Greetings all,
I am a 21 year old male, for context. My normal voice is what I would describe as medium pitch – not super deep, but not high either. I’ve been described as a Baritone by one person. Anyway, onto the point. I’ve noticed my voice changes based on who I talk to, or what I talk about.
For instance, I went to my professors office today after class, and there was a fellow student in there. I find this female student very pretty and attractive. When my professor stepped out of the room for a minute, her and I were talking, and my voice was very low. I’ve noticed this happening around females a lot (especially those I find attractive, and I also talk less – I’m more quiet and reserved). After this student left, my professor and I were talking on our own. I noticed when I was just talking to him, my voice became much higher than normal and more nasally, if that makes sense.
Another example: If I’m talking to someone about something I’m not super interested in, for instance an exam, or what I’m doing that day, etc., I find myself having a low voice. Now, when somebody talks to me about science (I’m a science lover) or fishing (one of my favorite hobbies), I can ramble on about these topics forever. I talk very fast, and my the pitch of my voice once again gets quite high.
Why does this happen? I’ve done a little bit of reading about it on Google, but I’m looking for some more in-detail explanations.
Thanks in advance!
In: Other
Our voice changes due to our emotions. Stressors, adrenaline, and anxiety can all [make our voice go higher](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S088761851200093X). There’s a bunch on unconscious reasons why, but basically, stress and these emotions can make your body go tense, and a tense voice is a higher voice.
(Why? Because high-pitched noises come from strings that are vibrating faster, and when our vocal chords become more tense, they vibrate faster. If you’ve ever tuned a guitar, tightening the string makes it higher pitched.)
But it’s not just stress, not just negative emotions. Tension in your voice can happen whenever you are higher energy, including in positive ways such as excitement or happiness.
The reverse happens when talking to someone you are attracted to: both for men, and for women, [voices get lower](https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/want-to-know-if-someone-is-attracted-to-you-this-is-how-their-voice-changes.html)… and that’s not just about sexual attraction, it is apparently just interest and agreement in general. In fact, that is apparently a useful thing to know in a professional setting; the author of that second article gave two examples of people who accidentally signaled their interest ahead of time with a lowered voice (a guy who liked the car he’d test drove, and a woman who liked a proposed talk for a conference she was directing).
And again, it’s not just positive emotions, it’s anything that causes subconscious relaxation. “Cold anger”, anger that is intense but stable, with a low arousal level, can also [cause the voice to go lower](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244016658084). I guarantee that you’ve absolutely heard this happen in famous dramatic monologues.
In all cases, the point is that when our voice pitch changes, it’s because our emotions are subconsciously impacting how tense our vocal chords are.
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