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Your Voice
This week's experiment is one that you have probably already
done at one time or another. It has to do with the difference between how you
hear your voice and how other people hear it. To try it, you will need:
Record yourself talking and listen to the playback. Is that your
voice? Unless you are used to hearing recordings of yourself, you will
probably find
that your voice sounds strange to you. Why?
You would think that if any voice sounded familiar to you, it
would be your own. After all, you hear it all the time. Then why does it sound
so strange? Think about what is different. When you talk, your voice is coming
from inside your throat. Besides hearing the sound through the air, you also
hear it transmitted through your body. Sound travels differently through
different substances.
In a past experiment (#98 - Tuning Fork) we have seen that sound
can travel through the bones of your jaw. You can try this by placing the handle
of a fork between your teeth and tapping the tines. The sound travels through
your teeth, and along the jaw bone. You hear the sound much louder and richer.
Something very similar happens when you hear your own voice. Much of the sound
travels through the solid and liquid parts of your body, letting you hear your
voice with a much richer sound than others hear it. Maybe that explains why
other people are not as impressed with my singing as I think they should be.
Have a wonder filled week.
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