“I hate the sound of my voice. When I hear it on recordings, I cringe.”

Nearly every one of my voice clients make this complaint.  Why are we so surprised when we hear our own voices and why do we not like them?

I happened upon a website called “Wonderopolis” where I found the most simple explanation for why recordings of our voices sound different to what we expect.    

When you speak, your vocal cords create sound waves that travel through the air to reach your inner ear. The bones and tissues in your head, however, also conduct those sound waves directly to your cochlea, so that the voice you hear in your head when you speak is the result of both methods of transmission.

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 soundthat comes from bone conduction within the head, your voice sounds different to you on a recording.

When you speak and hear your own voice inside your head, your head bones and tissues tend to enhance the lower-frequency vibrations. This means that your voice usually sounds fuller and deeper to you than it really is.One may think this should be good news for transwomen, who typically aspire to have voices that are perceived as higher and brighter in timbre, but still it most often is not.  

Now, the problem is that you are used to hearing your voice through a mixture of air conduction and internal conduction through the bones and tissues of your face and skull.  It’s important to remember that the voice from the recording is not necessarily worse than that to which you are accustomed, it’s just different.  It’s also a good idea to remember that, if you’ve never had negative feedback about your voice, then your voice is pleasant to other people.  You should be reassured by that, because you are the only one who thinks your voice sounds different than it does.  No one else hears your voice through the added layer of internal sound conduction.

If you want to change your voice in any way, if you want to change the rest of the world’s auditory perception of yourself, then you need to embrace the practice of recording your voice and listening to it.  In this way, you can explore what your voice can do and identify elements of your voice that you like and learn to capitalise on them.  But there are inherent risks with this practice.  You may become accustomed to the unique qualities that make your voice original and instantly identifiable as yours.  You may be able to silence your inner critic. You may learn to love the voice you already have.