Dr. Reena Gupta

Samara chats with the internationally renowned voice doc about how to speak in our natural pitch (and all the drama that comes with that), what vocal fry is really doing to us, and our biases against women’s voice--and what we can all do to listen with more generous ears.

****To send Samara a question for our upcoming ASK ME ANYTHING episode visit PermissiontoSpeakPod.com or drop a DM or voice message to @permissiontospeakpod on IG****

Host: Samara Bay

Executive producers: Catherine Burt Cantin & Mark Cantin, Double Vision doublevisionprojects.com

Producers: Samara Bay, Sophie Lichterman and the iHeart team

Theme music: Mark Cantin

 For Dr. Gupta on social: @reenagupta & @centerforvocalhealth

For more of Julia Gillard's interview on The Guilty Feminist podcast: youtube.com/watch?v=F4LikYajJOE

For the AOC link: youtube.com/watch?v=TJlpS4vhKP0

For more info on honoring native lands: usdac.us/nativeland

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's quote is from Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister
of Australia. Make sure that as you step along your
leadership journey, you were studying the gendered bits so that
you're not there thinking this is happening to me because
I'm not good enough, or this is happening to me
just because of some eccentric reason about me. Your understanding

(00:21):
when there are gendered things going on and you've thought
in advance what you will do in that moment, and
it's one thing to call it out yourself, and that
might be a great strategy from time to time, but
it's another thing to have reached out to people who
can assist you in that moment. I don't think we
should put all of the burden on women who want
to be leaders to address the sexism. I think everybody,

(00:42):
men and women should be calling it out for them.
Our voice is a reflection of our life experience, where
we've been and who we've listened to. But we can
also own it and even change it if we want.

(01:03):
This is the podcast that's all about the voice, but
it's also all about power. Who has it, how we
get it, and how we sound when we have it.
I'm Samarve. I'm a dialect coach for actors in Hollywood
on projects like the upcoming Wonder Woman's sequel, and I'm
also a speech coach for entrepreneurs, politicians, creatives, and women
everywhere who need to use their voice to get what

(01:25):
they want. Welcome to permission to speak. Let's do this.
On today's episode, we have Dr Rena Gupta. She's a laryngologist,
which means a doctor who specializes in disorders and diseases

(01:47):
and injuries of the vocal apparatus. She's one of the
world's leading experts on the voice and especially for professional
singers and actors, people who rely on their voice for
what they do. And she's an utter delight. She's young,
she's cool. She has a nose piercing, which I asked
her about in terms of its relation to vocal production.

(02:09):
I wanted to have her on for obvious reasons, but
I really relished getting to ask her specifically about some
of the things that women get maligned for, like vocal fry,
to find out if we're actually hurting ourselves. What my
old teacher at acting school used to call with a
scary sternness in his voice, bad usage or if we

(02:30):
just seem to be hurting ourselves in that way where
male dominant society tells us what's good for us, and
what is it and why did we get into it
in terms of the assumptions and judgments that we're all
guilty of making about other women's voices. Also, listening back
to this one, which we recorded before coronavirus, I was
struck by our discussion about how much we injure our

(02:51):
voices on a night out. That's the cold comfort now
that we're all homebound. But I hope you enjoyed this
chat and get some insight about your own voice and
some really practical tips for keeping it healthy and free.
Her book comes out in a new edition this week,
so follow her on Instagram for all the details, including

(03:12):
a new title at Rena Gupta m D. That's r. E.
N A Gupta, m D. And also at Center for
Vocal Health, both of which I will link to in
the show notes. This is Dr Rena Gupta. It's like
sports medicine for the voice, right, because vocal sports is singing,

(03:35):
is acting, it's long form audiobook narration, it's voiceover work.
This is really athletic task on that one body part.
That's my best analogy sports medicine of the voice. Okay,
who comes to you and what they tend to need.
My practice is almost entirely singers, actors, and then I
will get a smattering of teachers, lawyers when it's a

(03:57):
rough day, a doctor, but really people who because they're
using their voice in such a finesse and fine tuned way,
they're noticing minute issues with their voice more than a
lay person. So my actor and singer and voiceover population
are people who are noticing that in my fourth hour

(04:17):
of work, in the tippy top of my range and
these little minute aberrations, they're noticing it, and they're coming
in for basically helped to figure out why is it
happening and what do I need to do about it?
Is it medical? Is it therapeutic? Is its surgical? And
that's my wheelhouse, and there's anxiety around that. There is
so much emotion in my exam room. I think, and

(04:40):
I you know, I take this really seriously because I
give the analogy of like I'm a surgeon, and if
I am going to a hand doctor because something's not
quite right, I am going in with a lot of
emotional intensity I'm panicking that the entire life that I've
built is being jeopardized by this symptom that I don't
know what the cause is. And my patients come to

(05:02):
me like that, and I would say a good of
them are crying by the end of an appointment, for good,
bad or otherwise. It's not always bad news, truly. Sometimes
they're like, I have been living in fear for months,
and what a relief to know that it is something
as simple as X, Y and Z. So it is
extremely emotional. It's why a lot of people delay coming in.

(05:24):
Fear is a really big motivator. Is the wrong word?
What's the word? Fears? A big delayer. Fear holds people back,
it does. And then when they come in, what sort
of thing do you do to figure out what's happening
on the inside? You know, there's there's what you're alluding to,
which is looking in the inside, and that's office based.

(05:44):
It's painless, it's really easy, and we do this, you know,
ten to twenty times a day. But my forte, I think,
is in assembling the story of their voice symptoms, listening
to the sound of their voice and putting that together
to know and I look in this is what I'm
going to see because I don't like to treat the picture.
I don't like to look at their vocal cords and say, ah,

(06:07):
this is what's causing it, because then you run the
risk of misattributing cause and effect, right, because there are
a lot of things that could be wrong on your
chords that even fixing it is not going to fix
the symptom that brought you in. So I have to
be really attentive to what brought you here today. What
are the problems you're dealing with, and how do I
fix those? And do I care or not about the

(06:27):
little bump we just found in your vocal cord. It
might be of no consequence. You may have had that
since you were a baby, you know, and you were
sick and coughing. You never know. And when we're talking
about the vocal cords, we're talking about something that's the
size of a nickel. Yes, like people don't necessarily know
what's in there. Yeah, And what I got from doing
some research in preparation for talking with you, although it

(06:48):
doesn't actually come up that much with the work that
I do, is just what an insane like, you know,
tangle of muscles and nerves is in there and around there. Yeah,
it's a really, really complex design, and I think it
is truly astounding that something that is the size of

(07:08):
the diameter of a nickel can produce four octaves of
musical note, can convey emotion, can It's truly it's a
design that is so exquisite that no instrument that's man
made can replicate it, I mean nothing, And then what
do we do to funk with that? So, I mean
the obvious question is about vocal fry and up speak

(07:30):
some of the things that are associated with women. I
don't think it serves us to be so pedantic about this.
One thing is good or bad, except for objectively good
or bad things, right like smoking is always going to
negatively affect your voice, Screaming is always going to make
your cords swollen. Now, there is a little bit for
women that we do tend to in certain geographical areas.

(07:54):
We might up speak more, we might settle into fry
at the end of our sentences case in point. But
there's reasons humanizing. Yes, exactly, I'm not perfect. How did
you guess? Well? And we can also discuss a vocal
fry equals imperfect. I mean, I have a lot of
opinions about this as somebody who works with a lot
of women on how to sound more powerful in the

(08:15):
moments that matter. And you know a lot of us
have grown up with social cues that tell us not
only the vocal fry is standard and is how your
friends sound and is what normal sounds like, but also
it does sometimes even help us get what we want
in certain scenarios because it makes us really unintimidating. And
what is wrong with any of that? I actually could

(08:35):
not say it better. I think that fry is if
you over focus on it and you're trying to eliminate it,
you come out unnatural. It comes off. You know this,
this is how you were raised, This is what your
social upbringing kind of coached you too. And if you
know how to use your voice, not as vocal chords voice,

(08:57):
but you know how to deliver voice, then it doesn't
matter or those little I don't know, those little aberrations
of sound, they just don't bother me. I think up speak,
I'm not doing this on parpen. I have a little
bit more of a bone to pick with that, because
I think it actually detracts from the point, and I
think that is less widespread. Fry to some degree, especially

(09:21):
for women, is a little bit uncontrollable at the end
of a sentence. It has to do with the way
we drop pitch, and that the chords kind of vibrate
a little bit more loosely. And if we do have
any little bit of injury, that's when it becomes amplified.
And most of us do have little bitty bitty injuries,
and so fry kind of is the sound for any rattle,
is a name for any rattle at the end of

(09:41):
a sentence, say more about those injuries. I know you
said something in your book singers lead the most boring lives. Yeah,
and by singers, obviously in this case, we can use
that as a standard for anyone who uses their voice
for their profession. But you use this metaphor that when
we go out to party the next day, we just
expect our voice going to sound raspy, and that that's

(10:01):
sort of like an a socially acceptable you know, Oh wow,
you must have partied hard. You're so cool. And if,
for example, every time we went out at night, we
woke up the next day and our vision was blurry,
we might take that a little bit more seriously exactly,
And I think the reasons we sort of excuse it
is number one, the voice is pretty forgiving. It recovers, right,

(10:22):
It recovers to the best of a lay person's test ability. Right,
I can talk again. I sound like myself again. The
little injuries that are happening in those moments don't affect
most people because they're just not using their voices to
their maximum ability. That's what professional voice users do, and
so it is still a body part. It is still

(10:42):
something that when you quote lose your voice, it is
either extreme swelling of your chords or little bruises, and
bruises result in injury. So I'm not as casual about it.
But I also know, as somebody who has lived that
life to some degree, that when I have my own
vocal chords exam, I'm like, Okay, that's that's injury. Do

(11:02):
I sound injured? No? But I trip up very easily, right,
Like if I get sick, I lose my voice very quickly.
I don't always have good singing voice days. You know,
some days are really limited because that those little injuries
from teen years they kind of get amplified as you
get more and more extensive in your voice. Use are
you still singing? Not as much as I want to be? Yes,

(11:24):
Q accepted. I will, I will do, I will dive
back in. I know. Yeah, you've certainly sort of publicly
spoken about your history starting when you were ten, of
wanting to be a professional singer, and then obviously the
tables turned at some point and you became somebody who
supports singers. But also obviously the fire never went out.
I never died. I've always loved the singing voice. I've

(11:46):
studied it my whole life. And you know, I'm immigrant parents, physician,
immigrant Indian parents. The artistic route was not as available
to me as perhaps others, or I didn't avail myself
of it it because I didn't I didn't really see
a path forward for myself. But it never really left
my heart, like you said, and so I always pursued

(12:08):
opportunities to sing, and I kind of it really took
me until I would say, practicing laryngology to understand how
those young years really do influence your focal health. And
I mean it makes sense, right, like a young athlete
who's a track star, right if their knee starts to
go in high school. You know you're going to see
that in their thirties, the voice is still a body part.

(12:30):
Do you work with people who are younger? I mean,
seek out because you appreciate the value. I seek it
out exactly for that reason, because I see the value
and I know that if you establish it at that age,
you're gonna be at a far greater advantage. But also,
these days, who's making it right? Who are the people
who are really making the art? It's these increasingly young people.

(12:52):
And how do they make it? They are out there
all the time, they are putting out content. It's such
a high frequency, it's really taxing. I mean my niece,
you know, God bless her. I think that for better
for worse, she's a little bit of a mini me. Somehow,
the genetics just got a little bit confused. And she
loves to sing, and she's a phenomenal singer. But the

(13:13):
demand that she's under vocally is so far beyond what
I did at that age, and still for her to
break through, she would have to be producing at a really,
really high level, And so the injuries are more common
because the demand is extreme these days. You work with
a lot of really high level performers. How are the

(13:34):
conversations different because you have this actual background in performance
versus a doctor who doesn't. I think that's something that
my patients have referenced almost in every visit there like
we feel like you get it. And it's not just
that I get it, it's that I care so much
about this instrument. Half the time when my patients are crying,

(13:54):
my eyes are tearing up because I'm like, oh my gosh,
like I want to hear your voice that it's best.
I want to know what your art is, and I
mean it's it's heartbreaking. And so you know, there's just
the very basic that our language is the same. I
can reference register and where they are on the keyboard,
and I know, for example, like what is aspirational for

(14:16):
a tenor versus what should be in your wheelhouse. So
when you say you're capping out here, I'm like, I
know that that's not normal. So it creates a common
language that really makes you visit much more effective. But
then the empathy that I feel is not manufactured. It
is so sincerely real. When I have a patient who's
had surgery and they're better and they're like, I feel

(14:38):
like I have my voice back. I mean the entire
purpose of the visit, I tell them, and I gets
purely selfish. I know you healed great. I want to
see you back in a month because I want to
hear your voice. And they're like, you're crazy, like I'm better,
and I'm like, I just just sing a little bit
for me so that I know that this is back
for you and um tears always. But that's that's like

(15:00):
hundred percent why I went into this, and that's why
everybody should do what they do right that that is
something that just they can't not do it. There's an
amazing then diagram meme I've seen that I've been thinking
about a lot lately. In one of the circles is
things about the world that break your heart, and the
other circle is where your unique skill set lies, and
the overlap is what you should be doing. Oh that's beautiful.

(15:24):
I mean, obviously a lot of people are not in
a position to necessarily go after what's in the middle
of then diagram, you know, overlap at any given time.
But when you are able to, when you find that place,
it was really meaningful. Yeah, that visual is really striking.
I love that. Do you listen either, too? Singers, or
to say politicians or just people you meet and kind

(15:47):
of find yourself unable to turn off, or like, what
what are you thinking about? I guess is a better
question and more positive way of thinking about it. But well,
as you're diagnosing, do I diagnose? Yes, I can't. I mean,
that's the short answer. I can't not hear it. So
with politicians, because it's so shouty. It actually does conceal
a lot. Shouting hides a lot, honestly, but it's exceedingly damaging,

(16:11):
right so, because basically what shouting is is you're pressing
really hard on your chords. You're just overclosing, and so
what we're not hearing the natural vibration of your chords,
You're just hearing pressure. Now you take that same person
and just have like a regular interview and you'll start
to hear. And that's why a lot of politicians voices
change over the course of a campaign, because in the

(16:32):
beginning there their true voice. Over the course of the campaign,
injuries accumulating most often, and then by the end of it,
you're like, okay, this is your new voice. Now you're
in your position and you're probably not going to recover
your pre voice, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's for
the dramatically worst. It could just be a small shift.
But I think that's where we a lot of the
times we assume it's aging voice, but that some of

(16:55):
that stuff is just accumulated. Injuring, you can say the
same like the singers quick accelerated, like you know exactly right.
I don't know how I came across this, but I
came across a Hillary Clinton video from when she was
first Lady, and it is worth looking up to hear
the pitch of her voice. It is you would not

(17:16):
recognize it to be Hillary Clinton. And what a lot
of the times women do is we lower our pitch
for several reasons. One is that a lower pitched voice
tends to project a little bit better. Number two is
that there's this sort of socialization that booming male voice
is more authoritative, and so if you sound to light,

(17:37):
you sound trivial, you sound dismissible, right, and so a
lot of women that's another reason a lot of us
end up in fry because fry is the lowest pitch
of our natural voice, and so it's sort of a
byproduct of Okay, if normally I'm up here, right. This
is my normal speaking pitch, but I kind of decide
I want to be authoritative, so I'm gonna be here
by the end of my sentence. I'm definitely ending up

(17:59):
in fry because is the natural tendency is to drop
pitch as we end a sentence, right, so you hear
the fry creeping in, whereas if I go with my resonant,
normal speaking voice, you might not hear it as much
at the end of a sentence. I have many follow
up questions to that, and we're going to get to
it in just a second. We are back with Dr

(18:24):
Rina gifta who knows all the things. That's all the things.
Can I also just say the only person host of
a podcast, TV show, colleague friend who has ever made
an effort to learn how to pronounce my last name.
So I would like to give you props for that. Why,
thank you? Thank you? Okay, so we're talking about pitch.
This makes me think of when you take a yoga

(18:47):
class or get a massage, your voice starts to feel
a little bit lower. Right in the theater world, we
would call us dropped in yeah, or in the basement
right yeah, phone sex voice in the basement. Sorry, little
people sound, it's it's easy with voice to go to

(19:08):
that place. Well, but that is a question, like when
we're talking about how much range and how much ownership
we can have over our sound. I've read some statistics
that women, certainly more than men, know quote unquote how
to turn our voices sexy. Yeah, so that is true,
but that to be a little bit like gender e

(19:29):
about that that. I think it is because women have
always had to be sexy, right to create this normal
version of you, and then what makes you sexy? Right?
Heals the voice, the hair that versus like men's existence
was sort of deemed to be sexy or not right,
but it wasn't like I mean that said, there is

(19:51):
a sexy mail voice. But you know, how often are
women calling for phone sex compared to men? Right? My
guess is if I were to just hypothesize that it
is more men calling for women, and so that we
have had to kind of find that version within ourselves
versus mental like, this is my voice, and it is
what it is, and you can find it sexy or not,

(20:12):
but not needing to like create a version of themselves
that is sexier for sure. What is a powerful voice
sound like to you is really my question as both
a professional and person. Okay, so here's where the person
and me and I love that you said you love
the English language. I'm a passionate English language lover as

(20:33):
well and a language lover. So that I find that
voice and the words, it's a mish mash. It's really
hard to discern. Do I love this person because I
love what they're saying or how they're saying it, or
the tone of their voice or their body language, like
it's voicing the art of speaking is so multidimensional that

(20:54):
when someone is clicking with you, you're not just saying
I love their literal tone, right, I love the tone
of the prosody of their speech. There's so much more
that will resonate with you as a human because voice
is the essential way that we connect, right, It is
the way we communicate. And so when I'm thinking about
like people who are admirable that I admire what they say,

(21:18):
I might still not be able to ever watch them
speak because I find their voice off putting or I
find their body language off putting. Let's say I'm preparing
for this and I'm like, okay, let me try to
like find some speakers that I can give an example of,
as I love these women's speakers, or these people any
woman that I was like, I really admire this woman's words.
When I would watch them speak, I'm like, I don't

(21:38):
like their voice though, right, So it was it's a
really interesting So this I don't like women's voice thing though,
is such a I mean it's having a cultural moment. Yes,
what do you think about that? And especially about as
you're feeling it coming up in you? Right? I mean,
well that was. It was really troubling because I even asked.
I asked my sister in law and like, give me
your like go women, and I wouldn't. She would send

(22:00):
me them. I'm I go, I love these women, you know,
I love what they say. And then I would listen
to them. I'm like, WHOA. I would not have expected
it to come from that voice. And so you're right,
I am having to sort of reconcile this for myself.
But I think that women have the unfortunate need to
balance being sort of powerful, which we tend to lower

(22:21):
our pitch to being passionate, because if you're not passionate
as a woman, then you seem unrelatable and cold because
women are supposed to we don't trust you exactly with
not seeming flighty and flippant because you're too happy and
too high pitched. Right, It's really it's almost a lose lose, lose,
lose lose. And I remember I pulled up this one clip.

(22:42):
It was Meet the Press, and it's a female host,
a female guest, and two male guests, and as she
introduced everybody around the table, she's smiling at the opener,
female guest is smiling at the opener, and both men
are completely stone faced. And it was just to me
as I'm watching this episod, so it unroll. The two
women are keeping their smile going. The two men are

(23:04):
not ever really smiling, and I already know why that's happening, right,
The men don't feel any need to do this, and
the women are like, if I don't smile, I'm going
to be told that I look cold rite later when
I review this tape. And so catching those own biases
within ourselves, I think is a really important way to
change that going forward and just say, you know, really

(23:27):
be more attentive to the words, but know that look
somebody like Burne Brown you really connect with her and
the way she speaks, and she's not really putting on
a lower voice. I think what we're starting to try
to shoot for is more it's an overused word, but
more authenticity. Do I really believe that this is who
you are? Or do I think you need to be

(23:49):
this for this purpose? And that's a turn off. And
I think women are still a little bit more uncomfortable
with owning where we are at and that who I
am is okay? Partly because of that, you know, as
you said, lose, lose, lose. I think the official term
is double bind, right, that there is just you know,
if you're if you're trying to seem both powerful and
also extremely likable, that's a hard package to also be

(24:11):
trying to communicate real thoughts. And isn't it funny that,
as a woman that I find myself doing the very
thing that is so cumbersome to women? You know, it's
it's the point of this podcast, quite honestly, that is it,
because we have to a work on what our own
authentic voice might be, not just in private scenarios, but

(24:34):
in more and more public as we perhaps have more
and more opportunities no matter what we're doing in our
career or in our activism, or in our you know,
whatever destiny. But also we have to think about us
as listeners. What do you want to hear? I mean,
I have the story that happened about a year and
a half ago that I think was the initial spark
for what ended up becoming this podcast, which is that

(24:56):
I went to hear Alexandro Costio Cortez when she came
through l A. She had just won the primary, which
was a huge deal, but hadn't yet won the general.
And I told my mom. As I was driving over,
I called her and I said I was on my
way to this and she said, oh good, she needs you.
And I was like, my you know, extremely feminist, fulbright scholar,
you know, kept her maiden name. Mom says this, and

(25:18):
I'm like, I think she's doing just fun, but thank you,
but I think she's just amazing. And she said, you know,
I just can't take her seriously with that voice that's fascinating.
Might be generational. I mean, there's a little bit of
an okay boomer in that, for sure, but also you're
you know, admitting very vulnerably and bravely that you have
these same feelings when you listen to voices and it

(25:39):
sounds like it's not just from a medical standpoint, and
it's actually not at all from that now that you
mentioned it. It's not about pitch timber or you know,
oh I hear injury. I think it truly, which does
also happen, Like I hear singers and I'm like, oh,
I want to see those chords. But I think that
what I'm starting to observe is because we are consuming

(26:00):
so much more media, it's such a spectrum of speakers,
you do start to find that, Okay, there isn't a
group of people that are resonating with me, and why
And the people who I find I really click with
it's not a commonality of their voice, or their age
or their race. It truly is like I believe you.
I believe that you mean what you're saying. And I

(26:23):
think that sincerity is sort of a a skill, you know,
just saying I am so comfortable that with what I'm
saying that I'm okay, just putting it out there. And
from that, I think tone comes from that. I think
eye contact comes from that. I think you're the strength

(26:44):
of the words. You're not umming as much. You're not
stumbling as much because you're like, this is just quite
literally who I am and what I think. But maybe
that is harder for women because maybe our natural selves
are not people that we feel have been easily accepted.
So partly what I'm hearing is the anatomical stuff is

(27:04):
connected to the psychological stuff. When you say anatomical, tell
me what you mean. What I really mean is it
sounds like this is about mindset as much as it's
about anything else. I mean, I'm a big fan if
we can't solve something like persistent vocal fry that feels
like it's undermining ourselves by thinking stop vocal frying, but
we can maybe do it by thinking what do I

(27:25):
care about? And who am I talking to? Yeah? And
am I comfortable with that? Right? Because I actually did
have to fight that myself. I still remember as a fellow,
I had to work with a speech pathologist that was
in the office I was training in. He was like,
and you stop pressing your voice so low, And I
was like, I don't even know what you're talking about.
But the medical industry and I'm as you know, I

(27:45):
trained as a surgeon, that is not a very female
friendly world, and so certainly over those years, completely subconsciously,
I found myself in that basement, and you know, having
to sort of now bring awareness a metaphorical basement, a
metaphor at this point, Um, but I yeah, I have
to sort of say, Okay, this higher voice that is

(28:07):
natural to me does not detract from my authority. And
I feel like I only truly own that recently, maybe
like in the past four to five years, but that
is probably not Coincidentally along the time when I really
started to feel like I know what I'm talking about professionally,
like I know what I'm doing. I'm really damn good
at what I do. Right, So now all of a sudden,

(28:28):
you know, there's not this sort of hiding behind a
vocal artifice. I love all of that. How old were
you when you went to that speech pathologist. I was
twenty eight. I was in training. Yeah, because I had
an extremely similar experience when I was twenty four. I
was in the middle of an m fane acting singing
a lot, acting a lot, and I lost my voice.

(28:49):
Every day. I'd be back in the morning. I had
to go on vocal rest. I found an e n T.
I did the camera up the nose well, I mean,
losing your voice is um often physical and often emotional.
But it was completely about optimum pitch, not funny. An
optimum pitch for listeners is the well you should actually

(29:10):
tell me if this is right. But my understanding of
it is that everybody's physical vocal cords have a pitch
that that should be sort of where we generally hang
out in. We can go a little higher and a
little lower, and we should for emphasis, but we have
a sort of I mean, we have an optimum and
then for all kinds of social reasons, we might be
speaking lower because we want more authority, or higher because

(29:33):
we want to come across as unintimidating. Absolutely, Actually, one
of the speech path tricks is to kind of launch
off of a more offhanded pitch, so like, as you're
talking me and is where you're supposed tomb this very well?
And that sort of blew my mind because I don't,

(29:53):
you know, but I would find myself down there and
so it you know, it's a little trick, and it
obviously takes some practice to not launch into not need
that you know, as you're finding your pitch, but to
catch yourself when you're not speaking where you remember she
made a recording of my and then of my answering
real questions and they did not match at all. And

(30:13):
I was like, oh my god, oh my god, oh
my god, Like what is what is you know, the
patriarchy done to me? Well, yeah, but then in your twenties,
you're like, I don't know who I am anyway, right,
Like you're like you're still really figuring out your internal
kind of like this is someone with whom I'm comfortable.
So like a lot of my female artists, like they'll
say they're sitting at the table with this, like with
these management they place their voices really low so they

(30:34):
can be heard. And like sometimes I have like these
rock women and I'm like, why don't you just put
it instead of like down here, like just like this
is really strenuous, just put it here. And I'm like,
did you hear a difference? So like barely. I'm like,
that's all we need. We just need you to bring
you out of the basement. But they're like, but then
they're going to treat me like a little girl. So
they attribute that little bit to like Disney Princess, and right, yeah, Unfortunately,

(30:56):
I mean Elizabeth Holmes got a lot of people to
invest in her be before she didn't. Yep, I hate
to say it. I mean it comes from something, right,
it does like we slowly kind of land here and
then somebody has to kind of be like, all right,
let me consciously put my voice right. It is sort
of the trick and is way easier to do. It

(31:18):
feels better. But women are afraid of that because we
are worried about sounding Let's see, did see? And then
you know, maybe the answer is that above that is
where we get into danger zone. But that you and
I are on like an educational campaign here to say
that that little bit up higher where we're actually just
in our optimum pitch in our and our body is
not going to fight us. Uh, is not going to

(31:40):
undo the benefits that a lower voice might have done
for m now. And that higher one also is going
to feel unnatural, mind you like, so both directions feel unnatural,
So just go with what feels natural, and it's going
to actually sound better. And some of it really is
just the way we talk to ourselves on the inside.
You know, Whether or not are that that little pitch
difference affects the way that people treat us may actually
have less to do with the pitch and more to

(32:01):
do with how have I reconciled that voice in my
head that says I sound dizzy? And if we've reconciled
it and we've said ha ha, I hear you, you know,
mean critic in my head, you don't get to come
out today. I love my voice. Boy, is that a
hard thing to say into us? I graduated out of
basement voice like probably two years after becoming a real

(32:21):
real doctor, like all through training, all through fellowship, I
was all the way first two years of like being
a real doctor, I was down here and it wasn't
until like I kind of felt like I knew what
I was doing that so I'm like, oh it can
be up here, s all right, Like it's easier, and
it just happened. It wasn't a conscious decision, but it's
just like that's what your brain does to you that
you've kind of back you have anything. Also, look what
I do. I hope I notice it has to have

(32:44):
some insight. Guys's doctor. After all, it's proven now and
I want to ask you some advice. First of all,
do you work with breath? And how should people think
about breath? For me, it is mostly is it a
medical issue or not? And then I'll punt to somebody
like you or to a singing vocal coach and just say,

(33:06):
the body works, it's yours to do with what you will.
I find that the things that I'm treating as it
pertains to breath are going to be, like I said,
medical asthma, allergy, congestion, because you know, especially here we
are in l A, the air quality is suboptimal. I'll
talk about the nose too, because I learned from your

(33:27):
book that that's way more important than we think it
is and knows is like my passion project. You also,
by the way, have a nose, so I would like
to know how that plays him. It just adds cool points. Um,
it's I mean, I don't know. I've always wanted one,
and I got one when I was a grown up
to say like, I am going to take ownership with
my own identity. Yeah, my authority does not require that

(33:49):
I have no piercing. Yeah, I don't need to fit
your paradigm of a doctor. So revolutionary, right, So it
didn't feel that revolutionary at the revolutionary Okay, sure, so
knows we're talking about l A. Air poor quality. What
will happen, and it often happens gradually to those of
us who are not like Frankly allergic, is you just

(34:11):
get this slow congestion in your voice and you lose
nasal resonance, You lose that deliciousness that comes as your
sound bounces through your nose. So a lot of the
times i'm addressing that, I'm addressing lung health because your
voice is powered by your breath, and the more effectively
you can access your lung capacity, the more power you have.

(34:32):
You don't have to use it all the time. Especially
as we speak, we don't use a lot of our
lung capacity because it's short, quick breaths between phrases. I've
been told the way that it works in an ideal
sort of functional system is that we have a thought,
we dip down for just the right amount of breath
for the thought it comes out of our mouth. Yeah,
I think that would be true if we had this

(34:54):
ability to kind of predict the duration of our thought.
But I mean that's what the reserves are for, and
that's where a lot of fry comes from. Is Like,
maybe it's a miscalculation. I thought i'd be done. Well,
what I'm always interested in is like, when we're in
low stakes scenarios where we're really comfortable, I think that
system works really well. And then as soon as the
stakes get higher and the thoughts get more complicated, not

(35:17):
just because they're more complicated thoughts, but because we're suddenly
also dealing with all this extra stimulus of like people
looking at me, yeah, I have imposter syndrome, whatever is
coming up. Then all of a sudden, the breath brain
connection gets a little That was one of my notes too.
It's like, how does voice and also like speech pattern
change from those kinds of things, right Like, I think
women again, we sort of fixate on this a little bit,

(35:38):
like all the self apologizing, all the hey, sorry, I
just wanted to let you know that rather than just
letting you know the damn thing, right like, And I
think that a lot of those you know, I try
to take out words like just like I'm just writing
to let you know, I don't just here's what it is.
Right But the I think that is tied to imposters syndrome,
and that what we're really trying to do is give

(36:00):
ourselves permission to be in that space because we don't
necessarily feel like we're welcome there, were perceived to belong there.
And I think that pitch comes from that. The volume
at which you speak comes from that, and then fry
and all those other things come from that too. If
I'm not feeling quite right, like I have an eight
year old daughter and she does a lot of this
up speak and it makes me nuts. But I understand

(36:22):
I'm raising a female child in Los Angeles. I did
want to ask you about this because I know you
have kids and a boy and a girl, so it
feels like there might be like an experiment going exactly.
I'm like, I'll break you. I'll let you do what
nature and see what happens. Who wins hunger games? That's
such a sign. And the firstborn, right, the poor firstborns?

(36:44):
And it is my daughter. Yeah, so she will say,
you know, she did literally this morning. She's like, I
know we don't have a lot of time, but can
you put my hair up? And I'm like, why don't
you just ask me to put your hair up? You know,
you don't need to make an excuse around this thing,
but she ls as she said, I know we don't
have a lot of time, but I was wondering, you know,
and it's built into that, and I'm like, oh, you're learning,

(37:06):
and you know, look, I'm sure I did something to
like I said, break her and make that happen, but
you're learning to need to kind of excuse yourself. And
I think up speak is a little bit of that.
I think it is. I'm not entirely I don't want
to sound too assertive. I'm pretty sure I know this
is okay, but I'm not sure. And you know, if
you come in guns a blazing, like we don't ever
want to be wrong or proven wrong or you know,

(37:28):
disagreed with. And so I think those speech patterns kind
of come from that. I'll fix her, don't worry, She'll
be okay. I mean, you know, a lot of clients
that I work with are at an age or like
era in their life, regardless of age, when they are
realizing that their old tricks aren't working anymore, and it
is stuff that did work when we were little. I mean,

(37:50):
not everybody has a mom who says, you know, conscious
of this stuff as you are, but you know, there's
a lot of reason why young gre roles or women
do that up speak and that hedging and that hemming
because it feels like it helps us get what we
want in a world that's made for us to take
up a certain amount of space and no more. Yeah,

(38:11):
do you tell anybody about warmups? I know that actually,
like vocal coaches help singers with warmups, but anything in
terms of relaxation of the larynx or anything like that
that you suggest before people speak. I don't make the
suggestion as to what to do, but I do suggest
doing something. And it is not that not so simple
as like the chords are a muscle, because they're not

(38:32):
that simple either, But it's this idea that, yes, I
want to kind of clue my body into leveraging my breath.
This is where my attention needs to be for the
next period of time. And I want to make sure
I sound good. I want to find out how I'm
going to sound before I need to sound that way. Right, So,
as you're driving in your car, what does my voice
sound and feel like today? Don't find out when you're

(38:53):
behind the mic, you know, find out on So what
do you suggest doing while you're driving to your thing?
I actually don't do anything. Why are we doing this topic? Um?
But I would say, like a true professional should probably
cultivate a warm up that works for them. I have
some people who just sing along, and again it's sort

(39:14):
of don't let your voice take you by surprise, just
know where you're at in the morning. And then some
people actually don't like to sing because it makes them
feel very vulnerable, and so they will read along to something.
And some people will just do like really trite stuff
like me, me, me, me me, whatever it is, just
to sort of feel like, Okay, my attention is being
brought to this body part. Now, okay, voice health tips.

(39:38):
I know drinking water and I know people say tea,
but I also know there's a bit of a myth
that anything passes through your vocal cords because it does
not correct. Nothing you eat or drink touches those cords.
So those lozenges are not effective. This is a message
from our sponsor, Looting. I thought it was. I was

(40:00):
trying to find another way to say I appreciate that
we were you were here so that you can tell
us truth. Yeah, we don't want to be lied to anymore.
I like me a good placebo too, right, So let
us not downplay the placebo effect is real. And if
that is part of your ritual, like wearing you know,

(40:20):
a certain pair of socks because we what we said, right,
Your voice is tied to your emotion. If your emotional
health is attended to, you will sound better because everything
is connected the way you want it to be. So
if that lozenge does it for you, rock and roll. Now,
what I don't want is for us to be relying
on that when things aren't working right. So if things

(40:41):
are not sounding good, don't pop a lozenge or have tea.
But if it is, something like this is part of
my routine rock and roll. Yes, treatment, No, exactly now,
sort of? You know hydration, yes, people ask about hot cold?
You know something in between whatever floats your boat. Your
body's job, your mouth's job, and your upper throats job

(41:03):
is to get the temperature to what your body wants
it to be. Right. That's why when you're drinking something
too hot, what do you do? You sip it because
that lowers the temperature. Right, You're bringing a lot of
air in with it. If it's too cold, A lot
of us leave it in our mouths a little bit
longer because it's uncomfortable when you swallow something too cold. Regardless,
that's why room tempature is obviously the best what you're

(41:23):
here to correct. I just noticed you do that as well.
All the best people humidifier I like them, especially out here. Now,
do I want it to be a rule of law,
like if you don't have a humidifier, your voice is
going to go into the drain. No, but I think
it feels good. I think it feels good to both
have it in your room when you're sleeping, but also
the handheld ones. I am a big fan of um

(41:45):
and there's a gazillion versions of it. Again, it could
just be a little bit of a ritual, but it
does feel good to have that moisture in your throat
and vocal tract pot or something like that. I love
the sinus friends it is, I mean, because I love
nasal hell. But essentially what I tell people is, look
at your car. This is l A. So I can
reference this in New York people be like, your what,

(42:06):
but look, we have New Yorkers listening. Yeah, so you're
invited into the room as well. Look at the parked
cars on the side, look at traffic, and all the
grime that's on the car is in your nose because
it's all landing from the air. Oh my god, right,
you know that's why we have nose hairs. It's your filter, right,
This is a filter to your air conditioner. But where

(42:27):
is it staying now? It's staying in your nose, so
wash it out once a day. This is also brought
to you. But Neil med, what do we do if
we were a cold? If you have a cold and
it has not yet gotten to your voice, then, as
you were, most cold start in your nose, So treat
your nose theme rense, decongestus. If you need it. Nasal sprays,

(42:52):
go to a doctor, but generally, because they start in
your nose, if you can keep it up there, you're
going to be spared the vocal injury risk that comes
with that post nasal drip. I've lost my voice on
horse now because I'm sick. So my target with my
vocal patients is always trying to keep the cold up
in your nose. And that just means really aggressively treating
your nose before it lands into your throat and chest.

(43:15):
Brought to you by the Nose Show. I mean truly,
you thought I as a voice doctor, that the reality.
But one thing that I'm hearing over and over in
different beautiful ways. Is that we are a holistic system. Yes,
And I mean I love what you said about our
mental health is related to our vocal health. This is

(43:35):
my other passion project in addition to nasal health, is
mental health. In all seriousness. I think I see a
lot of mental health issues in my patients, and I
think it is underappreciated, undertreated, and then poorly treated when
it is treated. I think societally we are not great
at it, and it is absolutely affecting people's ability to

(43:59):
function in their artistic world. Another sort of offshoot of
the various charitable things I want to take on in
this next life that's coming up is tending to artist's
mental health. I think it's really maybe becoming worse as well,
with all the increased and anxiety and depression we're seeing
related to media and social media and all those things.

(44:21):
But there's no question that I see it. Even over
the ten years I've been practicing, it has absolutely been
increasing and younger and younger people. There's also such such
a stereotype that doctors, you know, treat the one thing
in front of them and not the whole person. And
I really appreciate that that's not your philosophy, I will say.
I mean, my staff makes fun of me. They're like, oh,

(44:41):
she's going to be in there for another hour, if
you know, because I do. I sit with them. But
it's so rarely as simple as your chords look like this,
you know, it's almost always the environment of the whole
body that you find the answer in something that appears remote,
but every other system is connected. Why would we think
this is different? And the voice is complex and we
are complex. Yeah, okay, quick break, and then we're going

(45:04):
to find out who you brought in for us to hear.
We are back with Dr Rina Gupta and I'd love
to know, Brina, and who have you chosen to bring in?
I brought in AOC and it was a loaded moment.

(45:26):
You take somebody like her who does a ton of talking, right,
and so her voice will naturally get more and more
hoarse over the course of a political career. And so
as a voice doctor, I listen and I'm like, oh, like,
I want her to get better vocally because that's gonna
hurt her. It's gonna she's gonna sound rougher and rougher
over time, right, So I think it's like I hear

(45:49):
that happening, and I want to rein it in for
her because I want her to like have the voice
she's supposed to have. But then she's also a woman
in leadership, so I don't know how much is what
like it's really hard to pull out well. And I
wonder what this voice is that she could have had otherwise,
because you know, a big tenant of this type of
stuff I talk about is that our voice is the
product of our life experience. Let's listen to her. Let's

(46:12):
play a lightning round game. I'm going to be the
bad guy, which I'm sure half the room would agree
with anyway. And um, and I want to get away
with as much bad things as possible, ideally to enrich
myself and advance my interest, even if that means putting

(46:33):
putting my interest ahead of the American people. So Mrs
Hobert Flynn. Oh and by the way, I have enlisted
all of you as my co conspirators, so you're going
to help me legally get away with all of this.
She ends every almost every one of those seen. It's

(46:53):
a great example of vocal fry. It's a great example
of what you talked about earlier. That when you go
down you inevitably end up in vocal fry, not necessarily
because you don't believe what you're saying, but rather because
you're literally trying to keep your voice from going too high.
And Friday it bothers me less, although I think it's
when it's consistent, like throughout a phrase, then it's really aggravating.
But like, I think that what we saw her in

(47:14):
that clip that bothers me less. I'm the ones who
are kind of like, well, you know, like you're always
down here and it's just a dominant pitch. That's more
of an issue for me. For her, it feels whiny,
Like her voice feels whiny to me, and I hate
even saying those words like it just it makes me
mad at myself. Does it bother you because you think
she's hurting herself? That would be better, right, it would

(47:38):
be better? I'm giving you. Oh gosh, No, I think
there's just some voices I don't like, But I think
her messaging is so strong, And for me, I will
give myself credit for saying her messaging does not feel
less strong. For her voice, like it doesn't distract me
from believing in her message and believing in her and

(47:58):
wanting to listen to her. It just I wish it
was otherwise. I mean, but what you're saying is that
if she could tap into a stronger, more authentic, quote
unquote version of herself, that it would actually enhance her message.
I have to believe for me, I mean, so my
you know, my instinctual pushback is that how she talks
is such a product of her upbringing. The stuff that

(48:22):
feels like it's whiney. One could also say, is how
that area of New York tends to sound. And you
could say that the pitch and the vocal fry and
the nationality are all ways of existing in a culture
that says if I come across as cute, I can
get away with more. I don't disagree with you that

(48:44):
that is a product of, in part where she comes.
I'm from New York, so I have heard it. Do
you love what she says, I'm going to be the
bad guy? That's a delightful accent moment. Yes, I mean,
and that you pick up on. And it's funny because
when you lead, you also said my name right, and
so all the deliciousness that you do I hear. I
appreciate it. I just think that you know, so people say, oh,

(49:09):
you're from New York. I never would have guessed you
don't have a New York accent, right, And I didn't
deliberately get rid of it. And there's some words you'll
always hear it when I speak, When I say water like,
you'll always hear it. But I think that people have
some comfort in neutrality to some degree, and you don't
have to do it deliberately. But somebody like her, when
you're trying to have approachability maybe or you're not maybe approachability,

(49:30):
but you're trying to have universality of message, you're trying
to bring people together, than maybe being a little bit
more accessible in that way might help her meet her
goal more effectively, Like I wonder if it could be
seen as a means to an end rather than a
changing who I am. The counter argument is that she's

(49:51):
done so well and connected with people so well, and
part of what I admire about her and would sort
of hope that she wouldn't feel like she had to
sort of coach her way out of is that she
is showing us a new kind of powerful voice. If
the interest I have in this podcast is for each
of us in our own lives to feel like how
we sound could be the future of power if we

(50:12):
all just collectively agree that that's possible. She is a
shining example of that, and the fact that she's been
given power or earned it or you know, fought for it,
and then continues to have moments like that one, which
is not just like, you know, since I'm here, I
guess I'll do some work, but rather I'm going to
grab the narrative and make it what I want it
to be. You know, she has these like Mr Smith

(50:33):
goes to Washington moments while still being that girl who
talks like that, and maybe that's doubly powerful, you know,
where it's like, look at what I've done and I
have that, you know, it's it's definitely it's almost like
the new voice of power then becomes undefined. It can
become than anybody. CA's the dream because the opposite, which

(50:54):
you referenced is a more generic sound, and by generic,
what we actually mean is the agreed upon standard, which
is educated, white male, you know, privileged, etcetera. And many
of us, because of our you know, the delightful education
we've had in privileges we've found our way into or

(51:14):
that we were born with, have been able to put
on that generic voice when we want it to get
what we want in certain scenarios. But it doesn't mean
that it should continue forevermore to be the only way
the power should sound. I mean, that is the heart
of this podcast is to say, dare we question that?
I mean, it's a really fascinating question. The idea of

(51:35):
a politician, I think the initial idea initial like an
ancient rome first and maybe continuing through now, the idea
of a politician is that they are supposed to be
a representative of the people. M H. If they can
represent us not just in terms of our interests, which
by the way, a lot of politicians don't, but among
the ones, we're great. If they can represent us not

(51:57):
only in terms of our interests, but also in terms
of being a flection of the demographic of who they represent.
That to me feels like one of the most like
hierarchy busting ideas out there, and I actually totally agree
with that. And so then where I would say she
is killing it is in representing her people right like
that area from which she comes. And my dream for

(52:19):
her is to have wider appeal because I want everyone
to feel as connected with her as people like us
to write, because that then allows somebody like her to
trickle through and change that dialogue, and that would be great.
And I guess where I worry is that can people
do that? Yeah? I mean, and the question is also

(52:40):
what is that tribe? Because when you said that, I
think you met New Yorkers. But also I'm not a
New Yorker. I mean, I've spent years there, but I
do not consider, you know, I allow allow people who
are actually born and raised there to carry that mantle.
But you know, when we talked about what tribe she
represents or what the ven diagram overlap is of people
who feel like she's she's mine, I get to claim her.
They could be a generational thing, for sure. It could

(53:02):
be a gender thing for sure. It can be a
class thing for sure. And then it becomes who does
that not include? Oh, the old white grumpy men who
are rich and who might be dying out. You brought
that around nicely. I mean, it's my dream and I
sound like a big old optimist, but you know, I
kind of have to be. I also want to just say,
technically speaking, something that she does. That's super cool if

(53:23):
you want to go back and listen to it. Is
operative words. This is the term that we use when
we're talking about Shakespeare, but also about contemporary speech, when
we're talking about long and complicated thoughts. What is the
word that gets the lift or the punch or the
operative is literally the word around which the entire thought operates.
So in the phrase but I don't want to want

(53:43):
is that and it references back to something else that's implicit.
We can tell from it, but I don't want to that.
We're saying like, but you should. You know, there's implicit things,
and we all talk like this. And what she says
in that is putting my interests ahead of the American people.
It is possible to have memorized that line or to
be pre here to say that and say putting my
interests ahead of the American people. Where you choose no

(54:03):
operative word, she does it again with legally get away
with it. When you lift those words, it's connecting to
the way we are, all of us when we're talking
about something we care about and feeling really comfortable, and
to be able to translate that onto a larger scale
is gorgeous and an oratory style that you know, it's

(54:26):
something we can learn from her. That's really I would
have to listen to it again because I feel like
it's not something I would consciously pick up on if
I'm listening to somebody, but it might just trickle through
into my subconscious totally subconscious, right, it's not an audience
When when somebody doesn't do that kind of a lifting
thing and doesn't sort of hold your hand and say
this is the thing that matters, the audience's reaction will

(54:46):
be either I didn't quite get that thought, I'm bored
by it and disconnected, or you don't really seem like
a person interesting. So for anybody listening who is thinking about,
you know, a presentation that you're about to give, can
you figure out what the operative word is? It doesn't
have to be an intellectual game. You can actually like
try doing a little punch on each of the words
and being like that that didn't feel right. You know,

(55:08):
if she had said putting my interests ahead of the
American people, suddenly you're like, what we're not talking about
far another country. If you're saying putting my interests ahead
of the American people, it's like compared to what right,
but putting my interests ahead of the American people. Suddenly
you're saying, you know, this thing should be behind and
instead it's ahead. Right, that's the unspoken part. Yeah, I

(55:29):
mean I think that it almost to me, it feels
like it goes without saying, like, why wouldn't you emphasize
the most important element of your answer is when we're
in public, we start to get more generic, the more
scared we are. And that's either better accent and that
stuff so that we were already talking about, or it's
that our pitch gets real flat. And when your pitch
gets flat, you stopped connecting to the thought in a
way where people can pick up on stuff like that.

(55:50):
That's really interesting. I'm gonna have to pay attention anyway. Yeah,
thank you so much for coming in, thank you for
having me, and thank you for being honest about, you know,
the ways in which you're grappling with a woman who
you nonetheless admire. Because I think in a way you
are all of us, you know, we're all dealing with that.
I have to believe I'm not alone in this, I mean,
because I do. I feel like I'm trying to filter

(56:11):
out the bias and yet still there it is. I
mean you, thank you. Thank you to Dr Rina Gupta
for coming in. You can find out more about her
in the show notes or on our website Permission to
Speak pod dot com. You can also go there, by
the way, if you have any thoughts about this episode,

(56:32):
anything you disagree with, anything you tried out in your
own life that is or isn't working, anything that is
coming up for you with zoom conferencing or with uh
Instagram Live, or anything you're trying to do that is
working out differently. In this bizarro new era that we're in,
we obviously are having more difficulty having guests into our

(56:52):
studio space while keeping things healthy for the near future.
So I am going to do and ask me anything
episode very soon and I would so love your questions.
If you go to Permission to Speak pod dot com,
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at Permission to Speak Pod, where we are hosting a

(57:14):
bunch and join the community and tell me what matters
to you. Thanks as well to Sophie Lichterman and the
team at I Heart Radio to Megan read, to my
family and cohort, and to all of you. We're recording
this podcast in the I Heart Radio studios in Hollywood
on land that used to belong to the Tongva indigenous tribe,

(57:35):
and you can visit U S d A C dot
us to learn more about honoring Native land. Permission to
Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double Vision,
executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton. For
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