This article was originally written in Turkish and has been translated into English with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The translation may contain errors; the original Turkish version is the authoritative text.
The years pass very quickly, and before we realise how they have gone by, we look back and see that the weariness of those years has slowly begun to settle on us. Just as things we have used for a long time wear out, wear has begun in our bodies too. We find ourselves missing the years gone by. We tire more quickly, and we miss the years when we rarely went to the doctor. The years have begun to wear down our organs — and woe betide us if we did not look after them in our youth.
Does our voice also get its share of this wear, or in other words of oxidation? Just as none of our cells can resist ageing, our voice too gets its share of it. The cells of the vocal cords (vocal muscles) change. Research has found that women’s voices become lower as they age. This lowering is much more marked in those who smoked in their youth, and even more so in those who also drank alcohol. In men, by contrast, it has been found that the voice becomes higher with age. Until puberty, girls’ and boys’ voices sound the same; but at the ages of 13 to 15, the transition to puberty, together with a number of changes in the body, the voice — a secondary sexual characteristic — changes rapidly, and in boys it drops by about two and a half octaves. The clearest example of the relationship between voice and age is this: when a child is born, the frequency of its first cry averages 500 Hz, but as the baby grows, the voice becomes lower and this frequency drops, for example, to about 275 Hz by the age of eight.
If we ask whether the ageing of the human voice matters, what answer should we expect? The answer must be yes. The voice is one of the most important means of human expression, and using it effectively is becoming more important in working life every day. With the proportion of young people in societies falling day by day, life expectancy rising, and people’s interest in a beautiful voice, our voice will always remain in the foreground.
The ageing of the voice does not run parallel to actual ageing; other factors also play a part. I mentioned one of these factors above. In addition, if professional singers, broadcasters, teachers, actors and others who earn their living with their voice used their voices carelessly and incorrectly in their youth, their voices will age more quickly. Is it possible to delay the ageing of the voice? As we age, all bodily functions begin to deteriorate. Among these, strength, speed, endurance, balance, coordination, nerve conduction speed, and heart and kidney function are important. Ligaments become thinner and weaker. The smooth movement of the joints becomes stiff. The vocal cords (muscles) lose their elasticity, and because their collagen fibres decrease, they become thinner and deteriorate. The changes in the voice of older people are due to this. However, because this deterioration varies from person to person, it is difficult to say that the voice ages at a particular age. Because there are very great differences in the structure of the voice among older people, the view that ageing can be delayed is widespread among voice scientists. The years we have lived do not show our biological age. Even if ageing is unavoidable, it can be delayed up to a point. To delay the ageing of our voice, we should do voice exercises just like professional singers, and especially opera singers. At the start of a new season after a long holiday, these artists work hard to bring their voices back into their former shape, because they have not used them during the long summer break. They do breathing exercises. Since the diaphragm also ages day by day and loses its former sensitivity, diaphragm work is very important. Minor medical interventions can also be made: for example, by giving oestrogen to a woman who has entered menopause, structural deterioration of the vocal organ can be prevented for a time. As we age, personality changes, thyroid disorders, diseases of the nervous system, dry mouth due to reduced salivary gland activity, loss of teeth, hearing loss, high blood pressure, diabetes, anaemia and arthritis — together with the side effects of the medicines we take to treat these conditions — all affect the quality of our voice negatively. A balanced diet, exercise, voice and diaphragm exercises and watching our weight, on the other hand, help our voice stay young for many years.