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Why We Avoid The Sound Of Our Own Voice
…and why we shouldn’t.
Do you remember the first time you heard your own voice? I mean a recording of your voice, of course. I sure do remember. I think I wanted to be a journalist at some point during my childhood, and I got a portable tape recorder as a birthday present. (Later, as a teenager, I would sneak it into my favourite concerts to try and capture the moment — bootleg sound-desk recordings weren’t as available as they are now — but that is a story for another thought.)
An Awful Experience
The object of this article is the awful first experience of listening to a recording of our voice. Why is it that everyone hates hearing themselves for the first time? Since I’ve been producing, mixing and mastering my own songs for the past few years, I’ve listened to my voice probably more than it is healthy, to a point where I’ve managed to dissociate it from me, so I can treat it like just another track. I’m used to the me that sings back: it is almost like a different person, the pest I have to work with in every production. However, when it comes to video, I feel extremely uncomfortable watching myself.
Dissonance
The obvious reason is that there is a discordance between how we think we sound and look and how others hear and see us. We cannot perceive…