“Every child, woman, and man should possess license to speak or sing in his or her true voice.”
~ Joyce Maynard
“You sound like a frog. Just shut up!”
I have carried those words delicately ever since they were addressed to me in 2010 by a teacher whose name I do not remember. When she uttered them, her voice hitting like a hail of bullets, I lost my confidence; I lost my voice. And I vowed to change myself, no matter the cost. A silly resolution, I would come to realise.
It was one of those free days that leads to the end of the session party, and we, pupils of this private primary school, are packed in the small classroom we have converted into a makeshift rehearsal space. Each student is afforded the opportunity to choose whichever club they want to belong to, and because I love music and might have the voice for it, I decide to paint myself onto the soulful walls of the music club. Except that the brush with which I paint is my voice.
The choir is practising ‘The Welcome Song’, and in my mind’s eyes, I am imagining our parents on that ceremonial day, seated beneath elegantly festooned canopy shades, next to the High Table. Eagerly anticipated, our entrance, usually accompanied by the strains of the welcome song, would precede the MC’s summons for the school’s director inaugural address. We would all stand, wearing immaculate uniforms, arranged in rows and columns, right before the High Table. Our young voices, in a synchronised cadence, would reverberate through the amplifiers. Music is one of the few things I love as a child, aside from house chores and reading my sister’s romance novels and story books. And it is with that energy that I strain my voice to sing, but then this teacher commands the choir to stop, walks up to me, and says, “You’re the one spoiling my song!” Then she turns to the other teacher, Ms. Grace, as though seeking her agreement, avalidation. But Ms. Grace says nothing. So, she returns to me, “You sound like a frog. Just shut up!” Her voice fills with disgust as she mutters, “a boy who behaves like a girl.”
In this instant, I sink, deflated, and I will remain this way for the rest of my adolescence and teenage years. I retreat into a sinkhole, behind which is a heap of fear and self-doubt, and which will crush my self-esteem in every other aspect of life.
Now, in retrospect, I wonder if the reason why those words had such a profound impact on me was because I had always been a quiet and introspective child, struggling to accept the frivolities of the world, its loudness and chaos. Perhaps I might’ve been able to brush off the teacher’s words if I was a little more stoic. But the guess is that I thought myself weak, so I let them dagger deep into my bones, which caused a self-imposed paralysis. I cannot help but think that perhaps ‘tougher’ boys wouldn’t have cared one bit. Maybe this was the problem with me—letting in things that should/may not matter, matter. A tower of stones piling up in my throat.
I am twenty-two today, but I still clearly hear those words ringing in my ear, the angry voice of the teacher, as if she they are standing right in front of me, spitting venom with every word. I am still trying to not offend people with the sound of my voice. Even now, I find myself constantly (and unconsciously) trying to modulate my voice to avoid offending others by sounding too ‘girly’. It feels like a constant battle to sound like what the society defines as “a proper” man.
Sometimes, when it gets too bad, I silently detest God for this voice. How hard would it have been for Him to make me sound like my good friend and buddy, Ejiro? Like my younger brother, Ebuka? Like many of the other guys I know? It seems unfair that I was born with a voice that draws so much attention and ridicule.
I think of myself as a thing of shame, all because the teacher’s truest reason for likening my voice to that of a frog is because there was this pure feminine aesthetic to it. People had pointed out this fact to me in the past, but I had not really thought to care about it because they did not speak about it with such hate, with such vitriol, as though my voice (something that is not my making) is a curse not to be reckoned with.
*
Often, the telecom customer service officers respond to my greeting with, “How can I help you, ma?” I stall before explaining that I am a man. And what’s more embarrassing is what follows next: “Oh, please forgive me, sir,” and said with a voice laced with pity.
So, when I am on a call with a stranger, I try to feign a deep masculine voice. I don’t know how much of a fool I make myself, but this self-pretence gives me some sense of self-protection, and why does the snail own a shell if not for this purpose?
Once, during a group video call with my secondary school classmates, someone, one of the sweetest persons I know till date, remarked that I had finally reached puberty.
“I am proud of you,” she said. “You finally sound like a man.”
Contentment danced in my chest like little excited atilogwu dancers. I said, “Before nkor,” which was to show what their recent approval meant to me.
The other classmates agreed with her. My growth into puberty (which was to say I had finally had a deeper voice) became the subject of discussion, and I was somehow glad it was.
I know that this person, Emilia Ngwueze, would love me, even if my voice droned like a miller’s engine or chirped like a sparrow’s, or even a frog’s, and I didn’t need to pretend with her. But for self-protection, especially with the other mates whose voices broke through my ear drums, I had to swallow a goose and smear its poo around the wall of my throat so that my thin voice amplified like the wail of a baleen whale. Everyone agreed with her. My growth into puberty and my supposedly deeper voice became the subject of discussion, and I was somehow glad it was.
*
For the Kingdom
Last December, I am freestyling at a party organized by the fellowship I attend in campus for the graduating students, when a young man, about my age, turns and says, “You have a lovely voice,” his voice laced with the same sheer excitement on his face.“So you don’t sing in the choir?”
I tell him that I’m in the choir. “But I’m hidden in a shell, sorta.”
“Your MD hasn’t heard you sing before?”
“They surely have, and they always tell me I’m one of the best vocalists in the choir, too—which I find a little too exaggerated—but can they force me to open my mouth to sing?” I say as politely as I can be.
“I’m sorry, but don’t you think you would most likely go to hell fire if you don’t use the voice to draw men to God? Your voice is what will save some people, if you don’t know.”
I laugh and let the conversation slip away because lately, I’ve been doubting the concept of hell and heaven, about the Scriptures.
I would later think about what he said, about the saving power behind my voice after a good friend, Joan, an usher at this same fellowship, began to reiterate his point every time we crossed paths. the same sentiments about the anointing behind my voice and its capability of bringing salvation.
“Bube, you’re so good and you don’t know it. There is such great anointing behind your voice,” she said. “The first time you led the worship here, you don’t know it, but that was the beginning of my Salvation. …Someone else met me to say the same thing about your voice. It doesn’t only make one cry, but it brings salvation close to them.”
Suddenly, guilt engulfed me. How many people I must’ve sent to hell because I refused to use my voice for God. How many souls have been perishing because of me?
That night I cried in my room and told God to have mercy on me, told Jesus to intercede on my behalf, said I didn’t want to go to hell, even though I still had my doubts about the place. I promised to do better, to try out special songs, to sing every opportunity I get, to spread the Gospel with my voice.
But again, I failed. Completely. The teacher’s disdainful words returned and I convince myself that I have the voice of a frog and it is a disturbance to the ears of men.
*
I have since struggled with projecting my voice, often wrestling with the embarrassment that follows after people say to me, “You have just spoken to yourself, we didn’t hear anything” right after I dropped the mic at an event.
Once, a man, who’s now a deacon in my family church, told me to “Speak up like a man” to the hearing of the congregation because, apparently no one heard my contribution to a Bible Study discussion session. I was overwhelmed by an embarrassment that had me begging for redemption. It was not just the words he said, but the way he said it, that deep, condescending tone he’d used, which was designed to humiliate. Some might call it “correction in love” (as such instances are labelled in the church), but what is love when it comes with ridicule? When it leaves you with a strong sense of inadequacy?
I have, ever since those incidents, been learning to project my voice at least, even as I struggle to break from my shell, so that a crowd can hear me without thinking I am inaudible, timid, or shy.
**
Once, in a valiant attempt at altering myself, I considered using a voice changer app on my mobile device, especially if I must call strangers. Revoice and Voice Change Plus might’ve been at the top of the list if the year was 2023, but a part of me considered it fraudulent.
So I consulted Google for answers and it offered the following solution:
- Try to use your chest voice. To understand whether you are using your chest or head voice, put a hand on your chest (near your collarbone) and your other hand on top of your head. Then talk in your normal voice. If your head hand vibrates more, then you are using your head voice and vice-versa.
- If you are using your head voice, then make a low growling sound. This should force you to use your chest voice. Then, try to replicate the feeling of using your ‘growl’ voice while talking. This will take a while! Don’t give up! You will need to try hard or this will not work.
- Whatever you do, if you are a head voice user, don’t just lower your voice! It sounds super unnatural! Once you can use your chest voice comfortably, you can play around with range.
- Listen to boys!! I cannot stress this enough!! Even if you are great at chest voice and think you sound super masculine, you will need to learn male speech patterns. That is something you cannot do without listening to boys. Listen to your siblings, youtubers, and podcasts. Make sure you are listening to someone that has a similar accent to you, unless you want to pick up a strange accent instead of good speech patterns.
Google’s brother-sister says:
If you breathe and do exercises to open your voice, you’ll be able to find the range, from the highest to the lowest pitches you can produce. Then, you can practice using those pitches to grow your voice.
Google’s mother says:
Raising the laryngeal cartilage raises your pitch and creates a more feminine sound. Dropping the laryngeal cartilage drops your pitch and creates a more masculine sound.
I tried it all butnone really worked.
Everyone must not sound alike, I have learned to assure myself. It is in fact an imbalance should every man sound like every man, and every woman like every woman. These are our little differences. What made me unique. And the earlier I come to a realisation that such minor things l don’t matter, the earlier I move on.
About the Author:
Orji Victor Ebubechukwu is Igbo. He lives and writes from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. His works have appeared in Open Country Magazine, African Writer Magazine, Iskanchi Magazine, Breakbread Literary Magazine, Afritondo Magazine and elsewhere. He’s available on all social media platformsas @BubeOrji.
*Feature image by BRUNO CERVERA on Unsplash
