The Human Voice

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The human voice is an important factor in music, as it provides the main focus of a piece. Essentially the singing voice can be considered a musical instrument due to its versatility and expressive nature. In order to understand the singing voice as a healthy and expressive musical instrument, one has to develop their knowledge of vocal anatomy (Seleshanko,2002) and the physiological aspects of the voice( O’neil, Sloboda, 2001), as well as the psychological factors affecting performance, and the vocal conditioning strategies to maintain the voice in a healthy state. Vocal anatomy is a significant part of the human voice as it helps the singer have an in depth understanding of what they are doing. The singing process usually involves the use of the lungs, muscles of the rib cage, oral cavities, vocal cords and the larynx, back, chest and abdominal muscles (Sundberg, 2001). The vocal cords generate vibration as the contract and relax due to the build up of air pressure from the lungs to the larynx. The larynx muscles bring the vocal cords together and the pressure from air flow vibrates through the opening vocal cords, creating sound. When the air flow is depleted the muscles of the larynx brings the vocal cords back together( Seleshanko, 2002). When there is an obstruction to this process such as vocal cord cists or haemorrhages, the quality of the sound is affected. This can be due to smoking cigarettes, viral colds such as laryngitis, vocal dehydration and improper singing techniques. The quality of sound is also affected by the resonators of the voice. These resonators include the pharynx, soft and hard palates, chest cavities, oral cavities, nasal cavities, sinus cavities and the tongue. All of these resonators are accountable in creating pitch, and work together with the vibrations made by the vocal cords(Lawrence, 2001). A singer always begins by

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