T
he voice is the human
musical instrument. It
consists of a vibrating
element, resonating
chambers and energy
that produces the vibra-
tions. The energy comes
from the breath originat-
ing in the lungs. Vibra-
tions occur in the two vocal cords at the lower
part of the voice box, or larynx, that are arranged
in a “V” shape, perpendicular to the trachea.
Finally, the resonating chambers consist of multi-
ple structures located above the vocal cords: the
upper part of the larynx, the pharynx, the nasal
cavity, the mouth.
Our voice is the only musical instrument that
is both a string and a wind instrument—as the
breath causes the vocal cords to vibrate. It is
almost an orchestra unto itself. All this gives
each of us a particular, unique vocal imprint;
there are seven billion humans, seven billion dif-
ferent voices. Scientific American’s French-lan-
guage sister publication Cerveau & Psycho talked
about the wonders of the voice with Paris-based
Jean Abitbol, an ear, nose and throat physician,
phoniatrician and craniofacial surgeon.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How important is the voice to a person’s
self-identity?
It is indeed an essential component. We see this very
clearly when we operate on patients to change their
voice; their self-identity is strongly disrupted. For exam-
ple, I met a lawyer who had a very deep, masculine voice
because of an edema on her vocal cords caused by her
smoking. (She smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.) She
had a great charm and authority in her profession, where
she interacted with criminals on a daily basis. (“My world
is the prisons; I defend all the thugs,” she told me.) But
she wanted to change her voice, which her fiancé didn't
like, and asked me to operate on her. I advised her to
change her fiancé instead! She burst out laughing and
had the operation done by a colleague.
When I saw her again, she had a very high-pitched
voice and told me something terrible: “I am schizophren-
ic about my voice.” She no longer recognized herself when
she spoke and was seized by the impression that “it
wasn't her,” that it was someone else speaking. The con-
sequences were terrible: her fiancé had left her, she could
no longer work, she lost all her court cases, she had no
authority, she no longer dared to open her mouth in pris-
on.... Not because her voice had become higher-pitched,
but because there was a sort of rupture of harmony with
who she was, a conflict with herself, a feeling of loss of
identity that destabilized her. She started smoking again,
recovered her voice in two or three years, and gradually
regained influence in her professional life.
I imagine that a change in your voice is also
disturbing to people around you.
That’s well put. Imagine that from one day to the next,
your spouse or your children no longer sound the same.
This is what happened to one of my patients, a 36-year-
old woman. She had suffered from vocal cord paralysis
since the age of nine or 10 following a viral infection of
the vagus nerve, which controls the vocal cords. This gave
her a voice like a whisper, with no power. She had to use
a bell to call her husband or children!
I injected her with a substance that allows the vocal
cords to become flexible again, and she recovered in two
weeks. But she no longer recognized herself: “Doctor, I
have a woman's voice!” She had never known this voice
before because her paralysis dated back to before puber-
ty. The experience was still very positive for her. She no
longer felt like a strange beast. But her family felt unset-
tled. After the operation, her husband asked me a ques-
tion with some irritation in his voice: “What have you
done to her? She’s not my wife anymore.” The same goes
for her children: “She’s not Mom anymore!” Two months
later, having gotten used to the change, they came to
apologize and tell me that they thought it was great. But
their first reaction had been to feel usurped, as if some-
thing had been stolen from them.
All of this illustrates the extreme caution that must be
exercised before making changes to the voice apparatus.
It’s emotional surgery. When you have appendicitis, you
operate on it, but if you detect a growth on the vocal
Guillaume Jacquemont is an editor at Cerveau & Psycho
and author of La Science des Reves (The Science of Dreams)
(Flammarion, 2020).
