If there was one question that I would direct at Dr. Mew, it would be how does mewing—and orthotropics as a whole—affect speech? Some factors you could consider are:
—the shifting of the teeth and jaw, affecting airflow and vocal flow.
—the placement of the tongue affecting annunciation and speech technique.
—the shifting of bones in the skull that would affect vocal vibrations.
Could these factors be controlled to purposely change certain aspects of one’s voice? If this is possible, to what extent could orthotropics impact these aspects?
I have also heard that singers are trained to keep their tongue in a certain posture, although I do not know the specifics of this. If you have any input, it would be appreciated.
Why am I asking this?
I turn 18
in 10 days, and have been mewing for about four months, coming onto five, and one of the earliest changes I experienced was that my voice seemed clearer.
When maintaining full tongue posture, including the posterior third, almost everyone I have spoken to and asked about stated that they could perceive a noticeable shift in my annunciation and the clarity of my speech. The thing is, is that I myself have put absolutely no extra effort into annunciating, and as far as I knew I was speaking the exact same way I was before, and yet one of the earliest changes people noticed was a shift in my speech.
In one particularly salient instance, and the one that spurred my curiosity about this topic, I had one friend of mine congratulate me for getting over my “mumbling” and asked me what I was doing to fix it.
This took me as a surprise, because I never really had any major speech impediments. That being said, I wasn’t the smoothest speaker, and I did, like most people, despise hearing my own voice played back to me. I would trip on words often and due due to my ethnic background (I’ll elaborate further down) I did have a slight accent, but nothing inanely detrimental.
And yet, here people were, telling me my annunciation is different. So tongue posture=natural annunciation?
Recently, I have been noticing some very prominent changes in my voice; it’s deeper, it resonates more within my chest, and most importantly, I no longer hate the sound of my voice.
This may sound narcissistic, but I now enjoy talking, I like the way it feels, and I just enjoy the sound of my voice. This has had the indirect consequence of making me more talkative and social, as I now seek opportunities to speak to others and play with my voice.
Mewing has changed my life, and I bring this up specifically because so many people hate the sound of their own voice, and I’m not sure if my case is special or remarkable in this way, but this may just be another thing to add to the massive list of reasons why mewing is an absolute medical breakthrough.
I wanted to put this out there to get people thinking about other effects of mewing, and to empower people like me who have hated their voice.
Thank you for reading and be sure to share your thoughts, experiences, and theories below.
Extra Context:
I am a Kazakh born English speaker. I was raised in Kazakhstan (Eastern European/Central Asian) until I was about three, when I moved to Canada. Unfortunately, I was never allowed to adopt fully a any other language, and currently English is primary and only language.
