When you watch someone singing, the first assumption you probably make is that the sound you hear is coming from the singer's mouth. This would seem obviously correct since that is all you can actually see. Of course if your hearing is more accurate you will be able to hear that other factors are involved, but the average layman is satisfied with the previous assumption. In fact, many of the singers I work with are themselves uncertain about the origins of the sounds they are producing.

As a student progresses through the process of training, his or her instrument becomes more available. As more and more information is acquired, more and more coordination is gained. The student eventually perceives the voice as a mechanism or (as I sometimes refer to my own voice) as a machine with so many working and non-working parts. In the beginning stages of training, however, the perception of the phonation process is usually quite vague.

Although this may, at first, seem like a strange analysis, consider for a moment the fact that you, as an adult, have control of your bladder and your anal sphincter muscles. As an infant you had no perception of control concerning these muscles. Then you reached a point where the process of toilet training began and eventually your earlier perception was permanently altered. Conscious control over these muscles is now automatic. You daily exercise control over muscles that you never see.

To keep this analogy in the context of singing, let's reconsider the workings of the larynx and the training of a singer. It is a commonly known anatomical fact that the larynx is the source of the sound. When you train the larynx to function for singing you must go through a process of adjusting the inner workings of the body to accept an over-laid function. An over-laid function is one that we have invented for our own puposes through the remarkable adaptability of the human body. Writing is such a function and so is singing. In fact, any function that is not one of Mother Nature's biological necessities for life support and survival can be considered an over-laid function.

The larynx is the covering of the windpipe. Its main function is to close when we swallow or vomit so that we do not choke to death while we are eating or when the body finds it necessary to eliminate substances from the stomach. Its other functions include providing the body with breath compression when internal pressure is needed, say during childbirth or heavy physical work. Since singing does not fit into the category of primitive functions, we can deduce that the larynx was not created for singing. However, since the mechanism is set up the way it is, speech and song were inevitable developments.

Now, what exactly is the larynx and how does it make all those incredible sounds? Well, the larynx is composed of many parts. There are three main carilage parts (the thyroid, the cicoid and the arytonoids) which are connected by ligaments, membranes and muscles to make up the framework of the structure of the larynx. This structure serves as a protection for the very vulnerable mechanism that houses the vocal folds and the most delicate membranes. The thyroid cartilage (what we call the Adam's apple) is directly in front of the thyroid gland. It is the largest of the three cartilages and serves as a protective shield. Below that is the cricoid, a circular piece of cartilage that forms the top ring of the trachea. The arytenoids are paired cartilages that, along with the cricoid, swivel, tense, relax and generally move the vocal folds during the process of phonation.

It seems almost miraculous to me that this process, together with maybe 3/8 of an inch of vacal fold in a woman and at most 1/2 inch in a man, can produce singers of such magnitude and skill that we flock to hear them sing. As you can see, the source of the sound is quite different than we earlier assumed. The fact is that sound does not come from the mouth, it comes through the mouth. The larynx is the source and the pharynx (the cavity directly above the larynx), the mouth and the nasal passages act as resonant chambers to amplify sound as it leaves the body.

Much of the process of training a singer has to do with teaching a person to gain control of these intricate structures. A singer must be able to direct his or her instrument accurately and automatically. The physical process must be a continuous one in much the same way that dancing or sports requires. Controlling the larynx automatically will allow you to concentrate more on the quality of the sound being produced.

That is all for now. See you next month!