Puberphonia (also known as mutational falsetto, functional falsetto, incomplete mutation, adolescent falsetto, or pubescent falsetto) is a functional voice disorder that is characterized by the habitual use of a high-pitched voice after puberty, hence why many refer to the disorder as resulting in a 'falsetto' voice.
The biggest changes to your voice will happen during puberty and will usually end by the age of 18. Your adult pitch is then reached 2 or 3 years later. But your voice won't completely stabilise until early adulthood. Your voice can carry on changing through your 20's, and even into your 30's.
In most cases, the voice begins to change between the ages of 12 and 13. The voice change in boys occurs between the ages of 15 and 18. If your son's voice hasn't changed, that's a red flag! A boy must have a deep male voice by the age of 18.
When you go through puberty, your voice deepens. Men's voices often deepen up to an octave, while women's voices usually move about three tones lower. After puberty and well into older adulthood, some people's voices may change, but not everyone's. Men's voices tend to go up in pitch.
However, often a high pitched voice is due to the vocal cords being stretched too tightly by the failure to develop a thickening of the voice box with puberty. If one pictures a string instrument, we raise the pitch by tightening the string and lower it by loosening the string.
A voice change is one of the secondary sexual characteristics adolescents develop. In boys, this happens between ages 12 and 16; in girls, between ages 10 and 14. The first sign of puberty in girls is breast development, while in boys it's an increase in the size of the testicles.
Even after the change that happens in your teens, your voice continues to develop. Although the squeaking and cracking stage doesn't last long, most guys' voices don't fully mature until they're in their twenties.
Breathe through your belly
Belly breathing, also known as diaphragmatic breathing, helps you access a deeper pitch. This breathing style lets your diaphragm reach its lowest position, which helps slow down vocal cord frequency. Try standing straight, breathing in deep through your nose, and feeling your ribs expand.
Inhale through your nose and down to your belly, and speak when you breathe out. When you speak from your diaphragm, you'll project more easily, and your voice will be a bit deeper. Try speaking through your mouth, rather than your nose.
After about age 30, you start to lose muscle mass all over your body, a phenomenon called sarcopenia. Your vocal folds aren't spared from this shrinkage, Hunter says. As the muscle fibers within the folds become less bulky, your voice sounds higher.
Puberphonia (also known as mutational falsetto, functional falsetto, incomplete mutation, adolescent falsetto, or pubescent falsetto) is a functional voice disorder that is characterized by the habitual use of a high-pitched voice after puberty, hence why many refer to the disorder as resulting in a 'falsetto' voice.
Puts' Scientific Reports study found that men with lower formant frequencies—a deeper resonance in their voices—tended to be taller, larger, and stronger. (That's partly because longer vocal tracts and larger vocal folds generate lower, more resonant voices.)
voice crack (plural voice cracks) (informal) A sudden, unexpected and unintentional change in the pitch of one's voice when speaking or singing, which often affects boys during puberty. During his speech he had a hilarious voice crack which made everyone laugh.
Testosterone will cause a thickening of the vocal chords, which will result in a more male-sounding voice. Not all trans men will experience a full deepening of the pitch of their voice with testosterone, however.
Why do some men squeak? Simple. High-pitched voices exist thanks to vocal cords that aren't as long, strong, or ready for good vibrations as others, Ingo Titze, Ph. D., executive director of the National Center for Voice and Speech, told Fatherly.
The age at which voice changes begin varies widely between boys. Most often it begins between the ages of 12 and 13 and the changes are mostly complete after ages 15 to 18.
But rest assured, you're not alone — plenty of guys find their voices don't change until later on in puberty. It's also important to know that not all guys experience vocal “breaking.” For some, the change comes gradually without an abrupt break. It can be so gradual that it isn't noticeable from day to day.
For women with a voice that sounds like a man, it could be because of the size and thickness of their vocal cords, in which case, they'll need to develop full resonance too, to make their voice sound warmer, an essential quality of a female voice.
Humming is a terrific way to heat up your vocal cords and technique generating a deeper audio. To do this exercise, simply hum a low-pitched audio (such as "mmmm") for numerous seconds, slowly increasing the quantity and size of the hum.
There are a lot of reasons that people talk too loudly. Sometimes people grow up in families where they have to be loud to be heard. Maybe it is a way to make up for low self-esteem or anxiety. Working in loud environments with a lot of machinery can also be a reason for someone talking too loudly in other settings.
It's the same process with vocal cords. Before a boy reaches puberty, his larynx is pretty small and his vocal cords are kind of small and thin. That's why his voice is higher than an adult's. But as he goes through puberty, the larynx gets bigger and the vocal cords grow longer and become thicker.
As with the strings of a guitar or piano, when vocal folds are longer and thicker, they tend to vibrate more slowly and so produce a lower-pitched voice, whereas shorter and thinner vocal folds vibrate more quickly and thus produce a higher-pitched voice.