Helen Sharpe, retired principal and speech and language therapist for deaf children
We can become used to our recorded voices, but whether we grow to like it or not is not answerable! It is a comparatively new phenomenon to be able to hear recorded voice. When we hear a recording of our voice, we hear it as others do, but it is different to what we are used to and therefore sounds alien to us. We are accustomed to hearing our own voice this way from when we are born and so it sounds familiar or “normal” to us like this. However, we hear our own voices through a combination of air conduction and bone conduction, as it also travels through the bones (and other tissue) inside our head. We hear sound, including other people’s voices, as it travels through the air to our ears, known as air conduction. We do not hear our own voice in the same way as we hear other voices. ockham2īarry White must have thought his own speaking voice was only audible to whales. When you hear your voice recorded, it lacks this extra bass, so it sounds thinner and weedier than you are expecting.
The voice you hear in your head when you speak is a mix of what your ears pick up from the air, plus extra bass that is conducted through your skull to your inner ear.
Why do I hate the sound of my voice when it’s recorded, yet the same voice sounds perfectly dulcet in my own head? Paulene Dirk