I teach public speaking and we talk a bit about this. Higher-pitched voices with more tonal variation (i.e. stereotypically feminine) tend to carry longer distances and over background noise, tend to be found more interesting, and tend to convey more warmth and friendliness, but as you've said, tend not to be taken as seriously as authoritative/powerful. Deeper voices with less tonal variation (i.e. stereotypically masculine) tend to be perceived as more authoritative/powerful, less okay to interrupt, and more reassuring that the person has things under control, but on the downside, can be heard as boring, discourages others from speaking up even if that would be helpful, and doesn't carry as far/over as much background noise.
Trying to tweak these things consciously often runs into a lot of resistance - our voices tend to be wrapped up with our self-identity (just think of how much most of us hate hearing recordings of our voice, since it doesn't sound "right"!), but I like to point out that we subconsciously change our vocal tone by context all the time. Think of how folks talk in a high-pitched voice to babies, or listen to the difference in a man's tone when he's talking to his wife or girlfriend versus his coworkers (this was especially noticeable with me when I was in the Army, when my work voice was rather deeper than my normal voice).
If anyone wants to give it a shot at home, here's what I recommend: pick a way you'd like to consciously change your voice (higher-pitched, more tonal variation, lower-pitched, whatever), then record yourself trying to change your voice in that way and exaggerate it to the point of absurdity (if, say, trying to talk lower, talk in the lowest possible tone you can). Then listen to yourself and see how you did, and repeat. The goal isn't to learn to actually talk in such an exaggerated way, but to change things obviously enough that you can tell whether you're making the intended change or not, and then it's easier to "back off" to something more natural if, say, you want to speak in a slightly lower tone to convey a little more authority. Finding specific people to imitate (like Margaret Thatcher, as you mentioned) also is an effective way to practice, and again, recordings can be helpful to figure out if you were actually doing what you were trying to do.
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branchandroot
Re: A query on particular accents/elocution
Date: 2025-04-28 09:01 pm (UTC)Trying to tweak these things consciously often runs into a lot of resistance - our voices tend to be wrapped up with our self-identity (just think of how much most of us hate hearing recordings of our voice, since it doesn't sound "right"!), but I like to point out that we subconsciously change our vocal tone by context all the time. Think of how folks talk in a high-pitched voice to babies, or listen to the difference in a man's tone when he's talking to his wife or girlfriend versus his coworkers (this was especially noticeable with me when I was in the Army, when my work voice was rather deeper than my normal voice).
If anyone wants to give it a shot at home, here's what I recommend: pick a way you'd like to consciously change your voice (higher-pitched, more tonal variation, lower-pitched, whatever), then record yourself trying to change your voice in that way and exaggerate it to the point of absurdity (if, say, trying to talk lower, talk in the lowest possible tone you can). Then listen to yourself and see how you did, and repeat. The goal isn't to learn to actually talk in such an exaggerated way, but to change things obviously enough that you can tell whether you're making the intended change or not, and then it's easier to "back off" to something more natural if, say, you want to speak in a slightly lower tone to convey a little more authority. Finding specific people to imitate (like Margaret Thatcher, as you mentioned) also is an effective way to practice, and again, recordings can be helpful to figure out if you were actually doing what you were trying to do.
Cheers,
Jeff