Hey guys, welcome back again to Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy.
I got a lot of requests for this one, and that is “how does the voice work?”
Or “how does the singing voice actually work?”
Well, it’s actually a pretty expansive subject, but I’m going to try to break it down and
simplify it to give you sort of a birds eye view, or a condensed version so that for those
that benefit by thinking about how things work in their body, which will help them Sing
Better, this will give you a better perspective on how these components work in concert with
each other two phonate, or create sound.
Okay?
The very first thing is the breath.
Now you’ve heard a lot of people talk about the breath, the breath, the breath, or, you
know, diaphragmatic support and so on.
So I’m not going to get to talk about how diaphragmatic support, how to do it.
Refer to my video on diaphragmatic support, because that will really help you.
Well, the breath comes in through the pharynx, which is the throat, and goes down and passes through
the larynx, which is the voice box, on into the trachea, which is the windpipe, down into
the lung.
And if you take a breath, like this, the lung expands with our rib cage.
Now there are muscle structures that help with this expansion.
The very first one is what are called intercostal muscles within the rib cage itself.
It’s the thing that we eat when we eat baby back pork ribs.
One of my favorite foods, actually.
Barbecued.
Anyway, it helps with the expansion and contraction of the lung, along with the diaphragm, which
is the main muscle that helps contribute to this.
So, as this expansion and contraction happens, it splits into two tubes as it goes down into
the lung.
First it goes into the bronchi, and then it goes into the bronchioli, or bronchioli, depending on how
you want to pronounce it.
And then that splits into smaller forms, which create air sacs throughout the lung, which
is called the alveoli, or alveoli.
Now, it’s kind of like a honeycomb throughout the lung.
Now, the lung is really fragile.
So this rib cage plays a huge role in the protection of the lung.
Directly underneath the rib cage of the lung here, sits your diaphragm.
Now, when I take my breath, the diaphragm contracts, like this, in a crescent moon kind
of fashion.
When I exhale, it comes back into sort of homeostasis, where it originated from, in
the same relaxation response.
Now, the rib cage opens up, and then also contracts, or “collapses”in a similar
fashion, right?
Well, it’s really important, because what we’ve learned is, in singing, if we can
expand the lung, and keep the lung in an expanded state, when that contraction happens, within
the diaphragmatic support mechanism, we create a vacuum.
A very powerful vacuum in the lung.
And when we do that, instead of me talking like I am now going heh, heh, heh, and giving
you, you know this, hey hey hey, that’s kind of the maximum for my lung, if I come
down over here like this, and I use my whole abdominal cavity, we’re going to cover in
a minute, and go HEY!
HEY!
And I have all of this strength, I actually have an incredible amount of a support mechanism.
Now, let me demonstrate this on my guitar so you can see what I mean.
So, First is, let’s assume that we're just taking in a breath and were taking it in from
the lung, and we have about this much what we call a "snap" of air.
Okay?
There’s like that much strength in the lung.
Right?
But, if I create this vacuum, and keep the rib cage in an expanded state, while the diaphragm
is contracted like this, it creates this crazy vacuum in the lung.
So that when I expunge or push through this amount of air from the diaphragm, I get this
kind of sound.
It’s a snap!
It’s like this explosion of air.
Alright?
So!
As we understand how to utilize this, and manipulate this, or mitigate this amount of
air, we can actually use it to our advantage.
Okay?
Now!
So, there are several muscle structures that happen within, you know we just talked about
the diaphragm below the rib cage.
There is also a diaphragm that sits, it’s a second diaphragm, that sits down around the
pelvis area, around your hairline, if you know what I’m talking about, your pubic hair
line, and that’s a second diaphragm that also creates this effect.
Well, there’s another strong muscle structure called the transverse abdominus, and it goes
straight through the core of your body, and you can feel it, because you take this breath.
You’re standing up straight and you take this breath and just go HEY!
HEY!
HEY! HEY!
And you can literally feel it pushing out.
It goes through the body, and down through the spine.
Now there’s the abdominal oblique, there’s an internal and external abdominal oblique
muscle, and that, combined with the rectus abdominus, makes up the core of the abdomen.
Okay?
And we can talk about all these different muscle structures, I don’t think you’re
going to memorize all this stuff anyway, it doesn’t matter.
Let’s just call it our solar plexus, or "our abdomen".
I like to just simplify things and have people really understand.
Okay, so “here’s my abdomen.”
Now, when we take out, when we pull in the breath, let’s say HEY!
HEY!
You know, to try to phonate or get sound, this explosion of air, it’s kind
of like the feeling like you’re going to the bathroom.
Now, I’ve been saying this for like a decade, and I’m seeing other people finally come out and
repeat stuff that I’ve said, which is cool, but it’s kind of like you push down and
“ooh, I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
Like you’re pushing down on this sensation.
Now, this is very different, and I mean very different, than people that do yoga and say
okay I’m going to take a yoga breath and I’m going to (inhales) inhale with the yoga
breath, and Huhhhhhhhhh…
Exhale with a relaxation response.
It doesn’t work that way for singing.
Actually, the exhale, it isn’t a relaxation response, we are actually using that to push
ourselves, or to pull in, I should say, that “bathroom” effect, to pull in on the sound
and HEY!
Like, you know, someone’s going to kick you in the get let’s say, and you kind of
tuck in a little bit.
Now, I’m not advocating building tension in the abdomen, and I’m not saying just
do that all the time, that’s not my point, but the point is that, as a singer going for
a high note, we want equal pressure, or equal resistance when we take a breath.
So I go HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
From the, like, kind of putting in equal pressure?
It’s kind of like an accordion, when the accordion comes out, like this, and then as
you go in, and we want to get a high note, we have to use equal resistance or equal air
pressure within this abdominal structure, keeping the rib cage expanded, so that we
get the snap of air, and then having this go through the trachea and back into the larynx
for phonation, or to create sound.
Okay, now, I want to move on to the pharynx.
Okay there’s a lot to this, and I want to mention one other thing.
People think of the larynx as its primary function is for singing or speaking.
Right?
Well, that’s actually patently false.
The primary function of the larynx is to maintain and control food and air, but predominantly
food, and what I’m about to say, to keep that down in the esophagus, so that you keep
the fluids and the food and whatnot down in the esophagus.
And we’ve got something called the epiglottis that comes over, it’s like a flap, and this
flap controls whether or not the food is going to go into the esophagus from something we
eat or drink, or it’s going to pull back and it’s going to allow air down in the
trachea.
So, the epiglottis is tied to the tongue.
It actually controls, or mitigates, or referees what’s supposed to happen between the trachea
and the esophagus.
Should it go down the windpipe?
Should it go down into the food pipe, let’s call it.
Right?
So I want to kind of dispel that rumor, because the second function of the larynx is to phonate
or to create sound.
So we need to understand that.
Like it’s not, just, you know, and by the way, if you want to understand, the larynx
has nine cartilages in it.
One of them you can see it’s a protrusion, which we call the Adam’s apple, which comes
out from the larynx like this.
But the larynx itself is, let’s call it a housing, or something that houses our vocal
folds themselves, and I want to talk about folds and cords, because that’s also another
misnomer.
But it holds the vocal folds inside of it.
It protects them, right?
And then the vocal folds themselves are seated inside the larynx.
So the larynx is multi functional and one of its functions is phonation, or to create
sound.
Okay.
So the larynx…
Two things, by the way I want to talk about the pharynx and the larynx.
But I want to get back to the vocal folds themselves.
People think of your vocal folds or cords like these two cords that go”ring!”
You place something on the guitar and they go “n-n-n-n-n!”
And it resonates.
And I’m going to get to resonators here in a second.
So there’s all these resonators that happen, and we'll discuss this in a second.
But, there’s these two cords that go r-d-d-d-t!
Right?
Well actually the vocal folds aren’t like that.
The vocal folds themselves are hundreds of sinews of collagen.
Hundreds of sinews of collagen, and they come together with something in the center called
the glottis.
Now the glottis kind of looks like a V shape, like this, and it gets closed down by a muscle
group.
And there’s a lot of muscle groups, and were not going to get a chance to talk about
all of the muscle groups, but there’s the arytenoid and crico-arytenoid muscle groups,
and some other things, that actually pull this muscle group together, like a rubber
band, so to speak, to expand and contract this to create, you know, I don’t want to
use the word tension, because I don’t want you to get the idea that it’s tense, but
resistance, resistance in this muscle group, in order to be able to create sound, and rise and
come down within sound, which is how we phonate.
Go up and down the scale, but when I went up, as I go up, I’m actually creating a
resistance in this muscle group, with the cricoarytenoid and arytenoid Cartlidge, muscle
and sinew structure.
Now, there is nine of these and I don’t get a chance to go into all of this cartilage
stuff.
I’ll try to do this in a more extensive video for those of you that want a greater
breakdown of this stuff.
But anyway, I want to talk about between the larynx, it shoots its way up in through this
amplified sound comes in through our abdominal cavity, the strength in our abdomen.
Some say it’s the lung, and only the lung.
I disagree with that.
Some say that the diaphragm doesn’t matter, I vehemently disagree with that, even big,
top vocal coaches don’t emphasize this muscle structure, at all.
Well, good luck with that one, because you’ll never be able to get really good strength
out of the sound, and you won’t be able to build the strength where you can have a
relaxation response where the chest, the neck, and the throat can handle big loads of this
explosion of air that keeps happening.
So I want to get into something called the pharynx.
What is the pharynx?
Well, the pharynx basically is just your throat and the muscle structure that happens within
it.
So within the larynx, the larynx vibrates through these different parts that we call
resonators.
Okay?
And you see resonators.
Whooh!
All these terms.
Within these resonators, there’s a component where it comes in, again from the abdomen
and the lung, in through the trachea, right?
Out through the trachea, and it hits these pockets all along the way.
It hits the throat, it hits the Velo nasal port, which is your nasal cavity, your uvula,
your tongue, all these different parts in the throat play, the hard palate the soft
palate, these things play a big role in the color, in the phonation, and projection
or the amplification of sound.
Okay?
That’s how this all works.
So, what we do is when I talk about open throat technique, you want to maximize the amount
of space in the throat, and I walk you through how each vowel has its own placement.
And the coolest thing about this is, within that placement, God has given us these like,
I call them 'amphitheaters' in the throat, where when we create a certain sound or a certain
vowel, it hits a certain beautiful round tone in the vowel.
It’s not clamped or pinched or squeezed, you know whatever we do to try to squeeze
to get sound.
When we can relax the throat and create a muscle response that opens up the throat for
true open throat technique, we can hit this resonator, or this amplification, and it buckles,
not buckles, excuse me it curves, like this, and it throws the sound forward and out, and
resonates, okay?
Now, by the way, there’s another component of this, too, and this is also very very important.
And that’s how much air we use.
Ken, you said it’s this explosion of air.
Oh, it certainly is.
But we don’t over – use air, because the overuse of air is actually one of the kiss
of death’s to the voice.
We want to be able to mitigate this air.
I cover this in my singing course called How To Sing Better Than Anyone Else.
A whole section on glottal compression, or hyper-glottal compression, when you want to
compress to a distorted level, or a level that we’re kind of distressing the cord
a bit.
Now, within all of this, okay, God has given us, like, some really cool stuff.
The amount of, let’s call it moisture, because that’s the best way I can describe it, that
is needed, is: people will sit there and just chug a bunch of water, and they’ll sing
a song or a phrase and they’ll chug a bunch of water and they think that they’re getting
moisture to the cords, to their folds.
Wrong!
NnnnT!
It doesn’t actually moisten the cords themselves.
The hydration is awesome, and once we hydrate the body, the body itself has an outer lining
that goes around the folds themselves, called mucosa.
And that mucosa can seep in.
If you ever get strobed or you watch the videos on people who get a strobe of their vocal
folds, you can see the mucosa sitting on the side.
It acts like this wet gelatin and it actually line the whole wall of your throat, and other
parts of your body.
But it creates the ability to have moisture that creates resiliency and elasticity back
in the cord, which is super-awesome.
There’s something else that the body creates too, called glutathione.
And glutathione also helps regenerate and re-enervate or put back this moisture in the
cord and other parts of the body.
In fact I’m going to talk about glutathione in another subject when I talk about nodes
and polyps because that’s a big subject.
I get this all the time, you know I think I have a node, or I think I have a polyp.
I’m going to do a whole video on this, so stay tuned for that.
But, anyway, I’m going to get back to the epiglottis, because we’ve kind of covered
a lot of stuff.
So we have this buzz of resonators.
These resonators that happen when we’re coming in from the stomach, Hey!
By the way, let’s do this from the lungs, so we can be absurd about this.
If I go: Hey.
Hey.
The small snap of air.
Remember?
Here's the small snap?
That’s the max I can produce in the lung.
Right?
But if I go, If I go like THIS: HEY!
HEY!
I get this crazy amount of strength from the abdomen, then I can actually be able to control,
and again, mitigate or have the color and all these resonators, can work to my advantage
with how much strength I’ll be able to create from my whole abdominal cavity.
Alright.
Now.
Let’s move on.
A couple more things.
What you guys don’t realize too, is that as we take on this whole muscle structure,
and as we think of things in terms, cause I’m doing this so you can understand your
body, we have to actually break them down in what I call quadrants, or sections.
And in my course I break down as we take in the breath, we don’t necessarily want to
take in the breath from the total abdomen, and here’s why.
It’s so closely related, so closely related to the way we normally take a breath, that
when we do this, it’s very similar to the response that we already have with our lungs
as we breathe in and breathe out.
Well someone says, well, you already know how to breathe, you know, just breathe!
Well, that’s kind of moronic.
I’m sorry, but it is, because there’s all kinds of different ways of taking a breath.
Let’s consider the athlete.
You wouldn’t tell an athlete, who’s trying to understand how to get a better breath response,
Hey, you’re going to run the marathon.
You know, when you talk, when you talk, you already know how to breathe.
So just kind of Run down that street, keep on going, and just let the natural thing happen.
It’s like: Really?
Come on, guys, let’s take this seriously, here.
No.
The athlete says, “Hey, I want to things to increase lung expansion, I want to be able
to control enough air in the lung to where I can pace myself, for the run, or the soccer
game or the football game, or these other things that I’m doing.
So we do this same exact thing when we sing.
It’s not that you already know how to breathe.
No.
You DON’T already know how to breathe.
People breathe very differently.
Right now if I go: If I was a guy who was just a little bit of a timid guy, and I’m
talking to you like this, and I say, hey, but Ken, you already know how to breathe,
so I’m talking to you like this.
No.
That guy doesn’t know how to take a great breath.
But I have another guy who goes: HEY, MAN!
WHAT’S GOIN’ ON, DUDE!?!
LET’S ROCK!!!
Like, you’ve got this strength, this LION that’s ROARING in your stomach!
Then all of a sudden, it’s like: THAT guy knows how to Breathe!
If he’s doing it right, and can control the air, but also control that he’s not
hitting the glottis with too much air, to dry out the cords, and give it enough time
to rejuvenate for the voice.
Okay.
I know this is a lot of information.
I hope this was helpful.
But I want to do something here and I want to have you guys take a breath.
Just take a breath in from the abdomen and go HEY!
HEY!
And I want you to feel that explosion of air.
So the next time you go to sing you’ll understand if I can control this LION that’s in my
stomach, the engine that drives my car, then I also know that I can control it through
the relaxation response between the chest the neck and the throat, and I can learn how
to just kill it, whether it’s singing light jazz R and B, which it's still needed
for that, or something heavy like scream or rock or whatever that is.
Okay? Alright, Guys!
Thank you for joining me, Ken Tamplin Vocal Academy, where the proof is in the singing!