What is “one's own voice”?

 To describe the pathological changes in a voice, it is necessary to define precisely what the voice  should normally be.

 Despite of the unique originality of each person, there are general principles of the voice development, its mutation and formation. At each age the nature chooses one of some possible anatomic resonators of the organism and makes it leading, main. The choice depends on the age and hormones, which define the length of the vocal ligaments, hereditary anatomic features, etc.

 The interesting fact: if to calculate the length of the sound wave of the newborn shout,  it turns out, that it is equal to the length of a backbone of its mother. Thus, the mother  literally feels a voice of the kid with a “spinal cord” . And one more "mystical" coincidence. The pitch of a standard tuning fork, to which they tune up all musical instruments - the note A of the first octave - also coincides with the pitch of the newborn shout. 

  By six years the voice of the child becomes approximately twice lower, and the range increases for an octave. The following step is a mutation of the voice, when during puberty the cardinal changes in anatomy and the hormonal status take place. Plus one more octave - the next lowering of the voice pitch. And for the last time it goes down at the age of  18, marking the  final physiological maturation of the organism. Each period is characterized by its own dangers and the chances, changing the course of  logoneurosis or stuttering.  

The voice mutation  is the favorable period for correction of stuttering. And that is why. Let's recollect, that stuttering  is connected with the supertension of the motor speech Broca's center, which controls, in addition, the tone of vocal ligaments, causing their spasms. If to draw an analogy between a voice ligament and a string, it is easy to understand, that the supertension of vocal ligaments is the drawn string, which sounds unnaturally high. That’s why we found, that all stammering people have got a more higher voice, than it was expected, reasoning from their anatomy. 

 During the  mutation of a voice the increase in length of vocal ligaments takes place, i.e. the  increase in length of the string and lowering of the major tone. There is a chance of decrease in spastic readiness, and it's a sin  not to take advantage of it.  

We have a natural question – it turns out, that people with deep voices do not stammer? Indeed, as the practice  and our observations showed. You won’t  hear a bass or a pleasant man's baritone among the stammering men. For the long-term experience only once  I saw the girl with a deep female voice and rather insignificant speech problems, and even  these problems arose only during the moment of excitement, when its voice got off to the higher one. We  analyzed the  dynamics of the  voice pitch during speech of our patients and  found out, that directly before the moment of stuttering there is a powerful spasm of the throat and an excessive tension of vocal ligaments, which leads for  a split second to the increase of a voice almost twice - for an octave! If this short period we prolong  in ten times, you will hear a squeal.  

All the aforesaid can be reduced to the simple formula: if the voice pitch  is in “a spastic zone” – you should sooner or later expect for a spasm.  

How to train a voice and to eliminate stuttering

 In the center we adjust the voice pitch  after the anatomic measurements of our patients, in addition defining the length of a backbone and some other parameters  - this is  our know-how. I can only say, that in the finding of anthopometric conformities the principle of "golden section” is used, according to  Leonardo da Vinci. 

 In order to learn the complete  mastering  of one’s own speech, it is necessary to see, how the speech system works. At the display of a computer the patient observes the work of his own vocal ligaments, an "ideal" zone and  a “zone of spastic readiness”. For small patients the doctor adjusts the voice pitch  in a passive mode.  

(Continuation of the topic - in our following publication)

Peter SINKOVSKY