D: On today's A Moment of Science ...On today's A Moment of Science. Which      sounds better to you, Yael?

Y: I'm not sure. Why don't you play it back?

D: I don't like the sound of my voice on tape. Doesn't everyone think that they sound      funny on tape?

Y: Probably. Your familiar voice is really a combination of two voices. You hear your      external voice, the voice that everyone else hears, and your internal voice, a voice      that only you can hear. Both the external and internal voices begin with the vocal      cords, but your external voice is made of sound waves that have traveled out of your      mouth, through the air and into your ears and into the ears of other people. Your      internal voice is made up of the sound waves that travel through the bones and      tissues of your head: these structures transmit sound waves directly from your throat      to your ear. When you hear yourself on tape, you don't hear the familiar internal      voice, just the external voice, so you sound strange to yourself but quite normal to      everyone else.

D: But what about my great Carey Grant impression? If the voice I hear is a      combination, I can't really know what I sound like to other people. How do singers      and impersonators know that they've got it right?

Y: You can be trained to hear your external voice more clearly. Professional singers also      use techniques that help them sing by focusing on how the right notes feel rather than      how they sound.  

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