you probably recognize a few voices.

Like, Sam is always going to use a map.

Yeah, the best videos always have a map.

And Coleman's just going to show you a photo.

There's usually other photos in there.

Joss is going to drop a bunch of data on you, but make you feel something.

If you really think about it, our lives are just line charts.

These are people you don't always see on camera,

but you might recognize them just by their voices.

Chip companies...

We see that the vaccine...

This is the first famous photograph..

As humans, each of us produces a sound that's about as unique as a fingerprint.

There has never been somebody before, currently, or in the future that will sound like you.

So what is it that makes you sound like you?

This is your voice box.

It's called the larynx, and it's located here.

The three main functions are to speak, to breathe, and to swallow.

Sandra Stinnett is a laryngologist,

which means she treats people who have trouble with any of these.

We're going to focus on speech.

Obviously.

So you have articulatory function, resonance function, and then breath support.

Let's start with breath.

If we open it up, we can see the larynx is hollow.

When you take a breath in,

the air comes down this way into your lungs.

When you speak or sing,

you push air from your lungs up through your trachea and through the vocal folds,

which you might know as vocal cords.

Laryngologists, we like to call them folds because they're not cords.

They're folds.

The vocal folds are very, very like pristine white bands.

They're made up of mucus covered muscles and cartilage.

As air pushes through, it forces them open and then they snap close.

And you can maybe imagine like a water balloon,

like if you took two water balloons and slapped them together and they go...

That vibration creates a sound wave.

The faster they vibrate, the higher pitch the sound is.

For men, it's about 100 to 200 waves per second.

So kind of like a hummingbird wings.

And then for for women, it's a little bit higher pitched.

So 200-plus waves per second.

So it's fast.

If you try to raise the pitch of your voice,

you stretch the vocal cords.

If you think of having a rubber band

and you sort of pluck the band

and then you stretch the band a little bit and then it gets to be a higher pitch.

The vocal folds work like that.

When we're on a low pitch, they're short.

And then when we go higher,

they lengthen, lengthen, lengthen,

and there's a different tension that they have.

Next is where resonance comes in.

That sound wave travels through your larynx

and up into your oral and nasal cavities where it bounces around.

This on its own basically produces the sound of your voice.

But to make words,

we need to shape those sound waves using articulators,

things like our tongues, lips, teeth, and various other features.

As humans, we all essentially create sounds in the same way,

but differences in the size and shape of all of these things make our voices sound different.

Physiologically, we're each incredibly unique.

No two larynges are the same.

There's, I mean, it's like a fingerprint.

All of these different shapes and sizes contribute to you having a totally one of a kind instrument.

There are other factors at play, too.

On top of our physiological features:

The brain, which is just like a complicated circuit of nerves

that manipulate pitch and emotion and inflection in the voice.

So, you know, when you say,

Hi, my name is Sandra or Hi, my name is Sandra.

Your life's journey can impact your voice tremendously.

Where you've lived, what your job is, who your friends are, or who your family is.

All of these factors change the way that you communicate and the way that you use your voice.

So for all of you absolutely roasting me for this video, respect my journey.

I grew up in Jersey and then moved to Long Island.

I'm lucky I don't sound like Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street.

Since our voices are so specific to who we are,

it can be pretty jarring when we go through major changes, like in puberty.

Testosterone, in particular, can drastically change a person's voice.

The men have a more rapid change in the physiology of their voice box.

We see a big change to the vocal cords.

They get bigger, longer, thicker, more muscular,

and the larynx changes size and shape, too.

That's why you have an Adam's apple.

Those kinds of changes to the vocal folds and larynx can cause the voice to drop an entire octave.

But it's not like you're just stuck there.

Just like any other muscle, we can train our vocal folds to be more flexible.

The more they can stretch, the wider the range.

Unfortunately, as with any muscle,

your vocal folds will weaken over time,

which is why a lot of elderly people have that similar shaky, raspy, or scratchy voice.

It's called atrophy,

and so the vocal folds themselves have muscles inside,

and so they may get atrophied.

I like to compare it to...

I'm going to date myself,

Coming to America,

where the guys in the barbershop...

"I stopped liking Cassius Clay,

once he changed his name to Muhammad Ali."

"Wait a second...wait a second..."

Vocal coaches can help minimize this atrophy.

But you can also make sure you're doing things

like staying hydrated

and keeping out of situations that force you to strain your voice,

like yelling or whispering.

Your voice will inevitably change with time.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

The voice itself is like a fingerprint, but it's also a clue.

A clue to what type of person you are,

whether you're talkative or not,

you know, whether you're introverted or not.

I've always thought that, like, the larynx was a person's soul

because it's so unique to everybody and it tells you a lot about a person.

And then we have...

way up there.

So that was about an F seven.