If you’ve ever listened to a message you left on an answering machine, chances are you were surprised to find you sounded more Betty White than Barry White. How embarrassing! “Is that how everyone really hears me?” you probably asked yourself, vowing to never speak again.

When it comes to the way we hear our own voices, most of us think we’re “all about that bass” – but that’s not usually the case. Science reveals we hear ourselves via air conductivity – where the sound waves travel straight form our mouths to our ears, and via bone conductivity – where our vocal chords vibrate through our skull before eventually reaching our inner ears.

Bone is better at conducting lower frequencies, so – for most of us -that rich timbre we think we have is literally all in our heads. Others only hear us with air conductivity.

Bone conduction is quite a helpful tool for singers. Plugging their ears to block out the air conduction of ambient noise can help them match pitch more easily. Bone conduction helps us ‘feel’ our voice in our own bodies, and singers can use this to literally feel whether or not they’re in the correct range.

Similarly, when you plug your ears with your fingers to drown out something (or someone!) you don’t want to hear, you’re blocking air conduction and hearing yourself only as conducted through your skull.

Before you swear off speaking forever, it helps to remember we’re usually our own worst critic. Hearing your own voice is like catching your back or side profile in a mirror reflection; it can be quite jarring, because you’re not used to it.

If you still need consoling, studies show women actually find men with higher pitched voices more trustworthy, and men instinctively prefer women who speak in higher pitches!

Stay tuned for the second part of this blog where I’ll talk about what happens to the way our voices sound to us when we start to lose hearing, and what that can mean for singers.