18/04/2022
10 Throaty Facts About Vocal Cords
1. YOUR VOICE IS BASICALLY A REEDED INSTRUMENT.
Speaking and singing depend on the larynx (voice-box) in your neck. In order to produce sound, adductor muscles provide resistance to the air you exhale. Air then bursts through the closed vocal cords. As the air rushes through the vocal cords, the pressure between the cords drops, sucking them back together.
2. YOUR VOCAL CORDS ARE ACTUALLY FOLDS.
The stretchy fibrous tissue inside the larynx which we call “cords,” which vibrate as you breathe air out over them, are more accurately “folds” of skin, rather than cords.
3. THEY VIBRATE MULTIPLE TIMES PER SECOND.
This vibration of your vocal cords being “blown” apart and then "sucked" back together repeats hundreds (the average male hits about 110) and even thousands of times per second, producing voice.
4. THEY MAY MAKE SOUND, BUT YOUR MOUTH MAKES SPEECH.
Speech or song may begin in its basest form in the vocal cords, but it’s shaped by muscular changes in the mouth and jaw, particularly the lips and tongue (although some languages have sounds that bypass the vocal cords entirely—for instance, certain African languages have a “click” sound made exclusively by the tongue).
5. ONE OF THE MOST BASIC SOUNDS OF YOUR VOCAL CORDS IS “ZZZZ.”
The sound that the vibration of vocal cords produces is called a “voiced sound” and is usually a kind of hum. The easiest way to experience this yourself is to wrap your hand around your throat and say: ssssssssszzzzzzzzzzsssssssssszzzzzzzzz. You should be able to feel the vibrations of the z sound and the calmness of the s.
6. YOUR VOCAL CORDS ARE THE MOST UNIQUE “MUSICAL” INSTRUMENT.
According to Ingo Titze, director of the National Center for Voice and Speech at the University of Utah, it would be nearly impossible to create an instrument that could elongate and vibrate exactly the way human vocal cords do.
7. THEY LOOK LIKE A NIGHTMARE OUT OF A HORROR FLICK.
If you didn’t know what you were seeing in this laparoscopic video of the opening and closing of these mucous-laden vocal cords, you might be tempted to gather your children and flee from the alien invasion.
8. UNLIKE OTHER MUSCLES, VOCAL CORDS WORK BEST WHEN THEY'RE TIGHT.
When you are silent, your vocal cords lay relaxed and apart from each other, so air passes freely through them. The tighter the vocal cords, the less air can pass through them, so the higher pitched the sounds you make.
9. ARE THE VOCAL CORDS OF SINGERS DIFFERENT FROM REGULAR VOCAL CORDS?
Opera singers and pop stars work hard to develop their singing power the way athletes train for their sport. So while Adele’s vocal cords were probably not much different from yours at birth, she’s trained them, her diaphragm, and her lungs to produce the power that comes with her songs.
10. WHISPERING IS TALKING WITHOUT USING YOUR VOCAL CORDS.
Those who sing or speak for a living recommend that you keep whispering to a minimum as it constricts the vocal cords, without letting them vibrate much, thus potentially fatiguing them, and can dry them out as well. (In whispering, sound is created by turbulent airflow, not vocal cord vibration.)
