Sarah King - McCoy - CH4

Summary: Wowzers, the larynx is pretty darn cool! A bunch of muscles and cartilage come together to create sound. The vocal folds do a little dance and the muscles surrounding it help control pitch and volume. Finding the perfect balance is the main goal, sometimes you have glottal onset/offset, sometimes you have aspirate onset/offset, but ideally you have balanced onset/offset. All this is dictated by airflow vs. adduction. Fancy schmancy stuff if you ask me.

Key words:
Vocal folds – the vibrator for the human voice that enables us to make sound, they are small and housed within the larynx.
Ventricular folds – also known as the false vocal folds, they rest above the true vocal folds.
Stratified squamous epithelium – the outermost layer of the vocal folds composed of a thin layer of skin cells, also known as the mucosa of the vocal folds.
Thyroarytenoid muscle – the main muscle of the vocal folds.
Lamina propria – the division between the thyroarytenoid muscle and the epithelial cover, subdivides into three separate regions (superficial, intermediate, and deep).
Hyoid – a wishbone-shaped bone just below the jaw that the larynx is suspended from.
Thyroid cartilage – shield-shaped, it is the largest of the laryngeal cartilages.
Cricoid cartilage – the second largest of the laryngeal cartilages and is the only one to form a complete circle.
Arytenoid cartilage – two of them sit atop the posterior superior surface of the cricoid, shaped like weird pyramids; these are the attachment points for muscles to control opening/closing of the glottis, as well as the attachment points for the posterior of the true vocal folds.
Epiglottis – leaf-shaped, located at the top of the larynx, prevents food num nums from going into your breathing tubes.
Trachea – AKA the windpipe, it’s at the bottom of the larynx and leads to the lungs (it stops at the carina, where it branches into the bronchial tubes).
Adduction – the action of drawing the vocal folds together to close the glottis in order to initiate and sustain phonation.
Abduction – the action or an instance of forcibly taking someone away against their will; or, in this case, when the vocal folds are drawn apart, opening the glottis to stop phonation and for respiration.
Thyroarytenoid muscle – primary muscle in the production of low-pitched sound, it shortens and thickens the vocal folds.
Cricothyroid muscles – primary muscles in the production of high-pitched sound, it  elongates and thins the vocal folds.
Onset – the initiation of vocal tone.
            Glottal onset – occurs when strong adduction precedes breath energy, resemble a grunt.
            Aspirate onset – opposite of glottal, occurs when breath flow is started and the vocal folds are slowly adducted into the moving air, usually marked by a /h/ that precedes it.
            Balanced onset – when adduction and airflow begin at precisely the same instant, resulting in clean and easy sound.
Offset – the completion of vocal tone.
            Glottal offset – stops sound by forcefully and tightly adducting the glottis to cut off airflow abruptly, usually with a grunting noise.
            Aspirate offset – vocal folds are abducted while air continues to flow, accompanied with the /h/ sound like a sigh.
            Balanced offset – when abduction occurs at the exact instant breath flow stops, the sound is clean and effortless.
Pressed tones – adduction is too tight, sounds pressed.

Application: Okay friends, I’ll be honest: the reading for this chapter was obnoxious. I had a moment where I couldn’t actually read part of a paragraph because the picture was covering it… I guess the editors couldn’t find the time to look over the book before publishing the physical copy, eh? Anywho, the stuff I could read was very interesting. The whole glottal onset/offset, aspirate onset/offset was something I wish I had read earlier in my life because I’ve struggled with finding that perfect balance in my higher range.