What does it mean for boys to have a broken voice? Voice breaking in boys: how and why it happens. Folds are a hormone-dependent structure

Instructions

The timbre, pitch and other characteristics of a person’s voice depend on the structure of his vocal cords and larynx. The denser the folds of the ligaments, the longer and wider the larynx, the lower the voice will be. In childhood, everyone’s voice pitch is approximately the same - nature made sure that parents could better hear their children in danger, since a high voice is easier to understand. As we age, the structure of the larynx and vocal cords changes, with maturation and puberty causing the larynx to become larger and the folds of the vocal cords to become thicker.

The voice changes in both boys and girls, but these processes occur in different ways. If in teenage girls the larynx grows slowly, the vocal cords gradually thicken, but not much, then in boys this is a more rapid and noticeable process. These changes take only two months, during which the low voice seems to be “cutting through” and being trained. The vocal cords are especially vulnerable during this period; they should not be strained.

These processes occur under the influence of sex hormones, which during puberty begin to be produced by the glands under the influence of commands from the brain. At the age of 13-14, boys reach puberty, the brain sends signals to the genitals, the testicles begin to produce hormones responsible for the growth and development of various parts of the body, including the larynx. Androgens are mainly responsible for voices, which also take part in body growth, so periods of rapid growth and changes in voice often coincide in boys. This process lasts from two to several months, and by the age of 15, on average, most adolescents develop a low voice.

In girls, the voice also changes under the influence of growth hormones, becoming lower and changing its timbre. But it remains high compared to men’s if sexual development proceeds correctly. Scientists do not know exactly what causes such differences; nature intended to give different sexes different pitches of voice. According to one version, people could hear the amount of testosterone in the body by the pitch of their voice and judge from it the masculinity of a possible partner and how suitable he was for procreation. There is also an opinion that a man’s low voice served to frighten enemies, and a woman’s high voice was needed not to frighten her children and calm them down.

It is very important for the fair sex to hear words of love and support from your man, and it is even more pleasant if the man’s voice is truly beautiful. However, guys don’t suddenly or immediately develop a velvety baritone or a luxurious and courageous bass. This is preceded by months of restructuring of the vocal cords - a process that is irreversible and inevitable for every young man. Let's find out when boys' voices break, how long it lasts, and whether it is possible to somehow speed up this transformation.

Starting point

Usually everything happens very suddenly. One fine (and for some, perhaps not so good) morning, yesterday’s child begins to turn into a young man. For men, growing up is extremely difficult. Moreover, this concerns all aspects of their existence - from the inner world to external transformations.

From about 9-10 years old, boys begin the pre-pubertal period. This is not “it” yet - the most terrible time, when testosterone in tomboys goes off scale, pushing them to various reckless (and sometimes completely stupid) actions, but by this age their body begins its restructuring. Also, this is not yet the time when boys’ voices break. This process occurs a little later.

According to average parameters, “breaking” of the voice occurs at the age of 11-14 years, at the peak of puberty. It all depends on when the boys started. From the start of the first changes, which externally manifest themselves in the form of skin imperfections and constantly oily hair (often mixed with dandruff), until the time when the voice of boys begins to break, about three years pass. At the age of 15, guys are no longer considered children, their puberty is complete, but the process of becoming a man will not be completed until the age of 22-23.

What is happening de facto?

Thus, we found out at what age boys’ voices break. Most often this happens around age 13. The rate of puberty is influenced by many factors, including heredity and the child’s living conditions. Scientists have proven that an unhealthy lifestyle of a young man hinders his development as a man.

Surely readers are interested in what happens to the body when a boy’s voice breaks. This period in their life is marked by rapid physical growth. Guys become taller, stronger, gain muscle mass, and at the same time, the internal organs responsible for speech undergo changes.

The ability to reproduce sounds in humans depends on several systems and organs. The air accumulated in the lungs, when exhaled, forms a wave that exerts a force on the vocal cords located in the larynx. They are the main link in the chain of sound creation. The oral cavity, larynx, and nasopharynx also participate in this process.

Children's ligaments are thin and short, which is why they speak in gentle, melodious voices. During active activity, the ligaments themselves increase, as well as the muscles and cartilage located in the throat area, and the Adam’s apple is formed. A sharp change in physique causes the boys’ voice to change almost suddenly, preventing young men from smoothly adapting to the new manner of speech.

Hormones... Where would we be without them?

The time at which boys’ voice breaks directly depends on the state of their hormonal levels. Testosterone is responsible for this metamorphosis. If the endocrine system is in order, then by the time the boys’ voice begins to break, it will produce a sufficient amount of hormones for the growth of ligaments. Ultimately, the timbre of speech will become lower by 5-6 tones.

Due to the influence of special components of testosterone, a significant tightening and lengthening of the ligaments occurs, which provokes changes in the voice. It happens that the body does not have enough of the much-needed hormone during the active phase of its growth, then the boy’s voice remains quite high not only during the period of his transformation into a man, but also during the post-pubertal period, as well as maturity. It is curious that with age, representatives of the stronger sex often experience a deficiency of the “male hormone,” which is why their voices become higher in old age.

How to help?

Regardless of what time the voice begins to break, boys will have some difficulties associated with this process. The child will never be one hundred percent ready for this, and given his changeable psycho-emotional state, which is influenced by the active phase of puberty, he really needs the help of loved ones, although he is unlikely to admit this to anyone.

Parents, and best of all the father, should have a conversation with their son about the fact that his voice will change in the near future, clarifying that this is not a matter of one day. It is impossible to say definitely at what age boys’ voices break, but it is better to start preparing them for this by the age of 12.

Also, loved ones need to try to ensure peace for the child, or rather his ligaments. This recommendation is quite broad in nature, because it concerns not only the elimination of possible overstrain of the vocal cords, but also the comprehensive prevention of colds. Why is it important?

During the growth of ligaments, special processes occur in the laryngeal cavity: mucus production is activated, blood circulation increases, the throat swells and turns red. It is during this period that it is most susceptible to attacks from viruses and bacterial infections. Tonsillitis can cause the formation of nodules on the ligaments, which makes the voice hoarse.

What should you not do during withdrawal?

during conversations in raised voices;
when a person sings;
The ligaments also become tense during screaming.

It is in singing boys that a change in voice can be “diagnosed” the earliest. When this process just begins, children's speech sounds like tenor, but when the ligaments are strained, the voice breaks down and may briefly rise or fall.

When does the voice change end?

Typically, by the age of 15, the formation of the speech apparatus and vocal cords is completed. Losing his voice lasts on average about six months, it can happen even faster - in 3-4 months, but sometimes it happens that a boy breaks down into either a squeal or a bass voice for a whole year.

It is impossible to speed up this process or somehow productively influence it. Usually children do not notice changes and do not feel physical discomfort, but sometimes they may complain of a sore throat and a desire to cough.

What will it be like?

The timbre of the voice depends on the physiology of a particular child, or more precisely, on the thickness and length of his ligaments. His new dialect may be unusual for the boy, but parents should tactfully explain to the young man that when the transformation is over, he should get used to the way he “sounds.”

Changing or copying someone’s voice means breaking the natural course of one’s own development; its tone is set by nature, and this must be taken for granted. Working too hard on your speaking style can cause your voice to break down. You can independently develop its strength, improve diction and expressiveness of speech.

A sensitive question

Voice breaking is especially difficult for those young men for whom the voice is an “instrument.” Many boys love to sing and study music not only as amateurs, but also quite professionally. The gentle voice that children under 10-11 years old have will change very soon, and the young singer needs to be prepared for this.

The growth of the ligaments will greatly affect the tone of the boy's voice. Moreover, at first it will be extremely difficult for him to control the sounds he makes while singing. If a teenager is ready for this, he will more easily endure the difficult period of voice mutation that occurs as a result of puberty and active growth.

The appearance of a voice in a person occurs through several organs: vocal cords, larynx, nasopharynx, chest, lungs. Air escaping from the lungs causes the vocal folds to vibrate, and the nasopharynx and chest are resonators. The pitch of the sound depends on the thickness and length of the vocal cords - the larger and thicker they are, the lower the sound. In children, the larynx is small and the vocal folds are small, so children's voices are high and ringing.

When and why do boys' voices break?

At the age of 12-14 years, boys begin to experience age-related changes in their bodies; under the influence of sex hormones, the ligaments begin to grow, thicken and lengthen. At this time, they show signs of voice breakdown - it switches from a high timbre to a low one and vice versa. This is what is called voice mutation. Often at this time a problem arises, but not physiological, but rather psychological: the boy is accustomed to the sound of his high voice, but an adult bass voice sometimes scares him. But for most boys, voice mutation is a completely natural process and it lasts on average for several months.

What to do if your voice breaks?

Parents should know about three features of teenage voice mutation:

during the withdrawal period, you cannot load the vocal cords; due to overstrain, nodules appear on the folds, as a result of which the voice becomes hoarse;
avoid colds - the mutation may be delayed;
It is not known what kind of voice a teenager will have in adulthood: what is inherent in nature cannot be changed.

Teenagers are often interested in how they can speed up the loss of their voice. So, this cannot be done in any way because mutation is a natural physiological process, and, as you know, it is not worth interfering with nature.

Do girls' voices break?

The thing is that the vocal folds in girls grow more slowly than in boys, and by the beginning of puberty they are even much shorter in girls. Girls' voices also break, but not as clearly and not as quickly as in boys. This process cannot be called a mutation because such a loss of voice is not associated with hormonal changes in the girl’s body.

This or that timbre of voice is inherent in a person by nature and must be taken for granted. It will take time for a growing child to get used to his new voice. Explain to your child that voice loss is a kind of beginning of the path to adulthood. And if parents take the teenager seriously during the mutation of his voice and support him with practical advice, then this process will be less painful and much faster.

How and why voice breakdown (mutation) occurs in boys, read our article.

Just yesterday your son spoke in a normal, boyish voice, and today you heard the first breakdown. He has started to develop, so a lot of things are changing in him, including his voice breaking (voice mutation). Along with obvious external changes, the boy's voice takes on a completely different sound. For some time, it will even be difficult for him to control his cords, so due to his voice breaking, he will make a variety of strange sounds.

Changes in the larynx during voice mutation in boys

It is the larynx that is responsible for the production of sound. As puberty progresses, the larynx enlarges and becomes thicker. This happens in both boys and girls, but for a boy, of course, the changes due to voice mutation are more noticeable. Girls' voices can literally go down a key or two, and it's barely noticeable, but a boy's voice becomes much lower and deeper.

Why do boys' voices sound so strange during mutation?

The larynx, located in the throat, plays an important role in creating sound. The two main muscles, the vocal cords, are stretched like rubber bands across the larynx.

When a person speaks, air from the lungs causes the vocal cords to vibrate, which produces sound. The pitch of the voice depends on how tightly the ligaments close as air flows through them. If you've ever tugged on a small, thin rubber band, you've probably heard a high-pitched, drawn-out squeak as you pull it. A thicker rubber band produces a deeper, lower, lingering sound. The same thing happens with the vocal cords.

Before a boy reaches adolescence, his larynx is very small, and his vocal cords are thin and small. That's why a boy's voice is higher than a grown man's. But with maturation, the larynx enlarges, and the ligaments become longer and stronger, and accordingly the boy’s voice becomes deeper.

In addition, the facial bones also grow: the size of the sinuses, nose and back of the throat becomes larger. More space gives the voice more opportunity to resonate.

Creaking and wheezing are part of the normal development of the body during this period. Even when the boy gets used to the changes, it will be difficult for him to control his own voice for some time after the voice mutation. So, along with accepting general changes in appearance, you will need to get used to your new sound.

Speaking of external changes. When the larynx begins to enlarge, it tilts inside the neck at a slightly different angle than before and partially begins to protrude. This is the same Adam's apple or Adam's apple. In girls, the larynx also enlarges, but not as much as in boys.

When does voice loss occur in boys?

Everyone develops at their own pace, so boys experience voice loss at different ages. This usually occurs between ages 11 and 14.5, often after a big growth spurt. For some, the mutation (break) of the voice lasts a long time and gradually, while for others it happens very quickly.

If your son is bothered, annoyed, or confused by the strange sound of his voice, explain to him that this is temporary and everyone goes through it. In a couple of months he will already have a low, deep and powerful adult voice of a man, and not the voice of a boy!

Otorhinolaryngologist and phoniatrist, MD, tells: Gennady Ivanchenko.

Whistles and flutes

The voice is born using several systems of the body: the larynx, vocal folds (in everyday speech they are called ligaments), lungs, chest and nasopharynx. A stream of air escaping from the lungs causes the vocal folds to vibrate at a certain frequency, with the chest and nasopharynx serving as resonators. The larger and thicker the vocal folds, the lower the sound. Not always though. Caruso, for example, had vocal folds twice as large as another bass profundo, and Caruso sang in a tenor.

In boys, like in girls, the larynx is small, the folds are small, and only their edges vibrate under the action of a stream of air. Experts call this the falsetto mechanism of sound creation. The larynx is like a whistle. Nature designed it this way so that a child, whose sound-producing systems are still small, can still be heard. And in fact, the squeals of children are so clearly audible that if you walk into school during a break, for example, you can simply go deaf.

Folds are a hormone-dependent structure

But at the age of 13-14, under the influence of various hormones, mainly sex hormones, boys’ vocal folds begin to grow, lengthen and thicken. These folds are a hormone-dependent structure. It is not for nothing that eunuchs have a high-pitched, childlike voice - they themselves have the build of fully grown men, and the vocal folds do not reach adult sizes, because the body does not produce sex hormones.

For the same reason, older people’s voices become higher - because there are less and less sex hormones in the body. And in women, in old age, on the contrary, the voice sounds in lower tones; again, there are not enough hormones, only female ones, which change the folds so that the sound is high and ringing.

An adult can speak and sing in falsetto even with a normally developed vocal apparatus. True, without habit it is not very convenient. But it’s fashionable, it’s not for nothing that some radio hosts say so and Presnyakov Jr. sings. For an adult, such a mechanism of sound formation is still more natural, when the entire fold vibrates, the vocal wave travels both horizontally and vertically. Therefore, an adult voice turns out to be deeper, more beautiful, and varied in color. In ordinary speech, we use 2-3 tones above and below our fundamental tone. And the singer takes two octaves.

Fear of the new

For a teenager, switching from falsetto to a full-fledged sound formation process is difficult. But the problem here is more likely not a problem, but a psychological one: the boy is accustomed to the sound of his childhood voice, but a new voice - a baritone or bass - scares him. When talking, he uses either the old mechanism of sound generation or the new one.

Since children grow unevenly, one guy may still be small, but his bass voice is already breaking through with all his might, while the other has grown a mile tall, and his larynx is still small, his voice is still childish. It’s these boys who are ahead of their peers or behind them who have the hardest time; they are the most embarrassed about their voices. But for most people, voice loss is a normal physiological process: the voice becomes lower and rougher - well, okay. Most quickly discover a new mechanism for producing sounds. In rare cases, any teenager needs the help of a phonopedist - a voice specialist who usually works with singers. Perhaps only a few of those who grow up surrounded by women alone. These boys have no one to even imitate, no one to take an example from. But for them, one lesson is usually enough, during which a doctor or phonopedist will show you exercises for establishing and strengthening a normal male voice.

Three features

There are three features of teenage mutation that are useful for parents to know.

● When breaking your voice, there is no need to load the vocal folds. But the boys, unfortunately, do not take care of them, they strain them at every step: either while playing football they scream like crazy, or they sing songs at the top of their lungs with a guitar... Due to overstrain, nodules can appear on the folds, doctors call them that - screamer knots. These nodules change the vibration of the folds and the voice becomes hoarse. Some nodules then resolve on their own if the loads drop, but sometimes you have to remove them - microsurgical operations.

● Colds can prolong the mutation. A red throat in a teenager is not always a sign of a respiratory infection. When the larynx grows, blood circulation increases in it, the tissues become redder, and it seems that the child has laryngitis. They begin to treat the boy for a cold, give him medicine, take him to doctors... But it’s just a normal physiological process.

If the mutation has been prolonged, that is, the boy has already stopped growing upward, and his voice has not become low like a man, the teenager must be shown to a phoniatrist. The longer a guy speaks in falsetto, the more difficult it will be for him to switch to adult tones.

● We are not destined to know what kind of “adult” voice a beautifully singing little boy will have. In childhood, there is a high, clear voice, but a mutation has occurred, and the voice turns out to be the most banal - both in color, and in timbre, and in strength. A well-known example is Robertino Loretti. And nothing can be done: what is given is given.

Interesting

A curious case. Once, an officer, and not of the lowest rank, turned to phoniatrists - doctors who study the peculiarities of the functioning of the vocal apparatus. Quite an adult, and his voice is like that of a boy. It turns out to be frivolous. Doctors helped him and taught him to speak in a baritone voice.