I was listening to kpop (don’t judge) and I was wondering what specifically made the singer’s voice sound so pleasant, even though they were singing in a language I don’t understand. Is it something you can practice or is it simply something that you are born with?
In: Biology
>pleasant / unpleasant
Intensely grounded in one’s cultural background.
Vocal tones / voices that people from one culture might find pleasant for one reason or another may be *highly* irritating to people from another. And that’s not considering the issue of individual preference.
The best example I can think of at the moment is the voices that some Japanese women affect. I find them grating and incredibly irritating, but some people find them exceptionally attractive and cute.
In short, outside of voices well outside the average human vocal range, it’s not really something you can pin down to a universal.
**Edit:** To stick with your example of k-pop, I really enjoy Psy, but his most frequently used voice isn’t what I would consider a great voice insofar as singing goes.
Similarly, I really don’t care for Justin Timberlake’s singing voice; I think it’s nasal and overly affected. But clearly I’m in the minority as far as that goes.
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