WHAT IS VOICE ? HOW DO WE MAKE A SOUND?
Isn’t it beautiful that we all carry a built-in instrument? Yes, our voice is an instrument! So how do we make a sound? We can’t see it as we sing but we can most certainly feel the changes inside our body as we make a sound. The art of singing requires the cooperation of our minds and bodies.
How do we produce the sound?
Simply put, the sound is caused by a vibration. When we pluck a guitar string, it vibrates creating movement in the air particles – the sound waves, which then travel to the human’s ear.
When we breathe we use our ribs, diaphragm and abdominal muscles to breathe. The breath acts as a source of power for the voice. When we exhale and engage muscles inside our larynx responsible for voice production, our vocal folds meet together and vibrate.
Those vibrations resonate in our vocal tract, which amplifies the sound.
Singing is a magnificent process of spreading energy!
The Pitch
The pitch (low or high) of our voice depends on how fast our vocal folds vibrate. If you imagine the guitar string, the thinner string produces a higher sound than the thicker one. The thinner string vibrates faster than the thicker string.
Similarly, our vocal folds stretch and become thinner as we speak/sing higher. On the opposite, they become thicker as we speak/sing lower.
The Timbre
The beauty of singing is that we all sound unique! Every voice is different and you might have heard of voice types such as bass, tenor, alto, mezzo and soprano, etc. They not only refer to a specific vocal range but also to distinctive characteristics. For example, a mezzo and soprano range overlap, but they might sound different singing the same note. For mezzos, that note might be in their upper vocal range, while for sopranos it’s just within their sweet spot!
I call it a sweet spot because it’s the area in the vocal range that we feel most comfortable at and our voice shines the most!
Timbre is the colour of our voice. Timbre describes the tone quality. But did you know that we can manipulate how we sound?
For example, we can sound breathy by releasing more air when we sing. We can sound brighter if we raise our larynx, or darker if we lower it. Accessing the falsetto can bring a lighter tone.
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