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YOUR
REAL VOICE - the vocal ezine for real people
November 20, 2005
#15
FEATURE EDITORIAL
What Really Is Happening in Your Throat
As promised in our last issue of YRV, here is the second part of the
Muppet article. Although there are no new exercises this time,
the focus still is on being completely relaxed in the face and neck
while singing. Easier said than done!
The more I learn about how my body works, the easier and better my
singing gets. This has also been true for my students over the
years. However, the thing that has made the biggest difference in
UNDERSTANDING how all of it works is a "plain speak" explanation of the
anatomy stuff. Learning the thirteen-letter-word names body parts
for a test and being able to know all of the physiology has been great
for me, but I notice my students' eyes glaze over when the big words
come out, so I have developed a plain-speak version of how we make
sound and get it out of our mouths to the audience. The more I
simplify the stuff, the better it works. I've never given the
explanation here in YRV, but I think it would be helpful to many of you
based on the top ten questions I receive from all of you, and it
continues right where the Muppet-faced thinking left off in our last
issue. So here is the plain-speak anatomy, physiology, physics
and kinesiology version of "how we make vocal noise and get it to the
audience."
Take two or three fingers and place them on your throat and say
"ah." Feel that vibration against your fingers?
Great! That's your larynx, or "voice box" that you feel under
your fingers and it is the mechanism that houses the voice.
Inside the voice box are two tiny muscles with cartilage (the same
stuff your nose and knees are made of) that are movable. We call
these your vocal cords, or more commonly, vocal folds. To get an
image of these and how they work, put your index and middle fingers in
the shape of a "V." Now open and close your fingers a few
times. That's exactly what your vocal folds do! They are
connected at one end, and the other end is free to move back and
forth. They move back and forth, or vibrate, really rapidly
(approximately from 55 up to 1760 times per second). These two
folds close, letting the thin mucous membranes on the cartilage
contact, and then open, letting air pass through them.
That's how the sound is produced. It's that simple. It's
the air moving through the folds that produces the sound and carries it
up out of the mouth to the audience.
Here's the really important part about how these vocal folds make sound
and stay relaxed. Notice that the only thing required to make
sound is pass air between the vocal folds and let them open and
close. That's IT! There's no hard work required. And
here's the really interesting part of all of this: you have
absolutely NO IDEA how to open and close your vocal folds. Notice
that when you want to speak or make any kind of vocal noise, you have a
thought, and your voice box just makes the sound? It's the SAME
THING when you sing! Your vocal folds open and close all on their
own without you having to know HOW to do it or how to control it or how
to do anything with the air. Once you learned to speak as a
little kid, you were able to make sound with your vocal folds.
It's really that easy! Singing is just "heightened speaking,"
meaning it's only a little more involved than speaking because it
requires more breath control, but the vocal mechanism is exactly the
same. When you placed your fingers on your larynx and made the
"ah" sound and felt the vibration, you did not have to think about how
to open and close your vocal folds. You just thought "ah" and the
sound came out. AND, no other muscles in your throat or neck got
stiff or tightened to do it! All those muscles that regularly get
tight or start working hard when you sing are doing a lot of
unnecessary work.
Remember, this is a massively simplified version of how the voice
works, but I'd rather give your the version that has worked the best
for my students. If you have any further questions about this, or
would like sources for more in-depth study of vocal physiology, please
email me at info@sing-in-tune.com. There are many great resources
available, and I can save you a lot of time trying to find them.
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Contact Athena by e-mail at info@sing-in-tune.com
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perfectly in tune at her web site at www.Sing-In-Tune.com
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