AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Ariana Grande has been in the news lately for a bunch of reasons - for her Oscar nomination for "Wicked," for her potential collaboration with Billie Eilish and for changing her voice when she speaks. NPR's Chloe Veltman reports that this last one keeps coming up.
CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: People have been baffled by Ariana Grande's habit of changing her voice during public appearances for years. Last summer, for instance, in an interview for the "Podcrushed" podcast, her vocal register switched from this...
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ARIANA GRANDE: I was like, what has happened?
VELTMAN: ...To this.
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GRANDE: Yeah, I've been writing a lot.
VELTMAN: ...And attracted thousands of online comments.
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GRANDE: I would like to do a deluxe at some point.
VELTMAN: The artist has repeatedly said in interviews and on social media she often modulates her voice for health reasons.
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GRANDE: If I have a long day of press or if I have to sing, I'll place it a little higher.
JASON BATEMAN: Because staying higher gives less stress on it than talking in a lower register?
GRANDE: Yes.
VELTMAN: This is Grande's latest attempt to explain herself. It's from an interview she gave on the "SmartLess" podcast. Comments about her changing voice have recently bubbled up again in her media appearances for "Wicked."
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GRANDE: And it's so funny 'cause we've talked about it a zillion times and people are still like, where's your real voice? And I'm like, well, they all are.
SARAH SCHNEIDER: All of these voices are her natural voice.
VELTMAN: Sarah Schneider is a voice speech pathologist at the University of California San Francisco. Schneider says the voices of famous women - Paris Hilton, Kamala Harris - tend to come under more scrutiny than those of famous men. Also, most people simply have a blind spot when it comes to the workings of the voice.
SCHNEIDER: The average person who is not using their voice for their profession takes their voice for granted. They don't realize that our instrument is inside of our body, and the things that we do with our body impact what we can do with our voice, right?
VELTMAN: Schneider says it's common for athletic vocal performers with demanding schedules to place their voices differently on busy days.
SCHNEIDER: To help with stamina, to help with endurance, to help with voice preservation.
VELTMAN: And the voice speech pathologist says the vocal shifts performers make are often more subtle than Grande's. Artists adapt their voices in different ways to maintain their vocal health.
SCHNEIDER: For other people, it's how they're using their air flow and their resonance, their breath, and how they're, like, modulating the energy of their voice.
VELTMAN: Speaking higher isn't a universal solution. Schneider says Ariana Grande pitches her voice up because that specifically helps her. Chloe Veltman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARIANA GRANDE SONG, "7 RINGS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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