Feeling your own voice: bone conduction and chest vibration

Evidence label: Well studied

Evidence label: Speculative (claims that a sound reaches, resonates in or massages a particular organ)

The Well studied label covers the acoustics and physiology of hearing your own voice, bone conduction, and the vibration your voice makes in your chest wall. Where and how you feel your voice in practice was not tested in these studies. The idea that a sound reaches a particular organ is marked Speculative in its own section. Nothing here is a health claim.

Author: Raymond Hackland · Last reviewed: 21 October 2026 · Reading time: about 10 minutes

In short

What this is: When you voice a sound, you don’t only hear it through the air. Part of it reaches your inner ear through your skull, and part of it can be felt as a vibration in your throat and chest. This article explains what is known about both, and why your recorded voice sounds strange to you. It belongs with our Music & Tone series, which starts with Music and stress: what 100+ trials show.

What the evidence says: Hearing by bone conduction has been known since the 19th century and is well researched, although its physiology is not completely understood. The voice you hear while speaking is a mix of air-conducted and bone-conducted sound. That is why a recording, which captures only the air part, sounds unfamiliar. Measurements show that voicing makes the chest wall vibrate, mainly reflecting the vibration of the voice source, and that at lower pitches these vibrations seem strong enough to be felt. No study has shown that a vocal sound reaches or affects a particular organ.

What practice adds: In practice, you feel your voice while making it: in the throat, the face, the chest. Where and how strongly you feel each sound is a description of practice, not a research finding.

What it means for your practice: The hum you feel when you voice a sound is real physics and worth noticing. It is a sensation, not a treatment for anything.

Background

Sound reaches your inner ear (the cochlea) in two ways. Usually it travels through the air into your ear canal, moves the eardrum and the tiny bones of the middle ear, and so reaches the cochlea. This is air conduction. But the cochlea sits inside the skull, and when the skull itself vibrates, the cochlea is stimulated too. This is bone conduction. When someone else speaks, almost all you hear arrives by air. When you speak, your own head is part of the instrument.

Two hub articles describe the instrument itself. “Vowels and formants: the acoustics of the six sounds” explains how the vocal folds produce a buzzing sound and how the shape of the mouth and throat filters it. “What resonance really is” explains what resonance means in physics, and why “this sound resonates with your liver” is not measured physics. This article picks up where they leave off: what happens to the vibration of your voice inside your own body.

What science says

Label for this section: 🟢 Well studied (bone conduction and hearing your own voice; chest-wall vibration has been measured in fewer, smaller studies, see below).

How bone conduction works. In a 2005 review, Stefan Stenfelt and Richard Goode note that hearing by bone conduction has been known since the 19th century, and that after more than a century of research “its physiology is not completely understood” [3]. They identify five contributing factors: sound radiated into the ear canal, the inertia of the middle-ear bones, the inertia of the fluids in the cochlea, compression of the cochlear walls, and pressure transmitted from the fluid around the brain. Of these, the inertia of the cochlear fluid “seems most important” [3]. A later overview by Stenfelt adds that, whatever the route, bone-conducted sound “ultimately produces a wave motion on the basilar membrane similar to that of air-conducted sound” [4]: inside the cochlea it is heard in the same way. At low frequencies the skull moves as a rigid body; at higher frequencies it vibrates in more complex ways [4]. We have read the abstracts of these two papers, not the full texts.

Your own voice reaches you both ways. A Swedish team led from Chalmers University of Technology measured how much of a person’s own voice arrives by bone and how much by air [2]. They designed a large earmuff that kept out air-conducted sound while keeping the occlusion effect (see below) small. With the earmuff on, the sound in the ear canal reflected the bone-conducted part of the person’s voice; the air-conducted part was measured at the entrance of the open ear canal. Participants produced ten different speech sounds. For most of the sounds, the bone-conducted part of one’s own voice dominated at frequencies between 1 and 2 kHz. The results differed somewhat from sound to sound, depending on how each was produced, and sounds produced in similar ways gave similar results [2]. We have read the abstract only.

Why your recorded voice sounds strange. Researchers at the University of Tokyo summarise the explanation found in earlier studies: the voice you hear while speaking includes both bone conduction and air conduction, “while the recorded voice only includes air conduction” [1]. The microphone’s position adds further differences [1]. Earlier studies had tried to make a recording sound like one’s own voice by filtering it. In their first experiment, Kimura and Yotsumoto found “large individual differences” in which filter came closest; across three experiments they concluded that “there is no general filter that can represent own voice for everyone” [1]. We have read this study in full.

Blocking your ears changes what you hear. When the ear canal is closed, for example by an earplug or an earphone, bone-conducted sound is heard differently; researchers call this the occlusion effect. Stenfelt and Reinfeldt measured it with shallow and deep foam earplugs and with an earmuff, and found that “all occlusion positions, even deep ear-canal occlusion, produced noticeable occlusion effects” [5]. We have read the abstract only.

Feeling the voice in the throat. You can feel your voice as well as hear it. The voice acoustics group at the University of New South Wales suggests a simple experiment: place your fingers on your neck near the larynx and speak or sing loudly, and you can feel the vibration. In whispering, by contrast, the vocal folds “do not vibrate, but are held close together”, and the sound comes from turbulent air instead [6]. The same distinction applies to the six sounds: voiced sounds are driven by vibrating vocal folds, hissing sounds such as s and sh by turbulent air (see “Vowels and formants”).

The chest wall vibrates too. In a study published in 1983, the voice scientist Johan Sundberg fastened small accelerometers to the skin over the centre of the breastbone of seven singers, men and women, and compared the vibration there with the vibration on the larynx and on the windpipe just below it [7]. The chest-wall vibrations seemed to come mainly from pressure oscillations below the vocal folds; the mechanical shocks of the vocal folds themselves played a secondary role, and the resonances above and below the vocal folds seemed moderately influential. The results, he wrote, suggest that “it is the voice source, particularly the amplitude of its fundamental”, that is reflected in the chest-wall vibrations. Their amplitude seemed to lie above the threshold at which vibration can be felt, through the skin’s Pacinian receptors, “as long as the fundamental frequency is below approximately 300 Hz” [7]. The strength of the vibration, and so of the sensation, varied considerably with the way the voice was produced, from “pressed/tense/strained” through “flow” to “breathy” [7]. Sundberg concluded that it seems likely that the sensation of chest vibration can serve singers as “a useful nonauditory and hence room-independent signal” for controlling their voice [7]. We have read the abstract only.

Measured today with skin sensors. More recent technology uses the same vibration. A research group at Northwestern University developed a soft, wireless sensor that is mounted on the upper chest and captures “vibratory responses associated with vocalization in a manner that is immune to ambient noises” [8]. Their aim was to track how much people use their voice; we cite it here only as a recent example showing that the voice’s vibration on the chest is measurable. We have read the abstract only.

How strong is this evidence? The basic physics of bone conduction is long established and summarised in peer-reviewed reviews [3, 4], although its physiology is still not completely understood [3]. The claim that your own voice reaches you by bone as well as by air rests on direct measurements [2] and is the standard explanation for the strangeness of recordings [1]. The chest-wall evidence is narrower: the detailed analysis in [7] comes from seven singers, and [8] shows that the vibration is measurable without studying how it feels. None of these studies tested Liu Zi Jue, Qigong or the six sounds. For how to weigh studies like these, see “How to read a health study in 5 minutes”.

What practice notices

Label for this section: 🟢 Well studied (the studies above, which did not test the sounds).

The laboratory and the practice room ask different questions. In the studies, people produced speech sounds or sang while sensors measured vibration and sound pressure. In the Six Healing Sounds you stand, breathe slowly and voice a long sound, and you notice what you feel. The studies explain why you feel something; they do not describe what that is like.

Three questions come up in practice that the studies above did not ask:

• Where do you feel each sound? The studies measured particular points (the ear canal, the larynx, the breastbone). Where people notice vibration while voicing CHOOO, HAAAA, WHOOO or HEEE, and how this differs between people, has not been studied.
• What changes when a sound becomes breathed instead of voiced? In whispering the vocal folds don’t vibrate [6], and in [7] the chest-wall vibration reflected the vibrating voice source. Sundberg did not study whispering or breathed sounds, so whether the felt vibration fades as the sounds move towards a silent exhalation is a question for practice, not something these studies tested.
• Does pitch change what you feel? In [7], the vibrations seemed strong enough to be felt as long as the fundamental frequency was below about 300 Hz. Whether practitioners notice a difference when they voice the sounds lower or higher has not been studied.

If good research appears on these questions, we will add it and review the label.

Where popular claims go beyond the evidence

Label for this section: 🟠 Speculative.

“Each sound reaches its organ.” The studies here describe vibration reaching the inner ear through the skull [3, 4] and vibration measured on the skin over the breastbone [7, 8]. None of them measured vibration in an internal organ, and none linked a particular sound to a particular organ. As “What resonance really is” explains, soft, water-rich tissue is heavily damped, and we know of no measurements showing that a given vocal sound drives a given organ into resonance. In Liu Zi Jue the pairings of sounds and organs have also changed over its history (see “Liu Zi Jue: where the Six Healing Sounds come from”). The link between a sound and an organ belongs to the tradition; it is not a finding of acoustics. My own visualisation, in which you imagine travelling with each sound to its organ, is a way of sharing the practice, described and labelled as mine in “Guiding with the mind”; it is not a claim about where sound goes.

“The vibration massages your organs.” No study cited here measured anything like that. What the evidence supports is narrower: the vibration of the voice can be measured on the chest wall and, at lower pitches, seems strong enough to be felt [7].

“You hear your real voice; the recording is wrong.” Neither is wrong. They are two different mixes: the voice you hear while speaking includes the bone-conducted part, the recording only the air-conducted part [1].

“Your voice sounds deeper to you because bone carries the bass.” This is a common simplification, but the studies here do not support it in that simple form. In [2], the bone-conducted part of the voice dominated at frequencies between 1 and 2 kHz for most speech sounds, and in [1] no single filter matched everyone’s own voice. How your own voice sounds to you differs from person to person and from sound to sound.

How this relates to the Six Healing Sounds, Qigong and neigong

Label for this section: 🔵 Tradition only (Qigong and neigong concepts) · 🟢 Well studied (the studies above), with my own approach marked as mine.

Four of the six sounds as we write them (CHOOO, HAAAA, WHOOO and HEEE) are carried by a vowel shape; SSSSS and SHHHH are mainly hissing noise. When you voice the vowel sounds, your vocal folds vibrate, and that vibration is what you can feel in the throat and, at lower pitches, in the chest [6, 7]. The standard form of Liu Zi Jue ultimately aims at breathing the sounds out without voice, as “Vowels and formants” explains. You can read about where the sounds come from in “Liu Zi Jue: where the Six Healing Sounds come from”.

In Qigong and neigong, “resonance” is sometimes used for the feeling of a sound spreading through the chest or belly. As our resonance article puts it, the first part has a physical basis: the vibration of your voice does travel through your body, and you can feel it. The idea that a particular sound makes a particular organ, or your qi, resonate is traditional theory or metaphor, not measured physics (see “What resonance really is”).

How I practise the sounds. My practice is breath-led: you breathe in quietly through the nose and breathe the six sounds out through the mouth, “voiced through the breath”, not sung, working over time towards a silent exhalation. The breathing stays slow and controlled throughout, with no breath holds and no fast breathing. In my immersions we practise the sounds standing, in the wuji posture (无极, “without limit”), for those who are able to stand comfortably. Neidan is not part of my immersions; we use neigong and visualisation.

If you have a health condition, read “Who should be careful with breathing practices” first.

Resonance Heritage Qi is a personal, music-assisted practice inspired by Liu Zi Jue: connected to it, not a replacement for the traditional form or for study with a teacher of that tradition. No study has tested it, and we make no claims about its effects. Where we use music, tuning forks or particular tones in sessions, these are aesthetic choices and an invitation to listen closely, not health claims. For how tempo and breath interact when you practise with music, see “Tempo, rhythm and breath, and the stillness between sounds”; for humming, see “Humming and nitric oxide in the nose”.

Try it gently (optional)

1. Place your fingertips lightly on your throat, near your larynx. Breathe in through your nose, then breathe out on a soft, voiced HAAAA. Notice the vibration. Then breathe out on a whispered HAAAA, and on SSSSS, and notice what changes [6].
2. Rest one hand flat on your upper chest and voice a long, comfortable WHOOO, first at a low, easy pitch and then a little higher. Notice whether, and where, you feel it. There is no right answer.
3. Record yourself saying a short sentence and listen back. If it sounds unfamiliar, much of that difference is the missing bone-conducted part [1].
4. Gently close your ear canals with your fingertips and hum quietly. Notice how your own voice sounds now [5].

Whatever you notice is your own experience. Keep the voice soft and comfortable and never force it. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or short of breath, stop and breathe normally.

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Sources

1. Kimura M, Yotsumoto Y, 2018. Auditory traits of “own voice”. PLoS One 13(6):e0199443. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0199443 (full text: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6019673/)
2. Reinfeldt S, Östli P, Håkansson B, Stenfelt S, 2010. Hearing one’s own voice during phoneme vocalization: transmission by air and bone conduction. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 128(2):751–762. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3458855 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20707445/)
3. Stenfelt S, Goode RL, 2005. Bone-conducted sound: physiological and clinical aspects. Otology & Neurotology 26(6):1245–1261. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.mao.0000187236.10842.d5 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16272952/)
4. Stenfelt S, 2011. Acoustic and physiologic aspects of bone conduction hearing. Advances in Oto-Rhino-Laryngology 71:10–21. https://doi.org/10.1159/000323574 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21389700/)
5. Stenfelt S, Reinfeldt S, 2007. A model of the occlusion effect with bone-conducted stimulation. International Journal of Audiology 46(10):595–608. https://doi.org/10.1080/14992020701545880 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17922349/)
6. Wolfe J, Garnier M, Smith J. Voice acoustics: an introduction. Acoustics Group, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney. Accessed 20 October 2026. https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/voice.html
7. Sundberg J, 1983. Chest wall vibrations in singers. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 26(3):329–340. https://doi.org/10.1044/jshr.2603.329 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6645456/)
8. Jeong H, Yoo JY, Ouyang W, et al., 2023. Closed-loop network of skin-interfaced wireless devices for quantifying vocal fatigue and providing user feedback. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120(9):e2219394120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2219394120 (PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36802437/)

Source quality note: [3] and [4] are peer-reviewed reviews of bone-conduction hearing; [2], [5], [7] and [8] are peer-reviewed laboratory or engineering studies, [7] with seven singers; [1] is a peer-reviewed psychology study. We read [1] in full; for [2]–[5], [7] and [8] we read the abstracts only. [6] is an educational overview by a university voice-acoustics research group, also used by our resonance article. [8] was designed to monitor voice use; we cite it only to show that the voice’s vibration on the chest can be measured, not for any health purpose.

Disclaimer

This article is for general education only. It is not medical advice and does not replace diagnosis or treatment by a doctor or other qualified health professional. Qigong and the Six Healing Sounds are traditional practices; we make no claims that they cure, treat or prevent any illness. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are unsure whether a practice suits you, please talk to your doctor first.