Does laryngeal anatomy scare you?
In this video, I am going to make vocal anatomy for singers easy and practical.
Discover what your larynx consists of and how your vocal cords work.
Don’t go away, I will be right back.
Hi!
I am Katarina, speech language pathologist from How 2 Improve Singing and here on this
channel, I share practical tips about using your voice in a healthy way.
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Ok.
I remember the times when I thought vocal anatomy was difficult.
My main problem was that I could not see inside my voice to really visualize the vocal structures
and I did not understand how the knowledge translated into what I was feeling and hearing.
And then, there are many cartilages, many muscles and ligaments and they are all very
small.
It was difficult to wrap my head around it.
But in this video, I will attempt to make vocal anatomy easy and practical for you.
“Vocal cords” is a lay term for vocal folds, which is a better name because the
vocal folds are not cords or strings or bands of tissue, they are really folds of tissue
with a very unique structure and function.
There are actually two sets of folds, one set is your true vocal folds and the other
set is the false vocal folds.
But I’ll talk about those in some other video.
The vocal folds are found in your larynx.
The larynx is the voice box, and it is found in your throat.
The larynx is a complex structure made of six cartilages, intrinsic and extrinsic muscles
and some ligaments.
In this video, I will talk about the cartilages and the intrinsic muscles and how they relate
to sound production.
I will make another video about extrinsic laryngeal muscles.
So, first let’s talk about the cartilages.
There are three single somewhat larger cartilages and there are three pairs of smaller cartilages.
You are probably most familiar with the biggest cartilage, which is the thyroid
cartilage.
It’s easier to see it in men because that is your Adam’s apple but women have Adam’s
apple too.
Let’s find your thyroid cartilage.
Slide your finger from the chin down and the thyroid cartilage is the second hard bump
on the way down.
By the way, the first bump is your hyoid bone, which is a u-shaped bone in your throat.
The larynx is suspended from the hyoid bone.
Back to the thyroid cartilage.
The Adam’s apple is the front part of the cartilage that protrudes outward.
The cartilage has two flat surfaces on the sides, called lamina.
If you slide your fingers back from the Adam’s apple, you can feel these flat surfaces.
The thyroid cartilage also has upper and lower horns as you can see in this picture.
The vocal folds are inside the thyroid cartilage, right around the level of the Adam’s apple.
When you produce a voiced sound, the vocal folds come together in the midline, they adduct
(come together) and vibrate.
Let’s experience the vibrations – put your hand on the larynx and say “zzzz”
and feel the vibrations.
Now, say “ssss”, which is a voiceless sound.
Your vocal folds do not vibrate in this case, they are open or abducted.
Try that a few times and feel how your vocal folds automatically adduct and abduct. Cool, isn't it?
The thyroid cartilage sits on the cricoid cartilage, which looks like a ring.
And the cricoid cartilage sits on top of the trachea, your windpipe.
Let’s find it together.
Slide your finger from the bottom of your neck, where you can feel the rings of the
trachea, upward and the first bump that you feel is the cricoid cartilage.
The third single cartilage in your larynx is the epiglottis that is attached to the
thyroid cartilage on the inside and it looks like a leaf.
The epiglottis has a very important function – it protects your airway.
When you swallow, the epiglottis flips down and covers the entrance to the trachea so
that no food or other unwanted particles go down the wrong tube.
The three pairs of smaller cartilages in the larynx are: the arytenoid, corniculate and
cuneiform cartilages.
The arytenoids look like pyramids and they sit on top of the back portion of the cricoid
cartilage, the corniculate cartilages then sit on top of the arytenoids and the cuneiform
cartilages are embedded in the membrane that connects the arytenoids and the epiglottis.
You can actually see the little cartilages when you look inside your throat with a laryngoscope
as these bumps.
Ok.
Now, let’s move onto the muscles of the larynx.
The intrinsic muscles are small muscles inside the larynx and they control the length and
tension of the vocal folds and the opening and closing of the vocal folds.
The good thing about muscles is that the names tell us exactly where the muscles start and
where they attach.
The intrinsic muscles are the cricothyroid, thyroarytenoid, cricoarytenoid, transverse
and oblique arytenoid muscles.
You probably heard about some of them.
First, let’s start with the only muscle that opens the vocal folds: the posterior
cricoarytenoid muscles (or PCA).
As the name tells us, the muscle starts on the cricoid cartilage and attaches to the
arytenoids.
Now, imagine the arytenoid cartilages sitting on the cricoid cartilage.
When this muscle contracts, the arytenoids pivot and open the vocal folds.
When we breathe or produce voiceless sounds, the vocal folds are open.
The posterior cricoarytenoids are the only muscles that can abduct the vocal folds, so
if the nerve that supplies this muscle is damaged, you are in trouble.
The vocal folds will not be able to open and they will be stuck in the middle.
So, let’s put the PCA muscles to work.
It’s easier than you think.
Breathe in and out.
Now, on the other hand, when you say /i/, the glottis, the opening closes because there
are other muscles at play.
More specifically, the major adductors of the larynx are the lateral cricoarytenoid
muscles (or the LCAs), and the transverse and oblique arytenoid muscles.
Again, imagine that the arytenoid cartilages sit on top of the cricoid cartilage and when
these three muscles contract, the arytenoid cartilages come closer together.
They close the opening between the vocal folds, they adduct the vocal folds.
This is a position, during which the vocal folds vibrate and produce voiced sounds, like
/i/.
So, try that a few times.
We have two more muscles to talk about.
These two muscles affect the length and the tension of the vocal folds and they are thyroarytenoid
and cricothyroid muscles.
The thyroarytenoid muscle (or TA for short) starts on the inside of the thyroid cartilage
(remember the Adam’s apple – but on the inside) and it attaches to the arytenoid cartilages.
A part of the TA muscle forms the body of the vocal folds themselves and this part is
called the vocalis muscle.
When this muscle contracts, it pulls the arytenoids closer to the thyroid cartilage, which creates
slack in the muscle, so two things happen: the vocal folds shorten and the tension decreases.
The vocal folds become thicker and they vibrate at lower frequencies, which means lower notes.
Try it, say /i/ in your lower range.
This is a sound where there is a lot of action in the TA muscle.
But the laryngeal muscles do not work in a vacuum.
There is one more muscle that affects the length and tension of the vocal folds.
It’s the cricothyroid muscle (or CT for short) and as the name says, it originates
on the cricoid cartilage and attaches to the thyroid cartilage.
When this muscle contracts, the thyroid cartilage and the cricoid cartilage come closer together
at the front and as a result, the vocal folds stretch out, they lengthen, which increases
their tension.
The vocal folds become thinner and they vibrate at higher frequencies, which means higher
notes.
Try to say /i/ in your upper register.
This is when your CT muscles are at work.
My explanation is of course oversimplified because all these muscles coordinate their
action during any voiced sound you make, whether it’s high, low, or mid.
For example, when you make a siren-like sound, all of these muscles that I’ve mentioned
are active and their engagement changes as you ascend or descend in pitch.
Put your hand or finger in the space between the cricoid cartilage and the thyroid cartilage and do
the siren.
Feel the very slight changes in that space.
In the comments below, let me know what you felt.
And that is all for today, but in the next video, I will be making a 3D model of the
larynx that you can make at home.
So, click that subscribe button so that you don’t miss that video.
And check out my other videos about all things vocal right here below.
I will see you in the next one.
Bye.