How do I learn to control my loud voice?
January 21, 2018 11:20 PM   Subscribe

I am an overly loud person and need to get quieter posthaste. How do I do this? Snowflakes inside.

I know questions of this ilk have been asked before but it's been 13 years and I'm hoping new wisdom has come forth in the meantime.

I have the kind of voice that is politely called "carrying." Where I grew up (the Boston area) this was fairly normal, however everywhere I've lived outside of the Northeast it is somewhat problematic. I'm currently in Asia, spending some time in a culture that prefers quiet voices. I'm also spending a lot of my time in a small office, and one of the other people here has told me my loud voice is making him anxious.

I grew up in a family that was extremely loud. Not just my parents; my very large extended family are all loud and I am nowhere near the loudest. Our level of volume is way beyond acceptable to most people. I have worked to control my volume over the years with no success. I am consciously trying to be quieter now, but I'm not very good at it.

I am not hard of hearing - in fact, apparently a bit the opposite considering the times I've overheard people saying things I shouldn't have been able to hear! (People outside my family. Normal people, who talk at normal volumes.)

When I try to talk in the volume range that other people prefer, I can barely hear myself and feel like I'm murmuring. I also can't adjust well across that low a volume; half the time I seem to be a little too loud to be acceptable and the other half I'm too quiet to be heard properly, and I literally can't identify any difference in volume on my end. It takes an enormous amount of effort to talk that quietly and if I'm not entirely focused on it, like for example if I'm working on something and am interrupted with a question, I respond at my normal volume, and it's becoming a huge issue.

In case anyone thinks that someone might be gaslighting me - if this were the first time this was an issue I'd consider it, but it's been a constant issue for easily 20 years with almost everyone I come into contact with. I want to be better. I will take any tips you have.
posted by rednikki to Human Relations (13 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some people suggested to this asker, who wanted to speak more loudly, to make sure he was in his natural pitch range, so maybe consider a falsetto for yourself, and tie the falsetto into your work persona?

And fwiw, I have struggled with having a soft voice for most of my life -- every time I spoke in a meeting, the room would drop dead silent, not because I was important, but because people wanted a shot at hearing me at all. Even then, when I speak to women who have immigrated from (North East) Asia more recently than I have, I feel a bellowing ogre. These women probably can speak a lot louder; they just socially use a voice that probably feels like "mumbling to yourself" / "projecting only as far as your nose" levels.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:43 PM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Slightly different situation here because I am hard of hearing, but one of the immediate side effects of having a hearing aid fitted was that my own voice (which carries, like yours) suddenly became a lot quieter - because now at my "natural" volume it sounds over-loud through my hearing aid. Probably how it had always sounded to everyone else. I'd been speaking loudly all this time so that I could hear myself clearly.

There are some affordable personal amplification devices available - sometimes used as low-cost alternative to a hearing aid fitted by an audiologist. Usually they'd be intended to boost quiet sounds, but if my experience is typical, they might also help you to train your voice to be softer.
posted by rd45 at 2:30 AM on January 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


Get a singing coach. They will be able to help you learn volume control. It's a physical thing and learning the physical sensations of loud voice/quiet voice will do the trick. Then just be conscious of which volume you are tuned to.
posted by Thella at 3:09 AM on January 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


Try recording yourself speaking in different tenors, volumes, speeds, etc. Identify the one that matches what you here in your office and practice, practice,practice!
posted by stormygrey at 3:50 AM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


It takes an enormous amount of effort to talk that quietly and if I'm not entirely focused on it, like for example if I'm working on something and am interrupted with a question, I respond at my normal volume, and it's becoming a huge issue.

How long have you been trying? It may be helpful to remember that you're trying to make a huge change and of course it's going to take a lot of work! That doesn't necessarily mean you're doing it wrong, just that you're trying to make a huge change. Learning new ways of doing things requires a great deal of effort at first.
posted by lazuli at 6:15 AM on January 22, 2018 [6 favorites]


Best answer: A couple of tricks we use with my loud-talking child to help him control his volume (since he's a kid, it's hard for him to discern differences in volume, like you): Remind him to use an "arm's length voice," where he focuses on not letting his words escape beyond arms' length (usually because we're spies on a secret mission and we don't want enemy agents nearby to overhear!), which is a good volume for places like restaurants. We also remind him to use his "golf announcer" voice, which is that quiet and determinedly pleasant tone you hear from golf announcers and classical radio DJs. This is reliably funny because hearing a little kid talk like classical radio DJ is pretty hilarious, but it's a lot easier for him to keep the volume down when he's mimicing that style of tone and delivery.

It's my observation that when he talks loudly, his voice is up in his head and he loves the resonant sounds of his own skull when he's loud, and that's what sounds natural to him. When he does golf announcer voice, his voice sounds like it's coming from a lot lower, like the base of his throat, and his vowels are much less resonant. This works when I do it, too -- I'm automatically quieter if I produce my voice from a bit lower down and I don't use my head as a resonator. Maybe experiment with that a little bit?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:48 AM on January 22, 2018 [8 favorites]


I second working with a vocal teacher, whether singing or speaking.
And THANK YOU for doing this, people with "carrying" voices make me super anxious too.
posted by exceptinsects at 10:12 AM on January 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


I am hearing impaired, and I had my hearing tested because I have a loud voice. You may be missing certain ranges and compensating. Get tested.

Read about forming new habits. Wear a rubber band on your wrist, snap it when you realize your voice is too loud. Set alarms on your phone to remind yourself to speak more softly. Voice coach.
posted by theora55 at 12:55 PM on January 22, 2018


Also a voice coach will help you learn the difference between speaking distinctly and just talking loud. Some regions of the country elide distinct vocal sounds as part of their environmental background, and over-emphasize others, so this will probably require as much mindfulness and practice as learning a new language. It is not easy, but it's worth it.

I was trained as a cord-board telephone operator back in the dark ages, and it was key to sitting elbow-to-elbow with other operators and still being able to communicate with customers without carrying over into their calls. It was also very Draconian; you couldn't go live on the switchboard until seven weeks of daily training with an instructor on voice control. Like, all day, every day, for seven weeks.

Since you already want to do it, the only thing left is to do it. Good luck! It's incredibly useful and a very professional skill to add to your list.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 4:17 PM on January 22, 2018 [2 favorites]


A visual prompt might help. Is there any way you could run a sound monitor close by (or even as a wearable?). If you can see sound waves becoming bigger or a dial moving closer to a known quantity of 'too loud' you will naturally drop your voice.

In time you will start to make a connection between the volume and the physiology that produces it, whilst working out the muscles needed for vocal control and stamina in sustaining it.
posted by freya_lamb at 6:49 PM on January 22, 2018 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Visualize this as specifically as you can:

You have a close friend who's very dear to you. She's a lovely person, but lately you don't see her much because she recently had a baby. And she's become uncharacteristically cranky and irritable because it's been weeks since she got a good night's sleep. She finally got a day away and has come to visit you at work. She's a little early, you'r going to go get lunch as soon as you wrap up a few tasks. You ask if there's anything special she'd like to do, and she says what she really wants is some sleep.

While you're finishing your tasks you notice she has fallen asleep in her chair. She looks more peaceful and relaxed than you've seen her in a long time.

You don't want to wake her up, do you?

Pick a place in your office where she can sit, mentally envision her there whenever you're in the office. Give yourself a little visual prompt in her area, like a sign taped to the wall that says "Zzzzzzzz..." so that whenever you look in that direction you're reminded how lovely you're being by letting your poor friend sleep.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 7:20 PM on January 24, 2018


Response by poster: Hi everyone! Wanted to thank you for all the answers.

Regarding a singing coach: I took singing for over four years and that apparently just made my issue worse, as the training made it even easier for me to speak AT VOLUME ALL THE TIME. While it might be helpful for some, it was unfortunately not for me. (It was fantastic for when I had to make announcements in a loud nightclub without a microphone, however!)

Eyebrows McGee, your description was incredibly helpful. It frankly never occurred to me that my voice wasn't supposed to resonate in my own head, so when you posted this it was a big surprise. under_petticoat_rule, your visualization was also helpful (but that's not a surprise since you have to live with me - and my voice). batter_my_heart, good point about different cultural expectations of voices. That's really useful as well.

I'm working very hard at this - we'll see how it goes!
posted by rednikki at 1:03 AM on January 26, 2018


Another aspect to this may be how harsh/argumentative you're being, regardless of volume. Bostonians and people from the NE US in general are known for being a little more blunt and confrontational than people from other parts of the country, let alone the world. It might be worth looking at whether softening your content could help with the "startle response" you're getting from your colleagues.

I tend to be on the louder side, though I can modulate, and I work in an office now with a bunch of really loud people. Like, my boss is consistently saying, "Oh, wait, I need to use my indoor voice, sorry." She never startles me, though, or raises my anxiety, because she's just super nice and non-confrontational, and when she's talking loudly it's normally because she's excited about something. I used to work in an office with loud but not-quite-as-loud people who had my heart racing constantly and made me want to hide under my desk all day because they were always debating and arguing and the edginess to their voices would verge on triggering my fight-or-flight response. Even in my current office, we have a woman from New York and there's something about her tone, even when she's agreeing with people, that sets the native Californians on edge, because it comes across as confrontational. I lived in Boston long enough to recognize it as a cultural difference, but it still catches me sometimes, too.
posted by lazuli at 6:17 AM on January 26, 2018


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