The Discovery of Sound and the Human Voice

Julia Forest

Copy Editor

A tool we use on a daily basis, and oftentimes, take for granted, is our voice. Speaking is a very complex action, and it reaches across many concentrations and disciplines. “Speech isn’t just molecules and muscles and airwaves. Speech is beautiful. Speech is used as an art form. It can invoke feelings of joy and sadness, and it’s an amazing tool that we have,” Professor Michele Lemons said.

On February 4th, in Curtis Performance Hall, Professors Alison Myette, Margaret “Peggy” Tartaglia, Michele Lemons, and David Thoreen spoke about voice, speech, and song in a Foundations Lecture titled “The Discovery of Sound and the Human Voice.” English Professor Rachel Ramsey was the moderator.

Professor Myette, who teaches Health and Human Services, began the lecture by defining speech. “Speech is a primary mode of communication. It allows us to take some ideas or thoughts that we have in our brain and transfer those thoughts or ideas into the brains of other humans that are around us,” Myette said.

She then explained that speech relies on five body systems. The respiratory system gives us the breath and energy we need for speaking. The phonatory system, or voice box, causes the vocal folds to vibrate. The articulatory system filters and shapes “the sound wave into distinct phonemes, or speech sounds.” The auditory system listens and judges the speech. And the nervous system controls all these systems.

With all of these systems working together, speech and sound is created. “Sound is a pressure wave that is created by a sound source. And that sound source is gonna disturb air particles. That disturbance of the air particles is gonna carry acoustic energy from the sound source to across a space or across the environment…Your outer ear is going to capture that energy, funnel it down your ear canal, and the air particles that are right up against your eardrum are going to vibrate…,” Myette said.

Michele Lemons is a Biology Professor who specializes in neuroscience. She explained that when the cochlea, a fluid-filled structure in the inner ear, is struck, the hair cells inside the cochlea send signals through the auditory nerve, which then goes into the brain. The outer part of the cochlea responds to high frequency sounds, while the cells in the middle and apex part of the cochlea respond to low frequency sounds. This is called the cochlea’s tonotopic map.

“The brain also has a tonotopic map where cells on the right, they’re super sensitive to really high frequency, high pitch sounds. Conversely, the cells that are as particularly excited by low frequency sounds are on the left…this is how we just hear sounds in general,” Lemons said.

PET scans of the left side of the brain highlighted the different areas of the brain that we use when we listen and speak. “When someone’s just listening or hearing words, we see a lot of activity in the superior temporal gyrus. Now, look how this pattern changes when the same patient is asked to generate words. We see a lot of activity in the frontal lobe corresponding to Broca’s area amongst others,” Lemons said.

David Thoreen is a Professor of English at Assumption, and prior to reading his poem titled “Shuttle,” he discussed how writers pay attention to sound. Thoreen spoke about alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, and slant rhyme.

“If we reach back to Emily Dickinson for our first contemporary poet, who’s keenly interested in slant rhyme words like, “crimp cramp,” where there’s been some little alteration of the echo. I think of slant rhymes as playing with the echoes of language,” Thoreen said.

Professor Tartaglia, or Professor T. as her students call her, teaches voice and vocal health classes. She discussed some of the differences between speaking and singing. “Speaking, we focus on clear words, fast communication. Singing, We focus on sound quality (and “pitches and lengths of phrases”) and emotional impact.”

Professor T. concluded the lecture by talking about the many ways one can take care of their voice. People should maintain the health of their body by exercising, eating a good diet, getting plenty of rest, and using good posture. In order for our vocal folds and tissues to properly function, one should also stay hydrated. Professor T. also encouraged getting into the habit of warming up and cooling down the voice. Limit uses of caffeine and alcohol, and avoid smoking and vaping, as those can restrict and damage your voice.