Your Communicative Voice - The Vocal Cords
The vocal cords are the guitar strings of your voice.
So now that we know what fuels or powers your voice, we need to talk about your voice itself.
Your voice is the communicative use of your exhaled air. Rather than silently breathing, you are adding extra information to your breath out to other people.
When you yawn and make sound, people can hear that you are tired.
When a baby cries as they breathe out, people are alerted that the baby needs attention, is hungry, or needs soothing.
You communicate extra information when you make sound while breathing out.
Without your vocal cords, you cannot produce sound the typical way and would need another way to introduce vibration in your throat and mouth for sound. Throat cancer patients who have their voice box removed are an example population that uses alternatives.
So What Are the Vocal Cords - Anatomy
The vocal cords are two bands of smooth muscle tissue in your throat. They are located in the larynx or voice box at the top of the tube to your lungs or trachea.
You can control whether the bands come close together or stay far apart from each other. When you hold your breath your vocal cords come together to seal off the tube to your lungs. When you take a deep breath, your vocal cords spread apart to open the tube to your lungs so the air can rush to your lungs and your body can use the oxygen.
You can also control how tight the vocal cords are or how relaxed they are. The tighter the vocal cord, the higher the pitch. The more relaxed the vocal cord, the lower your pitch. It's the same thing as a DIY rubber band guitar 🪕. The tighter the rubber band, the higher the pitch of the sound when you strum. In addition, the thicker the rubber band string, the lower the pitch. This explains why male voices are usually lower - because the vocal cords tend to anatomically be thicker or bulkier.
Role in Sound - Vibration 🪘
When the vocal cords are close together but not fully tight and sealing off the tube to your lungs, your vocal cords vibrate. When they are far away, the vocal cords do not vibrate.
So imagine the tube from your lungs like a hose. When you breathe out, air is pushed out of your lungs like water is pushed out through a hose. Your vocal cords act like a drum skin on the end of the hose with a single hole for the water (or air) to rush out. The drum skin is vibrating as the water (or air) rushes out.
All English vowels use this vocal cord vibration. Some English consonants use this vocal cord vibration too.
We call it 'voicing'. When the vocal cords don't vibrate - we call that voiceless sounds. When the vocal cords vibrate - we call that voiced sounds.
If you cannot control your vocal cords closing or opening to get vibration in your throat when you want, you do not accurately make the sound you want.
This one single feature change can change the final sound you produce.
For example, did you know the T-sound and D-sound use the same mouth movements? It's just whether or not your vocal cords are vibrating at the time that dictates whether you produce one over the other.
Same goes for the P-sound and the B-sound.
Role in English Speech
Now, speech is the combination of voiced vowel sounds, voiced consonants and voiceless consonants. You combine pauses for breathing, a bunch of different mouth positions and range from high to low pitch to communicate emotion, statement versus questions and everything else. Here are a few reasons for voicing control in English.
1. Producing the correct sound
So now that you know the only difference between the T-sound and the D-sound is the vocal cord vibration, if you don't know how to control or consciously be aware of the vocal cords, you can see how it can lead to trouble.
Some other languages also have rules (e.g. final obstruent devoicing) where voicing is stopped at the end of certain sounds. When those rules are applied to English, non-native English speakers can accidentally produce the wrong sound then.
2. Plurals
In English, there can also be some rules about voicing that non-native English speakers don't know. For example, when pronouncing plural nouns.
In English, when you talk about plural nouns (e.g. birds, pies, hats, toys), the S-letter pronunciation can vary. The variation in pronunciation includes whether you add voicing (or vocal cord vibration).
In English, the sound BEFORE the plural noun makes a difference on the final pronunciation of the plural S-letter.
If the consonant BEFORE the plural S-letter is voiceless (i.e. doesn't have vibrating vocal cords), you pronounce the plural S-letter as an S-sound (except if the consonant is an /s/, /f/ /tʃ/)
Some examples are: books, desks, cats, cups, groups, students
If the consonant BEFORE the plural S-letter is voiced (i.e. does have vibrating vocal cords), you pronounce the plural S-letter as an Z-sound (except if the consonant is an /z/, /dʒ/)
Some examples are: moms, boys, girls, rooms, dogs, schools, years
If the consonant BEFORE the plural S-letter is a /z/, /s/, /ʃ/, or /tʃ/ , you pronounce the plural S-letter as an 'iz'-sound
Some examples are: horses, classes, sizes, dishes, matches
3. Pitch, Intonation, Questions
We also control the vocal cords to tighten or relax for changes in pitch. When we sing, ask questions, sound interested or vary our pitch for engagement, these are all skills that depend on your control of the vocal cords.
If you lack intentional control of your pitch, you may sound bored, annoyed, or uninteresting. People may not realize you are asking a question and want a response from them.
Yeah. versus Yeah?
Good presenters vary the pitch of their voice up and down so it never becomes monotone. It will feel like a roller coaster with fast parts, slow parts, and excitement. If a roller coaster was the same speed and stayed low to the ground only or high up only, it would be 100x less exciting but it is because the roller coaster goes up and down and twists and turns that it is exciting. 🎢
4. Uh-Oh.
For the word 'uh-oh', your vocal cords close temporarily to seal off your metaphorical throat hose (see my metaphor above if this makes no sense). Certain English sounds actually use this glottal stop even though there is no written letter to represent it visually.
So It’s Important.
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you of the importance of your vocal cords. Most non-native English speakers I talk to don’t actually have a clear understanding or awareness of the vocal cords role or how to pay attention for the throat vibration, even though it is an integral part of communication in many languages, not just English.
Comment down below if you want a more detailed explanation on how to practice voicing or if you have any questions about the information above. ⬇️⬇️
