Have you ever thought about your voice? If not, I think it’s time ;)

Scientifically, you are using your voice box that is inside “larynx”. Larynx is part of your throat that blocks passage to your air pipe when you swallow. Voice box has cords. When you talk, they will vibrate. If you talk really low, cords are thick and long, air pushes through them. Now when you speak high, they will become smaller. Kind of pants zipper effect. You “generate” sound wave.

Sound is wave. It can travel from point A to point B using vibration. Air consists of gas molecules. It can travel through air, liquids, solids. In space, there is no gas molecules where sound could travel. So essentially, speaking in space is not gonna work. Wave has properties, such as frequency, amplitude, phase. Higher frequency means that voice sounds higher. And vice versa. Amplitude basically means “loudness”.

This, quite frankly is boring. If we are emotional creatures, surely the emotional part of voice will be a lot more interesting! It is.

Say you are talking with someone who you’ve never seen. What could you possibly tell about that person?

I think it’s wise to say that you could tell if(at least assume):

  • Gender
  • Age
  • Would you want to hear that voice again
  • How interesting that person is
  • Angry/Happy
  • How she/he looks like – fat/skinny/beautiful/ugly
  • Basically everything that is interesting :p

That list goes on and on. Subconsciously even. From business world: when you go for a job offering, interviewer will have his impression about you in ~20(ranges vary from study to study, but it’s short) seconds. After that, you can talk whatever you want, you can sound god, etc, but if first-impression was bad, it’s no-good for you. And your voice, I believe, plays a great role in that. Say “Hello” in weird, monotone tone, you know that you’re fucked.

If you talk with someone, you will most likely form an image of them in your mind, without thinking. When you finally meet him/her, you will be like “wow, I imagined you were taller and ..blabla..”. Everyone forms images about everyone. And it goes so fast that you only have ~20 seconds. It’s not that much WHAT you say, it’s the way you say it. It’s the way you project yourself, it’s the way you feel yourself, your voice. Body language is another interesting topic.

With relationships; it’s been told that girls don’t care about looks that much and more about WHAT you have to say. This might be true for some extent, but I wouldn’t but it that way. Say, you are super interesting, have a lot of hobbies, etc and excellent conversationalist, but that doesn’t matter.

What im saying, it’s not PHYSICAL looks that matter so much & CONTENT what you’re saying but more of a HOW. You know, people are emotional creatures for a reason. They can read your face, your movements, your walk, your sound, and so many other things. Based on these, they will form opinion about you. That opinion might not even be true though. Walk down with your head, people will assume that you’re afraid/have no confidence. Talk with insecure voice – they will assume you’re insecure. What do I like about <XXX>? No idea, but you know that you like him. It’s subconscious. You don’t think. It’s just wired into your brain.

Your voice decides how many fans you have and audience. There are many different voice types. Some of them are: Sexy/Smart/Interesting/Funny. All good public-speakers take singing lessons/vocal lessons. There is no way anyone will listen you, if you have monotonous or even annoying voice.

Take anyone important. USA president – Obama has excellent voice. I bet he has practiced a lot. He has smoothing relaxed voice that says “I am in control, you can trust me, I will do anything I can to make everyone’s life better”. You will never see Obama say something like “Hello everyone, I have great news.. eee.. erghh.<continue here>”. This only makes him sound unsure about what he is trying to say. One of the vocal tips is to connect everything you say as a whole, like a song. Happened to listen him one day. Don’t you agree?

Resonance

Resonance is object’s natural vibrating frequency. It’s easy to imagine that you take wine glass and hit it with a pen. It will make sound. Now hit it harder, it will make louder noise, but on the same frequency. It’s even possible to break wine glass this way, using only your sound. Generate a resonance frequency against wine glass and it will start vibrating, if you get louder, it will be more intense, and glass breaks. Bam! But controlling your voice like that is possible only by professionals who have trained their voice for long time. See Jaime Vendera. Jaime: I have been banned from many restaurants. Haha.

Now, I like two primary types of voices:

  • Deep resonating chest voice. This will create sexy and mysterious effect. See Clive Owen. His voice sounds deep and three-dimensional. Not flat. You can make it when you are producing sounds that are resonating on same frequency as chest. That’s called “sexy voice”.
  • Voice that uses chest voice/middle voice and high voice. If you combine them, it’s amazing. You will never get tired of hearing him. But that’s not very sexy. It’s great for public speakers. See Roger. Now if my teacher would sound like that, I would listen him forever hehe.
    Sting sings using all ranges, he is great example. Frank Sinatra, on other hand, uses only one range(chest voice) but surprisingly, it worked well for him. Mainly because the “alcohol/cigaret” imagine he was projecting. You can’t look “badass” while sounding like Roger. Roger sounds friendly, etc.
    Mihkel Kärmas is using also his whole range, and frankly I love listening him.
    And there is no way I’ll forget Urmas Alender, his voice is brilliant. It has so many emotions, and it comes from his heart. Someone(and I quote) said: “it’s not even important who is author of the song and what the lyrics are, Alender sang from his heart and with love.” – cant agree more. ps completely unrelated, but one day I found out how the lyrics were born. Super!

Your voice

You will most likely feel that your voice is good. But I got news. It most likely isn’t good enough to express who you actually are, what you feel, and so on. Actually, you might even sound like Smigol. You might feel great when you’re talking, but when you hear your own voice from voice recording, you’re like “what the fuck is that thing”. You produce amazing, resonating voice, but what comes out, is flat sound. There is many things you can improve. It is easier to avoid incorrect things ;) .

1) Diaphragmatic breathing – breathing is important for good voice. You can google this. The idea is that it allows to get you more air into lungs than ever before, but be relaxed at the same time, thus producing constant sound that doesn’t do weird things. Yoga masters teach this too. If you’ve never tried it before, you’ll probably get dizzy if you try this, since you’ve never had so much air in your lungs before. I know I did, at some point. It’s relaxing.

2) Too much air through nose. Ultimately, you want to push only minimal amount of air through your nose. If you count from 00..10, and at 5, pinch your nose(don’t allow any air to pass through), it shouldn’t change. If it does change drastically, you know that you’re pushing too much sound through nose.

3) Too quiet. This happens. We are always talking through internet/phones/other shit. Population’s voice amplitude is going lower and lower. Don’t be afraid to use your voice!

4) Using only limited ranges, monotonous voice. Learn singing. Singing is same as talking. Your voice does not differentiate between these two.

Voice is amazing, because it has what I call “memory”. Say you get sick, your voice will change because you got cold. Now when you’re not sick anymore, you’re still sounding the same! Even though you could change your voice. That’s memory. Muscles have memory too, say that you’re playing video game for a long time. (FPS). At one point, you are not trying to aim enemies anymore. It just happens. Like “aimbot”.

 

Health

Your voice is meant to sing for 24/7 hours, if you use it correctly. You need to lubricate your cords. For that, drinking gallon of water a day, is good.(4 liters). And water is not good only for your vocal cords, but health too. It’s magic potion. It will taste like coca/sprite after you’ve had it enough. I promise!

Smoking is quite frankly, the shittest thing you can ever do, to your cords. It will fuck your cords up, permanently. In fact, it’s possible to tell if someone is smoking and how long, only by hearing his voice. People who smoke, sound different and produce different sounds, sounds which can’t be done by people who don’t smoke.

Interesting fact#Talking quietly is hard on your vocal cords. Harder than screaming. Say, you had RHCP concert yesterday, now you’re missing voice. You will be like, “Oh okay, I will talk quietly then.” – bad move, you’re gonna kill your cords ;) . Pushing small amounts of air through vocal box while your cords are vibrating, it’ll make them red and swell.

 

 

 

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