Seriously. I’ve heard myself sing before (it’s quite awful, actually) and I think it’s pretty safe to say my singing voice can be characterized as “okay” at best. But for some crazy reason when I’m singing in the shower, I sound great! No, it’s not all in my head (or at least I dont think so). My roommate actually commented on it!
:eek:
What’s the deal? Am I imagining the difference in the sound of my voice? Am I exaggerating how horrible I sound outside of the shower? Is my roommate tone deaf? Help me out…
It is true that we sound different singing in the shower, which can be interpreted to sound ‘better’ for a solid physical reason! The answer lies in the word ‘resonance’ - this is so because bathrooms are constructed mostly of hard surfaces that reflect sound waves back to the singer. Air is also trapped in those chambers. The echoes caused by bathroom singing seem very pleasant. You may also notice that when you sing, there are one or more frequencies (pitches) that sound louder or stronger than all the rest. This extra loud resonance is the excitation of another body, in this case, the walls of the shower, and the air contained therein. The shower walls vibrate because they have naturally resounding frequencies at specific pitches. The composition of a body (the shower walls) is particularly sensitive to vibrations of unique and specific frequencies. Now, instead of these surfaces simply reflecting the vibrations from one’s singing, the wall itself begins vibrating at that frequency, transmitting its vibrations and those of the original sound source, thus adding power to the original sound. In fact, those sounds are quite a bit louder than all other pitches. So go ahead and try it if you have not - sing in the shower and see if you really sound better! Regarding the toilet paper…bawling is generally not thought of as singing…
x-ray: I think what you are thinking of is standing frequencies. It’s not the wall or tiles vibrating, it’s the sound getting “trapped” and bouncing back and forth between the walls.
Most empty rooms can have standing frequencies.
There is a method to figure it out. I forget it but it’s based on the distance between the parallel wals, the frequency and the speed of the frequency.
As for the OP: you sound better in the shower because you can hear yourself better. Normally you hear your own voice AS it’s spoken. In the shower there is a momentay delay before you hear it -the time it takes to bounce off the walls and hit your ears. Also, because of the voice bouning around the room and returning to your ears at slightly different times, this causes an effect which makes your voice sound fuller (which it is because you are hearing your voice several times over)
This effect is commonly used in recording and is called reverb (reverberation).
I’ve worked with singers in the studio that couldn’t hit the right tones unless I fed their voice with a slight reverb back to their headphones.
Another thing related to this. Have you ever seen radio announcers cup their hand over their ear with their palm down by their chin? This is to direct the sound from their mouth to their ear so they can better hear what their voice sounds like on the air. These days it’s not a common practice because of headphone use, but some still do it (eeeerm… like me)
It’s quite easy, if there are two walls 4 meters appart, and the speed of sound is taken to be 433 m/s, then it takes roughly 0.012 seconds for a sound wave to cross the room, which means that it will travel back and forth 86 times per seconds. The effect of this is that frequencies that are multiples of 86 Hz will find themselves amplified. This is called comb filtering.
In a shower, the walls are not only very reflective, but also very close to each other, much more than they would be in other situations, bringing the fundamental up and making the effect all the more noticeable. This is just a WAG, though, but I wonder if the round shape of the bath tub plays any part in focusing the sound back to the signer.
Note that in our national pastime here, karaoke, a similar end is served by drowning the voice of the signer in cheap echo and reverberation.
That’s a very high value for the speed of sound. I estimate the temperature in your room to be about 450 K. Down here at STLP the speed of sound is more like 310 m/s (some older references give 330 m/s)
Another point to consider is that if you can hear your own voice better, chances are you’re going to stay on pitch better, too. This is why rock bands have monitor speakers…
Doh! The number I meant to use of course, was 340 m/s, but somehow, you know, all those digits got mixed up and, well, you know… Anyway, 340 m/s is the rule-of-thumb value I was taught to use for not-so precise calculations, I obviously didn’t bother to calculate what it would be at shower temperature.
If anyone cares, supposing that the temperature inside the shower is 35 degrees celsius, the speed of sound would be 352.64 m/s. At that speed, two walls 2 m appart would create a comb filtering effect with a fundamental at 176.32 Hz. Which sounds about right.
Don’t you SDopers remember the “Flinstone Kids” where (teen) Bam-Bam is overheard singing in the shower, and everyone wants him to perform. So, Pebbles and the rest of the gang build him a portable shower for various performances. Maybe this is an idea for the OP to try? - Jinx
Oddly enough, Fred and the Water Buffalos had to adopt a similar arrangement to accommodate Barney’s idiosyncratic musical talent, in The Flintstones: TOS.
I’m sure the reverb thing is very significant, but I believe the sound of running water may also contribute to the effect; many people who have not been trained to sing will sing ‘from their throat’ as opposed to ‘from their belly’ (I know the term is physiologically misleading) - resulting in a ‘breathy’ or ‘nasal’ sound; the (pseudo)white noise of running water in a shower masks some of the higher ‘breathy’ sounds and higher frequencies, making the overall perceived voice richer in tone.
