Voice Therapy / March 2020
Written by WELL SAID’s Registered Speech Language Pathology Contributors : Dain Hong.
Clinically Reviewed by: Melissa James., M.H.Sc., Reg. CASLPO | Speech Language Pathologist
Updated: 29 May 2024

Did you know that sound at its core is vibrations? This is one of the reasons why your voice seems louder to yourself than it is to others. When you speak, you are not only accessing sound through the air, but also through bone conduction—the vibration of your skull. When we are hearing through air conduction, the first method, vibration hits our ear drums. This vibration is transmitted as mechanical energy, through tiny bones in the middle ear (i.e. malleus, incus, and stapes). This mechanical energy then travels through the inner ear where 3500 hair cells pick it up and convert it to electrical signals that our brain can perceive as different sounds.

As vibrations travel through various mediums, we get differing sound qualities. That is why your voice underwater, or spoken on an inhale of helium does not sound like the voice you are familiar with.

While we can’t regularly change the medium in which we speak, we can change our voice quality through manipulating our air flow and the vibrations we create. These two approaches—flow phonation and resonant voice training, respectively— are tools used by speech therapists to improve vocal quality, efficiency and comfort level. The tools have been effective for individuals experiencing glottal or vocal fry (the topic of my previous blog post), and hoarseness.

Flow phonation is all about increasing and maintaining the flow of air. Since the basis of our voice is airflow—that which comes up from the lungs, vibrates the vocal folds, and comes out the filters of our mouth and nose— it is of fundamental importance to maintain airflow as we speak.

We can see the airflow if we were to hold up a strip of tissue over our mouth during speech. While certain sounds may have more flow than others, such as /f/ more than /v/, the tissue should generally be dancing for most of the time while you’re speaking. Some words and phrases to experiment with include the following

• “whooooo”

• “oooooo”

• “poo-loo” x3

• “Who are you?”

• “Who is Sue?”

• “Who is Lou?”

• “Feel my voice flow.”

A voice which sees a lot of tissue movement could be deemed as a flowy and easy voice, while one with little movement could be a tight and highly tense voice. In the former, the airflow is directed forward and out of the mouth, whereas the latter may be more characteristic of a voice that is stuck in the neck or the back of the throat. By employing the former, more flowy approach to voice production, you can achieve a voice that sounds easy to listen to and also sustainable to use.

Resonant voice training involves intensifying and raising an awareness to the vibratory sensations in your midface region. Generally, resonance refers to the richness or thinness of your voice. While deep chest tones may signify firmness, self-assurance, and strength, head resonance could be interpreted as insecurity, weakness, and indecisiveness. This general understanding of resonance is the end result of focus on airflow and felt vibrations. In other words, the felt vibrations in the face are what you would increase to achieve resonance, in the general sense.  

We can imagine our head as an instrument, one likened more to an acoustic or classic guitar than an electric. The reason the former two can amplify while the second requires addition amplification service is due to the hollow quality of the former. Interior surfaces like the inside of a guitar, or the inside of your nose or mouth, allow air to bounce around and increase in intensity of vibration, before exiting at the terminal – the hole in our guitar or the mouth or nose. When there is greater vibration, there is greater volume and thus a fuller sounding voice.

We can see the significance of resonance in speech when we experience nasal congestion. The effect can be replicated by plugging your nose. Since less or no air is exiting your nose, it gives your voice a dampened and hyponasal (less nasal) quality.

To begin to feel the vibrations in your midface region during speech, begin with isolated sounds like /m/, /n/, and /ng/. You should feel a tickle in your nose for all, as well as in your lips, behind your teeth and the back of your neck respectively.

If you find that you could improve in the flow and resonance of your voice, reach out to us and we can help! 

To speak with one of the speech-language pathologists at Well Said: Toronto Speech Therapy, schedule an initial consultation by clicking the link below or calling (647) 795-5277.