I hope you don't get queazy. I'm going to show you live video of a singer's vocal cords
as she sings. You may want to sit down. Hi, I'm Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing. Many
students feel singing is a great mystery. They don't understand how their voice works;
why it works the way it does; and what's involved with singing. It all begins with the vocal
cords. Specialists look at your vocal cords with a flexible or a rigid scope. The flexible
scope is a small cord with a camera at the end of it. It's inserted through the nose
and extended down the throat to see the vocal cords. The rigid scope is like a large pen
with a camera at the end. It's used looking into the mouth and throat. Both images look
like this. This can be confusing because the vocal cords are horizontal in the throat,
like this. They are not vertical, like this. When the scope sees the cords and projects
it on a monitor, they look like they're vertical, or up and down. Vocal cords, sometimes called
vocal folds, are located in the mid portion of your neck, about halfway down, between
the top and bottom of your neck. There are two vocal cords and they're connected in the
front of your neck and open and close in the back, towards the back of your neck. They're
located inside the voice box, or larynx. The cords sit at the top of your windpipe or trachea.
Men can feel the top of their voice box, often called the Adam's apple. Women have the same
thing, but it's smaller and harder to feel with your finger. Your vocal cords are just
behind the Adam's apple. Now women can sometimes feel their Adam's apple by placing their finger
here and gently pushing in on their neck and about the first lump that you feel is the
top of the larynx. About halfway down your neck you can feel that small bump. That's
your Adam's apple, ladies. And your vocal cords are just behind it. I can feel a small
'v' right in the center of the top of my Adam's apple. That's the cartilage. Now at birth
our vocal cords are about the same length, approximately two millimeters. By age 20,
women's cords are about 10 mm and men's 16 mm in length. The change for men is much greater
and this causes a deepening of the voice and can make singing during the vocal change much
harder. Vocal cords are tissue and are three dimensional. That means they have length,
width and depth. Just like other tissue in your body, there are different layers of tissue.
Vocal cords have three primary layers: muscle, ligament and mucosa - it's the slick outer
layer of the vocal cord. The vocal cords open when we breath and come together when we make
noise with our voices and are covered up when we swallow. A type of lid, called the epiglottis
closes over the vocal cords when we swallow. Sometimes fluid gets through and we cough
to clear it out. When air passes through our vocal cords as we speak or sing, they create
a series of sound waves which we can hear. This series of sound waves we call vibration.
The vocal cords create the initial vibrations, which is the initial tones we hear that begin
the sound we make when speaking and singing. Now watch and listen as these vocal cords
create the vibrations that become our voices. (demo) (demo) (demo) (demo) Do you know your
vocal type? I'm not talking about whether you're soprano, alto, tenor or bass. Your
vocal type helps you understand what your vocal cords tend to do when you sing. For
example, if you are a light chest-no chest vocal type, that means your vocal cords are
not closing as firmly as needed. With each vocal type, your vocal cords tend to do specific
things as you sing. Once you know your vocal type, you can begin eliminating weaknesses
in your voice and get the singing voice you want. Visit PowerToSing.com and take the Power
Test and the quiz. Immediately you'll discover your vocal type. Explore the Knowledge Center
inside Power To Sing's Website. Learn about your vocal type and the exercises that will
help improve your unique voice. I'm Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing. You can sing higher
with beauty, confidence and power. I'll see you inside the next video.
Subtitles by the Amara.org community