The human voice throughout life: Why does it change?

Imagine that you are part of a jury in blind auditions to determine a person's appearance by their voice. A difficult task, right? The sounds we produce are revealing, to a large extent, of who we are. But they have not always been the same.

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Stop for a moment to listen to your own voice and that of those around you. Do you perceive the similarities and differences between all of them?

The first thing we must know is that the human voice is the voluntary sound that is produced when air from the lungs is expelled through the larynx and makes the vocal cords vibrate.

When we speak, shout, or sing we are generating articulated sounds, with the intervention of the speech apparatus. The phonation and articulation systems make up this apparatus, and while the first is responsible for directing the air jet from the lungs to the vocal cords, the second modulates it with the mouth and lips, to transmit emotions or senses socially. encoded.

The individuation of a person's voice begins from the first cry and depends on the anatomical and physiological characteristics of each person. However, throughout life, an individual's voice changes, in which the nervous and hormonal systems are fundamentally involved.

A life told in his voice

In the childhood stage, until the age of 9, the child goes from imitating melodies and rhythms to reaching the emission of sounds in the range of 268 Hz for boys, and 295 Hz for girls.

During puberty and adolescence, the male voice goes through a series of important changes. The laryngeal cartilages grow rapidly and therefore the larynx increases in size and descends; the epiglottis and thyroid glands grow; The thorax widens and the resonance cavities of the trachea and lungs grow, so the tone of the voice drops and deeper.

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Male children transition from imitating melodies and rhythms to a deeper voice during adolescence.

During adulthood, the distinctive characteristics of each person's voice are consolidated, but as age advances, the vocal cords lose elasticity and collagen fibers, so the high tones are lost and the timbre becomes dull.

The hormonal changes that occur during adolescence cause physical and psychological transformations, among which the deeper voice of the male adolescent is a distinctive feature.

In the presenile stage, laryngophonic involution occurs, characterised by the presence of edematous vocal folds, which cause the transition to a more serious tessitura and a pectoral resonance.

In the last stage of life, the influence of the effects on the neurological, auditory, respiratory, muscular, and psychological systems, among others, causes the fundamental tone in men to be between 125 and 130 Hz, while in women It is usually around 180 Hz. In addition, tremors appear in the voice, and a notable decrease in its intensity.

You can also “operate” your voice

With advances in medicine in the branches of laryngology and phoniatrics, it is possible to perform surgical interventions to modulate the voice towards higher or lower tones. Trans women are the most common patients in modified otoplasty surgeries, which allows the tone of the voice to be raised (made higher pitched). On the other hand, trans men manage to change their voices to deeper tones through hormonal therapies.

Psychological therapies and routines indicated by speech therapists complement the actions in the operating room to achieve the “magic” of the desired voice.

In cases of vocal dysphoria —which occurs when a person does not feel that their voice is part of the image they project—in male patients, Isshiki type III thyroplasty surgeries have proven effective.