Nathan Key

Today I'm going to post a slightly embarrassing revelation about myself:

When I'm around someone (especially other men) that I feel the need to impress, my voice gets higher.

It's a nervous tick, I'm sure, but it's a dead giveaway that I'm feeling intimidated or unsure of myself. I noticed it a few years ago, but this week it's been more obvious than usual because my new boss has a voice with a particularly low register- quite a bit lower than mine to begin with- and this makes my own nervous intonation all the more obvious to me.

But, I wonder if this is actually something bigger than mere nervousness?

I ask this because as I've had the opportunity to experience and interact with different cultures, I've found a common denominator of respectful positioning seems to permeate them all. What I mean is that each culture has some sort of respect tradition that gives those with experience or skill a visible indicator of honor. Some are a bit more obvious- like bowing or shrinking down to make the honored more prominent. Others are a bit more subtle- like deferring to the senior person's judgment or waiting for the honored person to respond to a question or action before making one’s own response. But whether they are minimal gestures or grand posturing, each culture has some sort of honor that they bestow on those who are seen to be experienced or skilled or respected.

I think that this idea of honor and respect is wired into all of us, as humans.

Of course Westerners would like to think that this sort of thing is behind us- that we've outgrown these sort of positioning games- but I really doubt that we can ever put something that's so fully tied to humanity completely behind us. Even as we thwart the more visible respect cues, subtle and subconscious ones inevitable take their place. So, I’ve decided that this is what my voice change is all about. I think it’s anthropologically aligned with the ideas of honor and respect rather than a mere nervous tick.

Here’s why:

Consider the differences between men and boys. There are many, of course- strength, hair, muscles, and sexual maturity (among other things). One very obvious difference is the tonality of a man's voice versus a boy's. The deeper, booming voice is an indicator that a boy is growing up- that he is coming of age. It’s one indicator that we are becoming "manly" rather than “boyish.” Boys who haven't hit puberty yet have much higher voices than men, more feminine voices like their mothers, and so this change is an powerful indicator of identity. They are becoming more like their fathers- they are becoming men.
 
I can remember very clearly the first day back in school after the summer between fifth and sixth grade. Everyone remarked that my voice had changed. Of course, I hadn’t noticed until then. For me it was a gradual thing that happened over the duration of summer break- I didn't even have the cracking voice. But my friends hadn’t seen me in three months and so they picked up on it immediately.

It made me feel special! I felt like I was more mature and grown up than they were since most of them were still still singing alto in concert choir.

If I take my own experience of growing up and couple it with the idea of cultural respect traditions, I’m going to make a leap and assert this: When I’m around men that I’m impressed with, a subconscious indicator is triggered, signaling my body and my heart that I feel immature or less important than the person I’m speaking with. And if I'm somehow less of a man than this other fellow, I take on a subtle, more "boyish" tone, indicating that the other man is more mature, more manly, more respected.

I believe that this has less to do with nervousness and more to do with the fact that in Western societies, we've tried to cut ties with visual respect signals and are now bound to subconsciousness ones.

Anyhow, as embarrassing as it may be for me to reveal this about myself, at least you've now got a good measuring stick for how comfortable I feel around you. If I'm speaking to you in a high tenor tone rather than baritone- you can be sure that I find you a bit intimidating…