Keep your cool

Singing in the shower and why it sounds good.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Anybody and everybody has at least hummed or sang while taking a shower. Well I set out to find out why it sounds good. Most people are mediocre singers but while taking a shower and singing you think to yourself "hey I sound pretty good". Well there is probably a reason for that and here are a bunch of possible reasons why. Basically reverb is the key as seen in the below posts.

1. Singing in the shower originates from the special acoustic characteristics that bathrooms and showers have.As you've probably seen on MTV any times, vocal recording booths always have some sort of acoustic isolation material on their walls. These isolators prevent any echoes that may have been returned otherwise, echoes that sound incorrect or just plain bad.Much like these vocal booths, showers also have a great acoustic isolation -steam. The little drops of water in the air absorb the echoes from your singing, and make it sound a bit better. This is a kind of real timesound processing. In the same way that electric guitars sound much better with a reverb effect on them, your voice sounds better in the acoustical context of the shower room. Found at Everything2.com
2. Usually bathrooms are tiled, so they have better acoustics. This adds a bit of reverb to your voice, which helps to mask a few of the mistakes. Also we are probably a bit more confident when we think no-one is listening! Found at answerbag.com
3. exploratorium.edu/ - Tells us that your shower works like a low-tech sound mixer to modify your voice in at least three different ways. They are volume, reverb, and bass boost.
4. The acoustics of a shower give you more reverberation (since you have at least five hard surfaces surrounding you), which bounces the sound around more. This adds some echo that blends the sound together so that the ugly parts are covered up.And if you're wondering about the car, usually you sound better there because you're singing along with someone, which (1) gives you a guide so that you stay on key more easily, and (2) gives you another voice so that the ugly parts are, once again, covered up. Found at Yahoo Answers
5. feldenkraisinfo.com - Has a great article about it. In summary in a shower we have privacy and are cut off from the rest of the world. Also the acoustical qualities of the shower as mentioned in the above posts. Finally we have increased awareness of our bodies and are comfortable enough to sing in the shower.

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