Vocal Anatomy for Kids: How Does Your Voice Work?
The Science of Singing
🌬️ Breath: Gives the voice its airflow
🎵 Vocal Folds/Cords: Vibrate to make the sound
🔊 Resonance: Helps amplify and color the sound in the spaces of your throat, mouth, and nose.
👄 Vocal Tract: Shapes the sound into different vowels, words, and sounds
How Does Our Body Work When We Sing?
Breathing happens automatically most of the time. Our brain and nervous system control the muscles we use to breathe without us having to think about it. But we can also control our breathing on purpose, which is important when we speak and sing.
When we sing, we inhale and then carefully control our exhaled air. The air passes through the larynx, where the vocal folds vibrate and create the sound of our voice. The sound then travels through the vocal tract, which includes the throat, mouth, and nasal passages. The shape of these spaces helps shape and change the sound we hear.
Breath → Vibration → Resonance → Shaping the Sound
Every instrument has three things: An action, a vibration, and a resonance. For example, we hit a drum with a drumstick. That is the action. The drumhead vibrates. That is the vibration. The air inside and around the drum responds to those vibrations and helps make the sound louder. That is resonance.
Your body is an instrument too. Your breath provides the airflow. Your vocal folds vibrate to create a sound source. That sound travels through your throat, mouth, and sometimes your nose, where it resonates and is shaped into the voice we hear.
Nasal Passages and Sinuses
Have you ever wondered why, when you are sick, you have so many boogers? Where do they all come from? It doesn’t seem like it, but we have a lot of space inside our head in the form of sinuses and nasal passages. We can change the tone of our voice by changing the shape of our vocal tract. When the soft palate lowers, it can allow air and sound energy to enter the nasal passages. This can make our voice sound nasal. Our nasal passages are like salt on food. Some salt is needed for good food, but too much salt tastes bad! Our singing is the same. If too much airflow passes through the nose, our voice can sound overly nasal. Try making your voice very nasal like a silly witch!
Our nasal passages can affect the color of our voice, but we don’t need to send air through our nose to sing high notes. Different shapes of the vocal tract can help us create different vocal sounds.
Activity
Try to sing like an Oger with a deep voice. Now try to sing overly nasally like a witch. How did you change the sound of your voice? What did you change inside your mouth, throat, or nose?
Vocal Cords and Singing
Your vocal folds (sometimes called vocal cords) are small—only about the length of a fingernail—but they are powerful enough to create your singing voice! Your vocal folds vibrate very quickly to make the sound of your voice. How fast they vibrate helps determine whether the sound is high or low. When the vocal folds become longer, thinner, and more stretched, they generally vibrate faster and produce a higher pitch. When they become shorter and thicker, they generally vibrate more slowly and produce a lower pitch.
When we sing, our vocal folds vibrate very quickly. Singing also requires many muscles in our breathing system, larynx, tongue, jaw, and mouth to work together. We want these muscles to work efficiently without unnecessary tension, so we should keep our body relaxed.
Activity
Place your finger on your throat and sing the vowel “ah.” Do you feel a vibration? That’s your vocal cords!
What Is the Larynx?
The larynx is sometimes called the voice box. It sits in your neck and contains your vocal folds. When you breathe, air passes through the larynx. When you speak or sing, your vocal folds vibrate inside the larynx to create the sound source for your voice.
You can feel your larynx move when you swallow. Put your fingers gently on the front of your neck and swallow. Did you feel something move upward?
What Does the Diaphragm Do?
The diaphragm is a dome-shaped muscle that helps us breathe and is essential for singing. When we inhale, the diaphragm contracts and moves downward. This makes more space inside our chest, so air flows into our lungs and they expand. When we exhale, the diaphragm relaxes and moves upward while the chest and lungs return toward their resting position. When we sing, we carefully control our exhalation so we can manage the air for each phrase.
Activity
Put your hand just below your sternum and say “ha!” really loudly and quickly. What did you feel? You may feel your abdominal muscles and other muscles involved in breathing move. Singing uses many muscles together to control the flow of air.
Try it again, but this time imagine you’re blowing out a candle. Can you feel your body control the air?