Bedroom Voice, Boardroom Voice

A large window, light flooding the room. A small white table, two big red chairs beside it. I sit in one, listening to the person opposite me.

My voice is slow. Deliberate. When I am too close, too emotionally involved, I lean back a little and the structure of my voice takes a few turns. Lower, like a small bowl filled with liquid that is slowly moved in one hand. A mesmerising rotation of the liquid within, drawing hypnotic circles, a slow spin.

When your body likes that voice, it will keep it.

This is what my singing teacher told me a few weeks ago. I have been training, practising different styles, taking some things, leaving others out. My voice felt most natural when it could be anchored, when there was a ground in it, like a bed made for you, freshly washed cushions, strong and soft.

How it calms me down. How it shows me to stand tall. To trust in myself.

My voice shapes itself to every situation I’m in. It alters without my noticing, and probably has since I was small. A baby cries; the parents can tell. Only when I started singing did I notice it does something else, too: it isn’t just telling others about me, it’s working on me. My own body. My own state.

At university, one of the female professors had such a high-pitched voice that we couldn’t stand her. Merely high-pitched doesn’t quite capture it. It was strained with anxiety and fear. Stressed. It cracked, it reached, it quivered.

Hope I’ll never sound like that, I thought, while scribbling notes on the paper, counting the minutes until I could leave this lecture hall. It was impossible to concentrate on the content. We all agreed. She seemed less competent, emotional, and honestly, just annoying. When the clock finally ran out, and we got up and left the hall, I felt more at ease.

So simple, just judge the woman. It’s all her fault. A bit of casual sexism. I am so guilty of that. Because who knows, did we dislike her? Or just her voice? What if she really was anxious? But the only thing I now remember is how horrible I deemed her voice.

Read a little research then. We like our leaders to have low voices.

Of course.

We like deep voices. Those damn attractive men with their sincere, competent, bedroom voice. But women? Women should sound high to be attractive. Young. Fertile. Never mind competence, we don’t need her as a leader anyway.

Or the other way around.

Super independent, bossy, in control. Always. Drop your voice, babe, men approve of that now.

Just want to sound like men, don’t we? Also want a piece of that cake. A tiny one. Little cherry on top. That’s enough. I’ll drop my voice for that. Imagine not being alone eating that cake. Surrounded by everyone seduced by that charming, darling, velvet voice.

Where are you, world, where I could just exist and speak the way I feel most comfortable in?

My voice. A tool. Mainly to calm others down. To make them like me. To make them feel safe. To make them be attracted to me, at times. Never in the big chair, though. What do you think of me?

My voice.

Full of boundaries.

Do not fuck with me.

There is a growl I have finally discovered. It was buried under the customer-service voice of pleasing good-girl Maria, or the excited cheerleader one.

Singing, there is anger. That is new. The bite, the depth.

The ground.

I make my bed. I shake out the duvet. Strong movements. White linen close by, about to become that comfortable, cosy space. This shaking actually did a good thing. It took some of that fury and put it into movement. When angry, I like to stamp, to scream. Or, apparently, fluffing up my blanket works as well.

My voice. A tool. For the game of attraction, for seducing the owner of the pair of eyes glancing over to you under candlelight. A tool for money, for power, for winning the numbers game.

Winning, though, is still mostly for men. Ever noticed how women get criticised for speaking in their natural register? And if they lower it instead, they’re suddenly not authentic anymore. But what if this is just a very normal conclusion of how our patriarchal society still works? If you’re a woman, congratulations. You’ll be judged harshly whatever you do.

So I shook out my duvet. Breathed, settled. Ignored the research for today, ignored the men who think I am flirting with them, and focused on how my voice feels.

I love my voice.

It regulates me. Honestly. When feeling stressed, I like to hum. To breathe. To sing a few words.

In singing classes, my teacher and I keep discussing, keep exploring which register is mine, where my voice lives in my body, and how I can access it more easily. How I can switch. How I can load my voice with so much emotion that it drips, that it slurs you in. A truthful expression, opening up stored pain in my body.

I used to feel safest when people approved of me. And my way to achieve that was partly through being energetic, light-hearted and cheerful. With a high-pitched voice. I thought I needed to be fun, needed to be interesting. Extroverted. Fast.

But I’ve noticed that I now prefer the lower registers. Breaks while speaking.

Boring me?

With that deeper voice?

Mhhhh.

Nah.

It feels earned.

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