Voice Singing in the Ambivalent Zone

So you take out your recorder, hit the record button and begin singing or speaking.  When completed, you stop the recording, press the rewind button and then to hear yourself press the playback button ….

“Hmmm…?”, you may think with a frown on your face.  You turn to your friend next to you and question, “Does that sound like me?  That doesn’t sound like me.”  Your friend looks back at you strangely and responds, “Oh, yes it does!” The frankly put response sinks you into deeper bewilderment….

What’s up with this?  Why does it sound so different in what the singer heard versus the listener?  Is the one doing the singing hearing it correctly or is it the one who is doing the listening hearing the way it really is?

What is this situation?  If you are the singer, it’s nothing but you being the one inside your head. 

You hear what’s on the inside of your head. Your friend is not inside. He/she is outside listening to what’s coming out of your body through your head through the air to their ear.

Why should this matter? What you hear as the singer are the sound vibrations bouncing around in your head.  The notes you sing or words you speak come out or projects through your mouth and other cranial cavities.  The more correctly focused through these parts of the head, the better you sound to others.  However with the loud bouncing of sound inside your head, you are restricted from hearing your voice as it truly is heard in the air. It is the listener(s) and the recorder that hear what’s actually sounding on the outside of you.

Getting back to the main point: When you sing or speak, you mostly hear the vibration of the bones that make up your head.  These bones and cavities that form your head’s outer structure serve as amplifiers that projects your sound just as speakers and amplifier of a sound system. 

(Showing my age….) Just as a needle is on a rotating vinyl album with no speaker and/or amplifier attached, so would be the sound of your voice.  Likewise, without the larger vibrating object of your head with all its moving parts amplifying and projecting what’s coming from your vocal chords, your vocal sound would be dull, hard to hear and difficult to understand.

Consider yourself as one with your head (literally) inside a large speaker cranked up at full volume.  Distortion and ringing can come into play.  However a little distance away, then the sound is heard in a more precise way.

The vibrations in your head overshadow the actual sound of your voice heard in the air.  Since others’ ears are not directly connected to your head as your ears are, they easily hear your true tones. They hear what you actually sound like in the air.

So next time when hearing your voice on a recording and you ask the question, “Is that me?” and the response comes back unapologetically “Yes”, BELIEVE IT! 

This understanding of what sound does when you’re singing or speaking is more than reason enough for the need of professional voice lessons if you wish to become effective in the use of your voice..  They both will save you a lot of frustration and embarrassment.

RECOMMENDATION: Make it a habit to record your voice when you practice your singing or speaking so you can make a more objective assessment of your voice.  You will be much better able to shape it the way you would want others to hear it.  The same applies when you’re performing.

Learn to become comfortable hearing your voice as other people do.  Learning how to sing will make you a much better and more emotionally secure judge of what your voice actually sounds like.

Remember: It is important to know how to sing a song.

Perfect your listening skills.  Know exactly what note you are to match your voice with before singing.  Get a voice singing teacher that can teach you how to sing a song "on pitch". You can also get a pitch ear training program to continually improve your singing. Then practice, practice, practice. That's what the pros do!

Sing to Feel Good About Yourself
Sing to Feel Love From Your fans
Sing and Hear Their applause!

To your singing success,

Houston Simmons