#Voicey sounds free#

Above both sides of the vocal cord is the vestibular fold or false vocal cord, which has a small sac between its two folds.

They are flat triangular bands and are pearly white in color. They have a three layer construction of an epithelium, vocal ligament, then muscle ( vocalis muscle), which can shorten and bulge the folds.

#Voicey sounds free#

They have no outer edge as they blend into the side of the breathing tube (the illustration is out of date and does not show this well) while their inner edges or 'margins' are free to vibrate (the hole). They are attached at the back (side nearest the spinal cord) to the arytenoids cartilages, and at the front (side under the chin) to the thyroid cartilage. The female vocal folds are between 12.5 mm and 17.5 mm in length. The male vocal folds (which would be measured vertically in the opposite diagram), are between 17 mm and 25 mm in length. Adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have larger folds. Ī labeled anatomical diagram of the vocal folds or cords.Īdult men and women typically have different sizes of vocal fold reflecting the male-female differences in larynx size. Singers use the human voice as an instrument for creating music. The human voice is used to express emotion, and can also reveal the age and sex of the speaker. The tone of voice may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, fear, happiness or sadness. The vocal folds, in combination with the articulators, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound. The articulators (the parts of the vocal tract above the larynx consisting of tongue, palate, cheek, lips, etc.) articulate and filter the sound emanating from the larynx and to some degree can interact with the laryngeal airflow to strengthen or weaken it as a sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the vocal folds to 'fine-tune' pitch and tone. The vocal folds (vocal cords) then vibrate to use airflow from the lungs to create audible pulses that form the laryngeal sound source. The lungs, the 'pump' must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds. Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx (voice box), and the articulators. (Other sound production mechanisms produced from the same general area of the body involve the production of unvoiced consonants, clicks, whistling and whispering.) The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the primary sound source. The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The spectrogram of the human voice reveals its rich harmonic content.