Erin Rinehart

Voice Building Lecture

● Chiaroscuro: considered an ideal voice quality

● Keys to good choral tone: Low larynx, firm glottal closure
○ This idea has been around for several hundred years
● Low Larynx
○ Thyroid cartilage, adam’s apple
○ Swallow to feel it rise
○ Yawn to feel it lower
○ Yawn sigh to hear the sound model we want: can be obtained by beginning a
yawn
● Vocal Anatomy
○ Trachea
○ Larynx
○ Pharynx
○ Soft Palate
■ Can’t sing french nasal vowel when it’s raised
● Low larynx: inverted megaphone shape: wide open throat, narrow at the lips
○ Megaphone shape: theatre or pop belting
○ Trombone: tube becomes longer, frequency becomes lower
○ When we speak it’s usually high so we have to train singers to keep it low
● Firm glottal closure
○ Arytenoid cartilage: wide apart when you breathe
○ Engage another set of muscles to pull them together to close the space for firm
glottal closure
○ Posterior glottal chink: all air
● Garden hose: water still won’t reach, put thumb over the hose
○ Creating higher pressure in order to make this work acoustically