Why, as a general rule, do we not seem to like the sound of our own voices when we hear them in recordings?
鈥� It鈥檚 because you don鈥檛 hear your own voice like other people do. To them, the noises made by your vocal cords and lungs, and shaped by your lips, tongue and nasal cavity, are what you sound like. But what you hear when you speak is mostly conducted to your ears through bone and flesh.
So it鈥檚 profoundly disturbing when you hear your external, recorded voice and it sounds nothing like the internal voice you know. Your internal voice is usually more resonant, deeper and has less nasality, so for most people their external voice is less attractive.
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However, if you listen to yourself enough you can train yourself out of this. You will even find yourself changing your voice to sound more attractive 鈥� you could almost call it an example of biofeedback.
Ron Dippold, San Diego, California, US
鈥� As a radio producer who has made more than 350 documentaries, I have often observed the distaste we have for how we sound in recordings. The way we perceive our voice directly includes sound percolating through the bones of the skull. Recordings, lacking this component, sound subtly mutated, like uncanny impostors.
Also, to gain time to think while talking, we often use junk words and sounds such as 鈥渟ort of鈥�, 鈥渓ike鈥�, 鈥渁ctually鈥� and 鈥渦mm鈥�. We tend not to be aware of these, but on playback we sound painfully, umm, hesitant and, sort of, inarticulate. Radio producers edit these out, compressing the duration of speech by as much as 20 per cent.
We only rarely hear our voice as others do, so over time preconceptions may build up as to how nice we sound. But a recording reveals all sorts of unflattering details, which can be a shock.
I have worked with certain presenters who are used to hearing themselves and have a particular type of vanity, an audio preening that is best described as 鈥渓iking the sound of their own voice鈥�. However, being armed with this often helps them enjoy long careers in radio.
Matt Thompson, Radio producer and sound designer, North Berwick, East Lothian, UK
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This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淧layback payback鈥�