Wednesday 9 June 2021

Chapter 22 Puberphonia differentiate “spiritually naked" and “physically naked”

 

 Chapter 22

Puberphonia differentiate “spiritually naked" and “physically naked”

 “The larynx is a sexual organ, because it’s very different between one sex to the other and that has to do with how much testosterone there is compared to other hormones that balance it out,” Titze told Fatherly, adding that testosterone levels shape the length and musculature of the vocal folds, which vibrate to produce sound and ultimately dictate pitch.

Puberty and adolescence are two terms interlinked to each other representing certain changes and period of such changes. Puberty refers to the physical changes leading to sexual maturity in a boy or a girl. Adolescence refers to the transition period when psychological and social changes take place in a boy or girl.  Puberty is the reason for the adolescence and this period may vary from one person to another. During puberty, surprising cracks and unexpected squeaks can signal changes in your voice. Your adolescent's relationships with others

In male adolescent begins to struggle for independence and control, many changes may happen. The following are some of the issues that may be involved with your adolescent during these years:

·         He wants independence from parents.

·         Peer influence and acceptance is very important.

·         Peer relationships become very important.

·         He may be in love.

·         He may have long-term commitments in relationships.

Creation of Adam's apple in male and breaking of voice.

Sex is identified and recognized and got ashamed of one’s nakedness

 Adam’s apple: The protruding part of the throat is called Adam’s apple. It is the enlarged voice box or larynx which gets enlarged and visible from outside in boys at the onset of puberty. Adam's apple in your throat will start to become more noticeable. This makes the voice of boys hoarse.  The larynx, specifically the laryngeal prominence that joins the thyroid cartilage, in the human throat is noticeably more prominent in males and was consequently called an Adam's apple, from a notion that it was caused by the forbidden fruit getting stuck in Adam's throat as he swallowed it.  increasing in prominence as a secondary male sex characteristic in puberty, It is a secondary sexual characteristic: meaning it appears around the time of puberty and helps distinguish between the sexes, as it is more prominent in men than it is in women. The increase of the laryngeal prominence takes place during puberty and is logically thought to play a role in the voice maturation that also occurs in this period. However, no work has yet been done to prove this relationship decisively, only small reports of cadaver studies. They become aware of their "nakedness" and make fig-leaf clothes, and hide themselves when God approaches.



It's interesting to note that Adam and Eve made themselves coverings with the appearance of voice/ Adams apple. After eating the forbidden fruit the eyes of both Adam and Eve were opened, they now knew they were naked, and immediately after formation of Adams apple the Adams voice break and changed. This made them to recognize their sex. they made coverings for themselves. This verse gives us some idea as to why they decided to sew leaves together for clothing: They understood their condition, which was both "spiritually naked" and physically naked, and they made a vain attempt to cover what they had done by fabricating some rudimentary clothes out of materials that were readily available to them.
What does it mean when a guy has a high pitched voice?

The most important secondary sex characteristic in humans is the deeper voice. Puberty, with its voice changes among other things, can be a stressful time for teens, but understanding more about the process can help everyone cope with the situation. If he is concerned about how his voice sounds, you can reassure your son that the squeaks and changes are normal growing pains and that they won't last forever. The good news is that when his voice changes, he'll be getting the growth spurt he has been wishing for.

 Our study is the first to investigate attributions of infidelity as a function of sexual dimorphism in male and female voices. We found that men attributed high infidelity risk to feminized women's voices, but not significantly more often than did women. Our data suggest that voice pitch is used as an indicator of sexual strategy in addition to underlying mate value. Voice changes do not happen in a vacuum. Increases in testosterone during puberty make many changes in the body, not just to the voice.

However, the timing of the voice changes during puberty is significant because it does so at a certain point during the overall changes that are occurring. Voice changes happen when boys are between Tanner stages 3 and 4.1

The Tanner stages describe the physical changes in a boy's genitalia during puberty. Your doctor assesses your son's Tanner Stage, so feel free to ask where your son is at—puberty-wise—after his next checkup. It may give you an indication if a voice change is on the horizon.

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.

When your son's voice begins to change, this often marks the beginning of his “growth spurt.” This growth spurt is a time during adolescence where height increases rapidly.

Once boys voice stops changing, his growth spurt starts to decrease. This process can last two to three years.

At birth, boys’ and girls’ vocal folds are similar lengths, measuring about 2 millimeters long, but they continue to grow as the child grows. Girls' vocal folds grow 0.4 millimeters in length each year, but boy's vocal folds grow 0.7 millimeters in length for the same time period – almost twice as much.

This growth eventually slows down, leaving girls with a maximum vocal fold length of 10 millimeters and boys with a length of 16 millimeters. A longer vocal fold means a deeper voice, which is why males tend to have a deeper voice than girls.

Changes in the larynx are related to the increasing amounts of testosterone in boys during puberty. The increase in testosterone leads to a lengthening of the cartilage of the larynx and of the vocal folds, as well as the thickening of the vocal folds.

 

Unlike the boys (where the most significant growth in the larynx is front to back), in a girl’s larynx, the most significant growth is top to bottom. This means her pitch range will not change much, although her gear changes will almost certainly move. The biggest change you’ll hear is in her vocal weight and the timbre of her voice.

Study History


Creative legend Brothers, film composer, singer, ... Widely regarded as one of the greatest Indian music composer,... as well as music group headed by his elder brother  At the age of 14,  the junior brothers joined the musical troupe owned by his elder brother, for singing in child voice with the seniors in adult male voice. 


 

Four National Awards, 19 Filmfare awards, a Padma Bhushan and innumerable classics that placed Indian cinema on the global map,  innocent Kamal Haasan, then just four years old , Veteran Payback singer MS Rajeswari given voice to Kamal Hassan. A brilliant performance

The stages of voice change in puberphonia

There seem to be four stages of change for girls, matching their menarcheal state. For singing and drama teachers it helps to know how these might manifest:

Stage I: Prepubertal. Average age 8-10 or 11

Listen for their average speaking pitch – Stage I girls will speak around Middle C or D (C4 or D4) although there can be variations of up to a third either side. The quality of the sound is clear and childlike with no apparent changes or breaks

Stage IIA: Pubescence/Pre-Menarcheal. Average age 11-12 or 13

You may notice the first signs of physical development including increased height and breast development. Their average speaking pitch drops a little to B3 or C#4, although conversely, their singing may start to suffer as some girls lose their lower notes.

During this stage, the arytenoid cartilages and the muscles that close them may be growing at different rates. This causes temporary problems with closing at the back of the vocal folds, so there may be breathiness in the tone. The breathiness can occur across the pitch range and may cause problems with volume, especially in the middle and upper range. Despite the breathiness, a girl’s voice quality can become thicker or slightly weightier during Stage IIA

Stage IIB: Puberty/Post-menarcheal. Average age 13-14 or 15

Again, the girl’s average speaking pitch may drop, this time to between A3 and C#4
The lower pitches can feel more comfortable to sing, and the sound is more mature. Be careful at this stage not to keep her singing solely in the lower register (even if she likes it) as her voice will not yet be settled enough to produce volume and weight on the lowest notes. Keep working the girl’s range, even if you let her “sit” at the lower pitches more often.

The sound can still be breathy and the range can move up or down, or shorten dramatically, or change by the week! You’ll find it helpful to monitor each girl’s voice frequently during this stage – make it part of the lesson to find out how everyone is doing.

Often girls have a more full-bodied sound in the lower register but shift into a breathier sound higher up. There may be noticeable gear changes at G4 to B4 and again at D5 to F#5

Stage III: Young adult female/Post-menarcheal. Average age 14-15 or 16

Things start to settle down in Stage III – her vocal range may increase again and the tone is more even across the range. You may also notice that there is more ability to sing comfortably lower AND higher.

Male puberphonia voice change can be characterised by

1.     Increasing of average speaking pitch area (mean speaking fundamental frequency)

2.     Voice “cracking” and abrupt register “breaks” (abrupt voice quality changes)

3.     Increased breathiness, huskiness, or hoarseness in voice quality

4.     Decreased and inconsistent range capabilities (tessitura tends to fluctuate)

5.     Uncomfortable singing or effortful and delayed starting sound (note onsets)

6.     Heavy, breathy, “rough” tone production and/or colourless, breathy, thin tone quality

7.     Insecurity of pitch intonation.

Although voice change in females is not as dramatic as that observed in males, it does occur. In comparisons of male and female adolescent voice change, many characteristics are found in both sexes.”

Voice pitch, in particular, has been associated with indirect measures of reproductive fitness in both men and women—men with “masculine” low-pitched voices and women with “feminine” high-pitched voices tend to be rated more attractive and have more sexual partners. The deep timbre of a male voice may sound attractive, but low-voiced men actually tend to have lower sperm counts, a new study says. Multiple studies have found that women usually favor masculine features, such as prominent jaws, high muscle mass, and low-pitched voices. The theory is that these traits signal a high-quality mate—for instance, it's been proposed that masculine men generally have more robust amounts of sperm. But the new research revealed that, while deep voices are attractive to women, low-pitched men actually tended to have lower concentrations of sperm in their ejaculate.

Voice analysis

Voice recordings were analyzed using the free voice analysis software PRAAT version 5.2.35 [56]. For each voice recording the pitch of each of the first four vowels ("a", "e", "i", & "o") was extracted, and an average pitch calculated across the four vowels. The vowel "u" was not included in the analysis because of the tendency for participants to intonate this vowel with a downward inflection. PRAAT calculates pitch using a noise-resistant autocorrelation method. We used PRAAT's standard settings: pitch floor of 75 Hz and ceiling of 600 Hz, window length 0.04 s and time step of 0.01 s. There were no significant relationships between voice pitch and men's height (r = −0.027, P  =  0.850), weight (r  =  0.018, P  =  0.896), testes volume (r  =  0.031, P  =  0.826), or age (r = −0.167, P = 0.227) so these variables were not considered further.

7 Sneaky Things Your Voice Can Predict About Your Personality and Health

It's not just what you say—it's what you sound like when you say it.

Your authoritativeness

 Those who were given more power raised the pitch of their voices more, varied how loud their voices were, and became less monotone. This is just one of the bizarre things you never knew about your own voice.

Your marriage’s stability

Researchers recorded couples in marriage therapy sessions for two years and then used a computer to analyze voice features like jitter, loudness, and pitch in a study  Looking at the couples’ marital statuses five years later, researchers found that a computer’s analysis of tone of voice was better at predicting whether the relationship got better or worse than an analysis of the words therapists used to describe the sessions. Plus, the way you speak to your partner is one way to have a happier marriage.

If you’re “just friends”

When talking to someone they’ve been romantically involved with for less than a year, people tend to sound sexier and more pleasant than when talking to a same-sex platonic friend. The differences were obvious enough that independent raters were able to identify if the caller was talking to a friend or lover. The researchers say this might be because people change their voices to communicate their relationship status.

Your career success

Vote for political candidates with lower voices, regardless of the nominee’s gender. The researchers stress that their findings are correlation—not causation—and done in a lab setting, respectively. But a lower voice could (wrongly or rightly) signal strength and trustworthiness to listeners. If your job calls for giving presentations.

Your trustworthiness

Rate  the voices on personality traits like trustworthiness and dominance. While the study couldn’t verify how accurate the ratings were, the researchers found that most people rated the voices similarly. For instance, men who raised their pitches were seen as more trustworthy, while women whose voices went up at the end of a word were seen as less trustworthy. Although you can’t change your voice, you can adopt these habits that make people trust you.

Your fertility

Women’s voices are higher pitched before ovulation than when their fertility is low. Researchers think men have evolved to find higher-pitched voices more attractive because feminizing hormones and youthfulness are associated with indicate high fertility.

Your height

Tall people typically have larger lower airways, including lungs, which gives them a lower voice than shorter people usually have, the researchers say. Voice out these bizarre ways your height affects your health.

Reference
1. J Speech Lang Hear Res2006 Apr;49(2):448-59. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2006/035).Voice training and therapy with a semi-occluded vocal tract: rationale and scientific underpinnings

Ingo R Titze 1PMID: 16671856 , DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2006/035)

2.  Gangai  Amaran an Indian music composer, singer, lyricist, writer, film director and actor interview with Chithra Lakshmanan in Touring talkies YouTube channel, "Illayaraja: Gangai Amaran get together again". Behind woods. 12 March 2005. Archived from the original on 24 July 2012. Retrieved 11 March 2012.

 

Friday 4 June 2021

Chapter 21 New anatomical and physiological perspectives of Eustachian tube

 

Chapter 21

New anatomical and physiological perspectives of Eustachian tube

Nasopharynx is considered as the dark area of otorhinolaryngology practice,

New anatomical perspectives: Eustachian tube/ sac, a resonating chamber for vocalization

More recently, two developments has enhanced our undertanding of the anatomy of the eustachian tube: Valsalva computerized tomography and endoscopic ear surgery.

1.    Given the greater access to the ear anatomy using endoscopic methods, it has been suggested that the bony part of the eustachian tube is really the anterior extension of the middle ear cavity, or the "Protympanum". The term "Eustachian Tube" should be limited to the fibrocartilaginous structure connecting the protympanum to the nasopharynx.[4]

2.    The Eustachian tube is a sac like irregular structure rather that a tubular structure.

3.     Possible functions of the guttural pouches include pressure equilibration across the tympanic membrane, contribution to air warming, a resonating chamber for vocalization, and a flotation device.

4.     Eustachian tube in vocalization.

5.     Eustachian opening is one another door for the body. The other nine doors are, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, mouth, anus and genital. Anus and genital are not door, but a orifice with one way traffic. How can it be a door?

Yarning and snoring produce low pitch voice. Yawning produce low pitch sound. Yawning also helps open the Eustachian tube or opened Eustachian tube resonate the sound. ,Yawning, which is by far the most popular approach to teaching an open throat, tends to produce an overly open pharyngeal space, and thus a hollow, 'throaty' tone.  We fond of some of the methods of creating an open throat space, particularly those involving imagery or shaping of the vocal tract that encourages the distortion of vowels. For instance It also tends to be accompanied by a flattening or retracting of the tongue. Whenever a teacher instructs a student to yawn in order to 'open the throat', he or she overlooks the injurious ramifications of such a technique when it is applied to the tasks of puberphonia speech training.


 

Yarning                                                                     Snoring

If the puberphonia speech training boys reaches the point where he or she really feels a hugely open space in the throat - the feeling that he or she is 'swallowing an egg' or some other piece of fruit, for example - it is actually likely that the tongue root is so out of the way of the mouth cavity that it is depressing the larynx. What is an effort to free up space for the voice to resonate better actually ends up placing tension on the throat, tightening it, and producing a hollow, throaty timbre.

Raising the eyebrowsfurrowing the browcreasing the foreheadflaring the nostrils or widening the eyes are linked to the lifting of the soft palate to enhanced resonance balancing.

We taught them to 'inhale' a soft, quiet 'k' sound. (This is kind of like the imagery of 'drinking in the breath' or 'inhaling the breath'.) This technique lifts the soft palate further, separating it from the tongue, and lowers the larynx during inhalation. It is one helpful technique for ensuring that the resonating spaces are open. The soft palate's motion during breathing is responsible for the sound of snoring. Touching the soft palate evokes a strong gag reflex in most people. The soft palate retracts and elevates during speech to separate the oral cavity (mouth) from the nasal cavity in order to produce oral speech sounds. If this separation is incomplete, air escapes through the nose, causing the speech to be perceived as hyper nasally. In the case of nasal consonants and vowels, it lowers to allow the velopharyngeal port to open. Velopharyngeal closure (VPC) is an important part of speech. All phonemes in the English language, with the exception of the three nasal phonemes (/m/, /n/, /ng/), are produced with oral airflow, meaning that the velopharynx should be closed. The nasal phonemes are produced with nasal resonance, meaning that the velopharynx must open during their production. a possible role for the velum in influencing Eustachian tube functioning because the tensor muscles of the velum pull the membranous lateral wall of the Eustachian tube away from the stationary cartilaginous medial wall, thereby opening the normally closed tube.

In the equids (horses) and some rodent-like species such as the desert hyrax, an evagination of the Eustachian tube is known as the guttural pouch. The guttural pouches are paired out  pocketing of the upper airway (pharynx). Among the amphibians, the frogs and toads are capable of producing the most distinctive and greatest variety of calls. Even though the female frogs and toads are able to call, they do so infrequently. The males do most of the calling, and the majority of the singing is done at the breeding sites, because the main purpose of the call is to attract a mate. However, a different call may be used to stake out a territory, the frog or toad announcing his presence and in effect warning others away. The call is produced in much the same manner as other animals produce sound—vocal chords vibrate as air passes over them. Unique to the frogs and toads, however, is the inflatable vocal sac possessed by most of them There can be one or two vocal sacs, depending on species. 



Guttural pouch are sacs of air that expand from the eustachian tube. Frog produces a low guttural, reverberant sound.

Figure III-9bThe sac is an effective resonator, like a sounding board on a stringed instrument. The sac itself, however, is not able to amplify the level of the call. As the air is expelled over the vocal chords and the call is completed, the sac deflates. It often is seen as an area of wrinkles or folded skin on the throat or shoulders of some species.Figure III-10The calls produced by the various toads and frogs range from simple clicks to whistle- or bell-like sounds to a full, resonating deep croak.

 

Whether the vibration happens while the source is moving, or not, does not depend at what speed the sound is going to travel through air. However, the pitch of sound will change depending upon which direction you listen in. Speed of sound is not a constant in context of relativity. Example: On a rainy day go fast in the rain, you will be more drenched. Low pitch echoes longer than higher pitch, and often the lowest harmonic of an acoustic instrument is obscured by the fundamental pitch. ... Lower air speed might be responsible for the lower-pitched echo/reverberations that seem to follow the main part of the note.

Ancient Greek mythology

Zeus loved consorting with beautiful nymphs and often visited them on Earth. Eventually, Zeus's wife, Hera, became suspicious, and came from Mount Olympus in an attempt to catch Zeus with the nymphs. Echo, by trying to protect Zeus (as he had ordered her to do), endured Hera's wrath, and Hera made her only able to speak the last words spoken to her. 


                          

Zeus was the highest ranking God       Echo, a mountain nymph

 


 

 

One of the most common ways we experience the Doppler effect in action is the change in pitch caused by either a moving sound source around a stationary observer or a moving observer around a stationary sound source.

Additionally, yawning and swallowing causes contraction of the muscles connected to the Eustachian tube, enabling the tube to open to small amounts of air. This allows for the equalization of pressure between the middle ear and atmospheric pressure and results in a “popping” sound in the ear. The “popping” sound results from small amounts of air entering the middle ear to balance the pressure differential with the environment. Popping is centered around the technique of popping, which means to quickly contract and relax muscles to create a jerking effect (a pop or hit) in the body. ( imitates characters being animated by stop motion- Roboting gained fame after Michael Jackson used the dance )


“popping” steps make sound

Patulous ET can cause autophony of one’s own voice and breathing sounds and aural fullness.  The eustachian tube helps to equalize the pressure in the middle ear. Having the same pressure allows for the proper transfer of sound waves. 

Discussion

Embryology of the Eustachian Tube

As the skull base grows down, the angle of the eustachian tube changes gradually from horizontal to oblique. This process continues after birth and well into adulthood.  This results in elongation and angle increase of the Eustachian tube with respect to the horizontal plane during normal growth and maturity into early adulthood. The increase in the volume of the Eustachian tube has been shown to be 20 cubic mm per year until 20 years of age. 

Although much advancement has been made in understanding the physics of phonation, some misconceptions still exist in textbooks in otolaryngology and speech pathology. For example, the Bernoulli effect, which has been shown to play a minor role in phonation, is still considered an important factor in initiating and sustaining phonation in many textbooks and reviews. Tension and stiffness are often used interchangeably despite that they have different physical meanings. The role of the thyroarytenoid muscle in regulating medial compression of the membranous vocal folds is often understated. On the other hand, research on voice production often focuses on the glottal flow and vocal fold vibration, but can benefit from a broader consideration of the acoustics of the produced voice and their implications for voice communication. However, because of lack of data of the mechanical properties in each vocal fold layer and how they vary at different conditions of laryngeal muscle activation; a definite understanding of the functional roles of each vocal fold layer is still missing.

Reference;

1.        Tarabichi, Muaaz; Najmi, Murtaza (March 2015). "Visualization of the eustachian tube lumen with Valsalva computed tomography: Valsalva Computed Tomography"The Laryngoscope125 (3): 724–729. doi:10.1002/lary.24979PMID 25376511.

2, Mechanics of human voice production and control. Zhaoyan Zhang  J Acoust Soc Am. 2016 Oct; 140(4): 2614–2635. Published online 2016 Oct 14. doi: 10.1121/1.4964509