Sounds Odd #12: Your Voice Is Music To Our Ears, by Elizabeth Holmes

SOUNDS ODD  by Elizabeth Holmes
Fun Facts on the Science of Sound

#12. Your Voice Is Music To Our Ears

Our natural
speaking voices have a great deal to do with the first language and dialect that
we learn, says psychologist Diana Deutsch of the University
of California, San Diego. 

She studies the musical nature of speech (the pitch and rhythm of
words), and examines the feelings and meanings that our spoken “music” conveys.  

As voice
actors, we learn techniques for conveying emotion through our voices. We raise our pitch and tempo to convey
excitement. For instance, to convey sadness, we deepen
them, slow them down, and skew towards a monotone. 

Dr. Deutsch’s research suggests the scientific
basis for these variations.

 

VOICES IN YOUR HEAD

Diana Deutsch
postulates that the language we hear first and most often builds up a musical
template in our brains. 

We begin forming
this neural network in the womb. The
voice melody we hear most often is our mother’s, even though it’s distorted
through her tissues.

 

To study the
links between language and music, Dr. Deutsch worked in conjunction with her
colleague, psychologist Jinghong Le from East
China Normal
University, analyzing speech patterns
of women living in remote villages in the mountains of central China.

DISTINCT DIFFERENCES

The villages were effectively isolated from
each other by hazardous routes, even though they were only 40 miles apart by air. 

 

Groups of
women in each village were physically similar, both anatomically and
genetically.

Further, each group’s
voices were virtually identical, but their pitch and tempo varied dramatically
from village to village. One village
spoke with a characteristically low and slow pitch. The other was characteristically high and
fast. 

 

ANATOMY VS. VOICE MELODIES
 
Dr. Deutsch’s
research with these groups suggests that anatomy does not play as large a role
in the pitch of our voices as previously believed. Instead, when we learn to speak, we mimic the
pitch in the “music” of the voices around us.

 

Most likely, tuning in
to the nuances of pitch developed as an evolutionary advantage.  Studies have shown that children who take
music lessons become skilled at recognizing differences in pitch in as little
as six weeks. As a result, these kids are
more likely to accurately detect fear or anger in another speaker’s voice – a
useful distinction for interpreting another person’s intentions. 

 

PITCH AFFECTS PERFORMANCE

If you’re
lucky enough to speak a tone language (such as Mandarin or Vietnamese), you
are also far more likely to have perfect
pitch – the ability to accurately name an isolated note on a musical
scale. 

One study revealed that a
staggering 90% of music conservatory students who spoke Mandarin and began
musical training early had perfect pitch. By contrast, only 8% of their English speaking counterparts with
comparable training had perfect pitch.

 

FOR VOICE ACTING …

Why should
voice actors care about perfect pitch? Because
the ability to discern pitch accurately also improves a speaker’s consistency between
recording sessions.  (Audiobook
narrators, take note.) 

 

Dr. Deutsch
conducted an experiment – on two different days – in which Mandarin and Vietnamese
speakers recited the same list of words. The results?  Nearly identical
performances. 

 

Voice actors
who record projects over multiple sessions will benefit from this
research.  Improving pitch awareness improves
consistency. 

 

Hey, if it
works for kids, it can work for the rest of us, right?  Let’s hope so.

For more on
Diana Deutsch’s research, please her article Speaking in Tones in the
July/August 2010 issue of Scientific American, as well as Ingrid
Wickelgren’s June 24, 2010 Scientific American article, The
Music of Language. 
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ABOUT ELIZABETH
Elizabeth Holmes is a writer, voice actor, and staff editor at VoiceOverXtra, based in Northern California. She is also editor of VoiceOverXtra’s book division, including Voice Over Legal, by voice actor / attorney Robert Sciglimpaglia.

Email: elizabeth@HolmesVoice.com
Earlier Sounds Odd Columns: http://bit.ly/SoundsOddColumns