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VOICE

How to make your voice deeper

AI can write what you'll say in the meeting. Your voice still has to say it, and if it climbs and thins out when you're on the spot, your words can sound less sure than you are.

Exercises can't change the size of your vocal folds, which set most of your pitch. What practice can change is how high you talk within your range, and how full it sounds. The drills below come from speech-language pathologists' published steps. None of them should hurt, and none of them ask you to push your voice down.

What sets how deep your voice is

Your voice makes sound when your vocal folds vibrate. Longer, thicker folds vibrate more slowly and sound lower. Your genes shape them, and so does testosterone, which is why voices drop in puberty and keep changing for people on hormone therapy, as speech-language pathologist Allison Geller explains in her guide to speaking in a lower register. Exercises don't lower that floor.

Plenty of people talk higher than they need to, though. Geller names the usual reasons: tight neck and throat muscles, shallow breathing, talking fast and years of habit. That's how a stressful meeting can push your pitch up without you noticing. She also writes that much of what listeners hear as a deep voice comes from the shape of your mouth and throat, not only from how low your notes go.

Why it can matter

In a 2012 experiment, researchers recorded 17 women and 10 men saying "I urge you to vote for me this November", then made a slightly higher and a slightly lower version of each recording on a computer. Asked which version they would vote for, listeners picked the lower one more often, for women's voices and for men's. Other listeners rated the lower versions of the women's voices as more competent, stronger and more trustworthy. For the men's voices, only the male listeners rated the lower versions as more competent and stronger.

The study has limits. The listeners were students and passers-by at two US universities, every recording was the same sentence, and the two versions of a voice differed only in pitch. It doesn't show that lowering your own speaking pitch would change how people respond to you.

1. Find your easy low notes

The target is the low end of your easy range, where you could talk all day without effort. Geller suggests an easy hum and gentle downward glides to find it, and Expressable's at-home voice exercises describe both.

Drill: hum softly at a comfortable pitch for several seconds and notice the buzz around your lips and nose. Carry that feeling into words that start with m, like "more" and "money", then into a short greeting. For the glide, take a slow, quiet breath in and let out a relaxed "ah" or "oh", letting the pitch glide down like the sigh after a long day. Repeat it for 2 to 5 minutes with your throat, jaw and shoulders relaxed, and keep the sound clear as you go down instead of dropping into gravel.

2. Breathe low before you speak

Shallow breathing high in your chest gives your voice nothing steady to sit on, so it rises and sounds pressed, Geller writes. Breathing low, into your belly, gives it a steady stream of air.

Drill: sit or lie down with relaxed shoulders, one hand on your chest and the other just above your belly button. Breathe in slowly through your nose so your belly rises more than your chest, then breathe out gently through your mouth until your lungs feel comfortably empty. Expressable suggests about 5 minutes, once or twice a day. Once that feels easy, take a comfortable breath and let it out on a long, smooth "sss" for as long as it's comfortable.

3. Give your voice more room

Rounding your lips slightly, relaxing your jaw and leaving a little more room at the back of your mouth darkens your tone without forcing your pitch down, according to Geller. The speech therapists at Expressable also suggest a rounded "oh" shape for a warmer, darker sound.

Drill: say a sentence like "I'll take the lead on this project." the way you normally would. Then say it again with your lips a touch rounder and your mouth closing rather than opening at the end of the phrase. Geller describes the result as the same pitch with a noticeably lower sound.

4. Slow down

When you talk fast, your voice doesn't get a chance to relax, so your pitch stays high. Slowing down lets it settle, Geller writes.

Drill: in conversation, say shorter phrases and pause to refill your lungs instead of saying long sentences on one breath. When you notice yourself rushing or running out of air, slow down and breathe before you go on. Expressable's speech therapists teach this as the last step of their breathing exercises. If nerves speed you up, how to talk slower has more on it.

5. Land your statements

A statement that drifts up at the end sounds tentative and lifts the whole voice, Geller writes, so let your statements land instead. If your sentences often end on a rise, how to stop upspeak covers it.

6. Warm up with a straw

Geller warns that a long day of talking without a warm-up makes it more likely your pitch creeps back up. Straw phonation, making sound through a drinking straw, is a warm-up many speech therapists use. Expressable's speech therapists write that it helps your vocal folds vibrate with less impact.

Drill: put a regular drinking straw between your lips with a gentle seal and hum through it at a comfortable pitch. After a few breaths, glide slowly from low to high and back down. Keep going for 2 to 5 minutes, breathing steadily. It should feel easy, so don't blow hard or tighten your lips or throat.

What to avoid

It should never feel tight. A sore throat, hoarseness after practice or losing the top of your range means you've gone too low, so ease off instead of pushing harder. If hoarseness lasts more than about three weeks, or your voice keeps giving out, Geller advises seeing an ear, nose and throat doctor first to rule out a medical cause.

How often to practice

Geller writes that daily practice strengthens your lower register, and that short practice does more than long stretches of pushing. The habits can last, she adds, but they take practice before they feel automatic.

If you're deepening your voice as part of transition

The speech therapists at Expressable write that you can deepen your voice without testosterone, and that on testosterone, research shows the biggest drop in pitch in the first two to five months, though when it starts and how long it lasts vary considerably. Testosterone affects pitch only, they note, so voice training also works on resonance, intonation, articulation, volume and speaking rate. Look for a speech-language pathologist who specializes in gender-affirming voice care. In the US, ASHA's ProFind lists speech-language pathologists.

Practice it in Charisma Lab

Charisma Lab is a speaking coach on your iPhone. Voice Cam, on its home screen, records up to a minute of you talking, with the camera or audio only, and shows your pitch in hertz as you speak, along with your pace, volume and pauses. Record the same answer before and after the drills and watch whether your pitch climbs when you rush. It won't tell you what your pitch should be.

Train compares your pitch within one take. The Declarative, open from the start in the Presence and Conviction tracks, hands you a line like "The project launches Monday." A take passes when you say at least half the line, including its key word, and your last word comes out more than 5% lower than the average pitch of the other words. The Drop-In, in the Presence track, hands you a line like "Listen. This is what we're doing." A take passes when you say at least half the line, including its key word, and your first word comes out more than 3% lower than the average pitch of the other words. It opens once you reach 50% on Strategic Pause, which is open from the start.

Setup is free and includes a short live session with the coach. After that, the app needs Pro, which is $14.99 a month in the US. See pricing.

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FAQ

Can you make your voice deeper permanently?

Exercises don't change your vocal folds, so they can't lower your natural range. What can last is the habit of talking in the easy, lower part of it. With practice, breathing low, keeping your jaw loose and slowing down start to feel automatic. Hormones change the folds themselves, which is a separate matter.

How can I make my voice deeper right now?

Before you talk, take a few slow breaths into your belly, loosen your jaw and slow down. If nerves have pushed your pitch up, easing that tension is often what lets it drop, Geller writes. Don't try to force it lower on the spot.

Can women make their voice deeper?

Yes. Every voice has a lower, fuller part of its range, Geller writes, so anyone can work toward a steadier, lower speaking voice. Which exercises help depends on your voice, and a speech-language pathologist can pick them for you.

Is vocal fry a deeper voice?

No. Fry is the creaky, popping sound at the very bottom of your range. It can show you where your lowest notes are, but it isn't a lower speaking voice, and talking in it often can tire your voice.

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Updated November 2, 2026.