much more than a self-soothing sound: it affects us on a physical level, reducing stress, inducing calmness, and enhancing sleep as well as lowering heart rate and blood pressure and producing powerful neurochemicals such as oxytocin, the “love” hormone.
Diaphragmatic breathing.
Try inhaling deeply through your nose, bringing the air all the way in and as far down as possible; then, while exhaling slowly, say something. You should feel a vibration as you speak. This technique—popular among singers and actors—might be able to help you control the pitch of your voice.
Some gifted kids like to talk a lot. They love to share their knowledge with others. They are highly verbal, and may possess an advanced vocabulary for their age. When talking to students, pay attention to not only how much they talk but also to the vocabulary used in daily conversation.
Baby talk between adults means closeness and is a way to evoke positive emotions and create an attachment. Adults talking like babies was a way of communicating when we were younger.
If your child often makes certain word speech mistakes, he or she may have phonological process disorder. The mistakes may be common in young children learning speech skills. But when they last past a certain age, it may be a disorder.
Why do kids talk to themselves? “Children are exploring the world and exercising language, much in the same way that toddlers exercise walking,” says Ester Cole, a Toronto psychologist. “This is their role-playing; they're exploring relationships and they're also guiding themselves as they do certain things.”
We psychologists have a theory called regression, which in general terms means reverting to childhood roles and behavior. This can especially happen during stressful times, including major family events, when all of a sudden, a middle-aged adult is acting like a 14-year-old.
The 'sexy baby voice' typically involves raising the pitch of your vocals, as well as engaging in upspeak, where sentences end with a rising-pitch intonation. According to a 2013 study, men prefer women with higher-pitched voices because it signals that the woman has a small body size (sigh).
Humming into straws, singing your favorite songs, reading out loud — these and other exercises can help keep your voice youthful. But you have to practice them correctly to benefit. To do that, seek out a vocal coach, a singing instructor or a vocologist, a speech language pathologist with additional training in voice.
Just like the rest of the muscles of the body, the vocal folds grow weaker as we age. This results in presbylaryngis, or changes in vocal quality due to aging. As we age, on the whole, the voice becomes less vibrant and dynamic. Vocal quality associated with presbylaryngis is often described as breathy, thin, or reedy.
Does voice change after 18?
Men's voices often deepen up to an octave, while women's voices usually move about three tones lower. After puberty and well into older adulthood, some people's voices may change, but not everyone's. Men's voices tend to go up in pitch. Women's voices tend to go down.
Usually, by age 17, the voice fully stabilizes. If a teen's voice hasn't changed by that time and other secondary sexual characteristics have not developed, hormonal issues may be at play.
Between the ages of 18 and 21, your voice stabilizes because the vocal folds and larynx have reached their full growth. While there can be some changes into your 30s, most people's voices are finished with physical changes due to hormones by the age of 21 or so.
- 1) Slow Down. When you speak more slowly, your voice has more power and authority. ...
- 2) Use Voice Exercises. The human voice is like a muscle. ...
- 3) Record and Listen to Your Voice. ...
- 4) Record Phone Conversations. ...
- 5) Focus on Pauses. ...
- 6) Eat and Drink Well. ...
- Public Speaking Voice Training.
Usually when your voice gets a little raspy, you can blame an upper respiratory tract infection — a cold or a throat infection, for example — and count on having your regular voice back in a few days. Rarely, however, a hoarse, shaky, or weak voice can be a sign of a more serious illness.
“What we observed is that older individuals don't adapt as well to their sound environment.” This means that as we age, or ears and brain become more sensitive to sound, and years of wear and tear start to chip away at our ability to hear clearly.
If your cracking is due to puberty, you don't need to worry. You'll probably stop cracking when you hit your early 20s, if not earlier. Everyone's development is different — some might settle on their adult voice as early as 17 or 18, while others may still crack well into their mid-20s.
A voice change or voice mutation, sometimes referred to as a voice break or voice crack, commonly refers to the deepening of the voice of men as they reach puberty.
A boy's voice typically begins to change between ages 11 and 14½, usually just after the major growth spurt. Some boys' voices might change gradually, whereas others' might change quickly.
If you sound like a child, it is most likely that you are not using enough diaphragm support to release your singing voice in a relaxed mode; instead you constrict your throat more, in order to squeeze out your voice.
Do guys with deep voices have big?
Puts' Scientific Reports study found that men with lower formant frequencies—a deeper resonance in their voices—tended to be taller, larger, and stronger. (That's partly because longer vocal tracts and larger vocal folds generate lower, more resonant voices.)
As you go through puberty, the larynx gets bigger and the vocal cords lengthen and thicken, so your voice gets deeper. As your body adjusts to this changing equipment, your voice may "crack" or "break." But this process lasts only a few months.
