Measured voice · The resonator

Maya Angelou

129s segment · female register · 16 benchmarked readings · measured 2026-07-26

Comparisons are based on Resonate's acoustic analysis of publicly available speeches. No endorsement or affiliation is implied.

The read

As a child, Maya Angelou stopped speaking altogether. This 1987 interview catches her describing the thing that brought her voice back — poetry — in the voice it came back as. The instrument’s reading of that voice: the highest authority score we have measured yet, and no man in the library has matched it. It runs so deep that the analyzer’s automatic settings insisted she was male, and had to be overruled by hand. And she never crowds a moment: a fifth of her answer is deliberate silence, forty-three separate stops. Gravitas, measured, needs neither loudness nor a man’s voice. It is depth, patience, and letting the quiet sit.

Pitch contour · every voiced frame

1322102891s64s128sHz

Pitch & melody

Average pitch133Hz
below the zoneoptimal 180–230 Hz
Pitch variability4.98st
in the zoneoptimal 3–6.5 st
Pitch range12.6st
above the zoneoptimal 7–12 st
Pitch dynamism (PDQ)0.32
in the zoneoptimal 0.15–0.38

Pacing & pauses

Pause ratio21.5%
in the zoneoptimal 18–35 %
Average pause length0.64s
in the zoneoptimal 0.4–1 s
Syllable rate3.2syl/s
below the zoneoptimal 4–5.5 syl/s

Dynamics

Volume dynamics25.1dB
above the zoneoptimal 8–18 dB
Loudness variability7.59dB
in the zoneoptimal 3.5–8 dB

Voice quality

Voice clarity (HNR)10.4dB
below the zoneoptimal 12–30 dB
Pitch steadiness (jitter)2.6%
above the zoneoptimal 0–2.5 %
Volume steadiness (shimmer)9.49%
above the zoneoptimal 0–9 %
Vocal fry (creak)6.9%
in the zoneoptimal 0–8 %

Spectral balance

Presence band (2-4 kHz)4.77%
below the zoneoptimal 6–20 %
Chest band (0-500 Hz)75.5%
above the zoneoptimal 35–75 %
Spectral tilt (alpha ratio)-7.21dB
above the zoneoptimal -22–-8 dB

Energy by band

Low (0–500 Hz)75.5%Mid (0.5–2 kHz)15.9%Presence (2–4 kHz)4.8%Brilliance (4 kHz+)3.8%

The presence band (2–4 kHz, red) is what carries a voice to the back of a room.

Steal this

the chest anchor

Almost everything in this voice happens low: three-quarters of its energy sits in the chest register, and the pausing — a fifth of her answer, in forty-three deliberate stops — is squarely optimal. Warmth like that isn’t about speaking lower; it’s about resonating lower. Put a hand flat on your chest, hum down a gentle scale until you feel the strongest vibration under your palm, then speak from just above that note, keeping a trace of the vibration in the words. Aim for rich, not loud.

From the training library: The chest anchor

Same instrument · same scale

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