0960 – The ‘Sibilant’ Voice

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2023.08.18 – 0960 – The ‘Sibilant’ Voice

Sibilant voice

Symptom: When a voice is perceived to have excessive ‘s’ sounds it may be because the microphone is picking up and exaggerating that particular frequency.

(Consider that sibilance, like many ‘voice sounds’ is subjective. In other words, slightly more ‘s’ sounds may be in the ear of the listener rather than the err, mouth of the reader! And sibilance may be considered a sound of ‘interest’ (rather than the archaic and offensive term ‘impediment’); it gives colour and character to the voice. As long as you can be understood and the message is received, that communication happens … who cares? Having said that you may feel self-conscious about the sound, feel that people are being judgemental about you, or that it’s reducing your opportunities.)

Prescription:

· Adjust the angle of the mic so you are not speaking directly into it. If that doesn’t help, speaking with an audio engineer who may be able to suggest altering input settings on your studio desk / workstation.

· If you are recording audio, then you may be able to clean it up in post-production: many recorders have a ‘de-esser’ which reduces the high frequencies of sibilance. There are also specialist post-production programs such as Auphonic which will be able to help you (but be careful you don’t change too many settings so your voice becomes unrecognisable!)

· You may want to consider changing your microphone as different makes and models and pickup areas cope differently with different voices.

· Or it may be an issue with your own vocal production: poorly-fitting false teeth, a pierced tongue or a tooth-gap. All of our ‘mouth furniture’ is slightly different in its shape and size and place – teeth, tongue and where we place them in relation to each other (as discussed in episode 101).

· We make the s-sound differently. Say ‘sizzling sausages’ and feel where the tip of your tongue is. Is it curling up or down? Or somewhere flatter? We make the sound in different ways just through culture and learning, not being taught, but it may be that if you try the other way it will increase or decrease the sibilance: the amount of air within the ‘s’ may affect the sibilance, as might the length of time you make the sound for. Episodes 76 and 86 are good ones to catch up with on this.

· So, there are lots of small changes that you may be able to make, and if you are worried or need more help or advice, see a trained speech trainer to work with you individually.

· Listen back to episodes 545, 557 for more on this topic.

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