Jo Ann Watson, age 13, of Marion, Ohio, for her question:
IS A WOMAN’S VOICE HIGHER PITCHED THAN A MAN’S?
Your voice’s pitch is determined by the size of your larynx. Your larynx is the muscular and cartilaginous structure lined with mucuos membrane that is located in the upper part of your trachea and in which your vocal cords are located. The larynx is called the voice box.
Women’s voices are usually pitched higher than men’s because their vocal cords are shorter. Boys and girls have vocal cords about the same size until boys reach puberty. Then the voice boxes of the boys suddenly grow larger and their voices change to a lower pitch.
The tongue, lips and teeth also help shape the sounds of the voice. The nasal cavity gives resonance and color to the voice. When a person gets a cold and his nasal passages stop up, his voice changes.
The voice mechanism is so well organized that we use our vocal cords, muscles and lungs in many combinations without thinking about it. The more tightly the vocal cords are stretched, the higher the sounds produced. The more relaxed the cords, the lower the sounds.
Even in normal speech we stretch and relax the vocal cords to many degrees. This stretching and relaxing produce variations in the sounds of our voices.
Straining the voice affects the vocal cords. So does a general muscular tension caused by nervousness. In the disease called laryngitis the larynx is inflamed, irritated or infected. Sometimes the sick person cannot speak at all for a day or two.
Almost all animals have voices. A few animals, like the giraffe, rarely use their voices. But most higher animals can bark, cry, howl, groan, growl, chirp or make other noises. Many of the animals use their voices to communicate with each other. But no animal’s voice is as highly developed as man’s.
The human voice can express difficult ideas through a variety of arrangements of consonant and vowel sounds. It can also be used for singing.
The human voice can combine speech with music and sing words.
With his highly developed voice, man has developed elaborate languages. These allow us to tell each other the most exact details of our thoughts and actions.
The vocal cords are the main sound producers in man. These two small bands of tissue stretch across the larynx or voice box. One band stretches on each side of the windpipe opening. Muscles in the larynx stretch and relax the vocal cords.
When wa breathe, we relax our vocal cords so they form a V shaped opening that lets air through. When we speak, we pull the vocal cords by the attached muscles, narrowing the opening. Then, as we drive air from the lungs through the larynx, the air vibrates the tightened vocal cords and sound results.
Dogs can express several feelings with their voices. For example, they whimper when begging or when they feel guilty and they growl when they are angry. Dogs also bark eagerly when they are happy.
Several of the zoo animals, such as the chimpanzee, also make various sounds to show different feelings.