

Before your growth spurt, your larynx is relatively small and your vocal cords are relatively thin. That’s kind of what happens to your voice. When a thicker string is plucked, it sounds much deeper when it vibrates. When a thin string is plucked, it vibrates and produces a high-sounding tone. All of these factors cause your voice to get deeper.

Cavities in the sinuses, the nose, and the back of the throat grow bigger, creating more space in the face that gives your voice more room to echo. (You can notice this difference in how they feel as you adjust your speech.)Īs your larynx grows, your vocal cords grow longer and thicker. When you make your voice higher, your vocal cords tighten. When you lower your voice, your vocal cords are relaxed and more floppy. Air from your lungs is then forced out between your vocal cords, causing them to vibrate and produce the tone of your voice. When you speak, though, your vocal cords close together by stretching across the larynx. When you breathe, your vocal cords relax against the walls of the larynx and completely open to allow air to get in and out of your lungs. Stretched across your larynx are two muscles, your vocal cords, which are kind of like rubber bands. The larynx is responsible for creating the sound of your voice. The larynx, which is located in the throat at the top of the trachea (pronounced: TRAY-kee-uh) or windpipe, is like a hollow tube about 2 inches (5 centimeters) high. For starters, a guy’s larynx (pronounced: LAIR –inks), also known as the voice box, grows bigger.

What Causes My Voice to Change?Īt puberty, guys’ bodies begin producing a lot of the hormone testosterone (pronounced: tes-TOSS-tuh-rone), which causes changes in several parts of the body, including the voice. A guy’s voice gets way deeper than a girl’s, though. It’s one of the many developments that happen to both girls and guys when they reach puberty. In fact, everything feels normal - but nothing sounds right.ĭan’s voice is changing. The next minute, he can barely get through a sentence without his voice sounding like it’s out of control: high one minute, low the next, then high again.
