As a 13-year-old, when he settled down to do his daily music practice, he realised that he could not sing beyond two notes. He panicked. He thought he had lost his voice. His guru consoled him, saying it was but a normal phenomenon of boys breaking voice' in their adolescence. It took him a few months to settle down at a lower pitch. Soon, his voice and pitch changed forever. Today, TM Krishna, 34, is one among the top line carnatic vocalists.
Voice-break, which happens to boys between the ages of 11 and 15, can be sudden or gradual. At the onset of puberty, the larynx grows larger and thicker. Though it happens in both boys and girls, the change is more evident in boys. Increasingly, many music teachers and parents are faced with problems of high dropouts or heartbreaks among teenage boys.
"When I see my students going through voice-break, I tell them to relax. I don't give them rigorous voice training," Krishna said after inaugurating the Voice Update Conference 2010 organised by Sri Ramachandra University. "It can be tough on today's students who have better stage exposure. It can be equally difficult for the teacher," he said.
Two muscles, called the vocal cords, are stretched across the voice box, larynx. The cords are like elastic bands and when a person speaks air rushes from the lungs and the cords vibrate to produce voice. The pitch of the voice (shruti) is controlled by how tightly the vocal cord muscles contract as the air from the lungs hits them. Children have smaller and thinner cords, which is why their pitch is higher than an adult's voice. For boys, the cords grow along with the larynx, become thicker and hence the voice becomes deeper. The frequency of the vibrating vocal cords may go from 200 times per second to around 130 slower and deeper. The deep voice lowers the pitch.
"A girl's voice normally doesn't deepen much. But in boys, the change is significant. They struggle to pitch it even while they are speaking, forget singing," says Prakash Boominathan, associate professor, department of speech, Sri Ramachandra University. Many young boys come to voice labs with a cracked voice. "They all need help to stabilise their pitch. We do it with equipment that maps the pitch and suggest corrections. In addition to this, many would require counselling. We draw examples from famous singers to tell them how the new, deeper voice could be even more stable and easier to control," he said.
Doctors advise teachers and parents to allow boys undergoing this transition to enjoy the aesthetics of music and study more theory to help them understand the change. "Some music teachers do the wrong thing by forcing the student to try harder, resulting in strain and voice abuse. This could end their career early. We suggest minimum practical classes during these times," Boominathan said.
Home 
Publications 
Calendar
good read!