Anatomy

Learn About the anatomy of voice production

Voice production is divided into three major

categories:
Power Source
Your power source is the breath that supports your sound. This is the driving
force, and anything that affects your breath (or your lungs) can completely
eliminate your ability to produce sound.

Vibratory Source
Vibration of your true vocal folds causes vibrations in the air that your lungs have
just generated and your abdominal muscles have pushed. The complex anatomy
of the vocal folds is designed to produce smooth, even vibrations which will
sound pleasant and not hoarse.

Resonators
Resonators give all the richness and tone that make the voice musical and give it
its individual quality and character.

Power Source
Your power source is the breath that supports your sound. This is the driving
force, and anything that affects your breath (or your lungs) can completely

eliminate

your

ability

to

produce

sound.

Asthmatics are particularly aware of this but even non-asthmatics can understand
this concept. Take a shallow breath and attempt to shout. Now, take a deeper
breath and attempt to shout. Clearly it is easier with a deeper breath. Without
enough air to support your sound, it will fall flat and quiet.
Your breath is driven by several factors:

Your lungs

Your diaphragm expansion

Your abdominal support

Your lungs must be healthy in order to produce the breath you need. Managing
any lung disease correctly will improve your voice.
Your diaphragm is the muscle that contracts to help expand your lungs. A slow,
deep breath will give you more breath to work with. You can use this breath to
produce a low-volume, long-duration sound or project a loud sound for a shorter
amount of time.
Careful control of your abdominal muscles will allow you to push more or less air,
in accordance with the sound you want to produce.

Vibratory Source

Vibration of your true vocal folds causes vibrations in the air that your lungs have
just generated and your abdominal muscles have pushed. The complex anatomy
of the vocal folds is designed to produce smooth, even vibrations which will
sound pleasant and not hoarse.

The epithelium is the outermost layer of the vocal folds. It is thin and moist and
resembles the lining on the inside of your cheek.
The next layer is the superficial lamina propria (SLP), which is essentially a
gelatinous material. Vibrations in this layer are what make sound and loss of SLP
results in scarring and hoarseness.

The final layer is the vocal ligament. Tension in this structure helps determine the
speed of vibration, and therefore the pitch of the sound.

Resonators
Resonators give all the richness and tone that make the voice musical and give it
its individual quality and character. The nasal passages, the throat, and the

mouth are air chambers that shape the sound and are the structures you train
when developing the singers formant.
This is why, when you have a cold and your nose is congested, you lose a certain
resonance to your voice. The sound can no longer bounce through your nasal
passages and the tone becomes flat, and without richness.

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