Brianna Skeen-McCoy-Chapter 4

 Chapter 4

Summary

- The entire purpose of chapter 4 is to gain an understanding of what the vocal folds are, how they function, and how understanding the anatomy of the larynx can help with healthy vocal production in singing. The vocal folds are small tissues no bigger than a small coin that live in the larynx. They produce sound by abduction (opening the glottis and moving apart), and adduction (closing the glottis or moving close together). The larynx is made up of various bones, muscles, and tissue. This includes: the hyoid bone, epiglottis, thyroid cartilege, cricoid cartiledge, inferior horn, and trachea, thyroarytenoid, circothyroid muscle, and the arytenoid muscle that all work together by serving their unique functions to create sound. The rest of the chapter discusses different types of onset and offset and pitch control, what is healthy, and how knowledge of each of these anatomical functions can both help us to understand how these effects happen, but also how to fix them. It is summed up best when McCoy says, "Generations of singers have produced beautiful sounds without possessing this knowledge. Today's singers, however, need not remain in this intellectual vaccum."

Application

- Knowing about the different anatomical parts of the layrnx and how it functions can help me to be aware of my own body when I am singing. It can also help me to identify and fix problems that I might hear in my own students. For example, today when I was teaching a voice lesson to one of my students, I noticed that she was having difficulty transitioning through her passagio. Because I had just barely read about that in this book I was able to explain to her what was happening in her larynx to cause that to happen. I explained how the break in her voice occurs becasue of a difficult transition between the two different sets of muscles that are used for high pitches as oppesed to lower pitches and how our bodies definition of where high and low are in our voices are different. Just explaining the process to her automatically helped her to make that transition smoother because she was aware of what was happening and why, and it allowed her to relax and not try to control it which made the transition easier.