This article will discuss why do singers’ voices vibrate. How do singers’ voices vibrate?
This phenomenon is a result of vibration and its causes. There are two types of vibrating vibrations: measurable and the one you do not see but feel inside.
Let us discuss the second kind first.
Vibrational vibrations are the ones you feel when you are inside a speaker or microphone.
The things that vibrate are atoms and molecules in our body. These vibrations that you feel are vibrational ones.
These vibrations are occurring all the time and are therefore very common.
The only difference is how we feel these vibrations; some people feel a vibrating feeling on the inside while some do not.
Physicists tell us that our voice can vibrate if it is big enough, and we use it as a tool in singing. This vibration that you feel inside your body can be used as a tool to produce the pitch you want in singing.
If you want a high pitch of a male voice, then you vibrate it faster than usual. You will not be able to feel these vibrations, but it is still possible.
If you want to sing in a lower pitch, then you vibrate it slower.
Vibrating sounds in non-human organisms
Tons of animals and human beings do not have vocal cords. Animals like dolphins and whales do not need them.
What they do have is a vocal sac that vibrates to produce sounds.
Some bird species do not need vocal cords. They only produce sounds through vibrations in their throat and mouth.
Human beings can produce sounds, too; however, we do not need vocal cords for that.
There are non-vocal species like the frog, and the toad does not produce sound by vibrating their vocal sacs. However, they vibrate their vocal sacs in other ways to produce sounds like the way we do.
Vibrational sounds in humans
To produce sounds, human beings use vocal cords. The vocal cords are very fragile and very fragile.
They vibrate much faster than a human’s vocal cords can vibrate. This makes the sound we produce much higher than it would be without the vibrating cords.
The vibration of the vocal cords produces the vibrations mostly felt by the person producing the sound, not the person listening to it. Some people say that they can feel a singer’s vibrations in their body, and others cannot.
Some people feel vibrations in their ears as if a person were singing. This is not what you actually hear.
This is a method we use to produce the tone that we want to hear and the frequency that we want to hear. This is not the way we hear a human singing.
As we said earlier, a vibrating vocal cord produces vibrations inside our bodies that are as strong as if we are vibrating our vocal cords. This is why we can feel a vibrating vocal cord in our bodies.
Vocal cords are much more fragile than humans are. This is why a vibrating vocal cord causes much more damage to our vocal cords than a person with a vocal cord that is not vibrating.
Many scientists agree that vocal cords are one of the most fragile parts of the body. This is why so many singers have vocal cords ruptured because of the amount of force and sudden actions they perform while singing.
The vocal cords become stretched in ways that cannot be controlled and rupture.
Because of this risk, many singers take days off after a performance, especially if it was difficult. This is why it is suggested that singers that are experienced avoid performing with vocal cords that have been vibrating too much or are not loose enough.
This is a good practice because the more vibrations you do while singing, the more damage you do to your vocal cords.
How is this possible?
The first way we know that you can hurt your vocal cords is by overusing your voice. The next way is through careless exercises.
Here is a great article on the topic.
The quick and dirty on rigor mortis and vocal cord vibrations
Rigor mortis is the slow spreading of the rigor on a person’s body after death. This is when your body starts to close down.
The more the body is shut down and the longer it takes for the body to do this, the longer the muscles are stiff. The longer the muscles stay stiff, the more rigid the body.
Thus, the muscles will start to become stiffer, and the “glue” between the muscles will tighten. This tightening will pressure the vocal cords, and the cords will be pushed up and around into the head.
This is why singers and opera singers have to speak while singing to avoid causing the vocal cords to move and risk rupture.
While the muscles stay stiff, the vocal cords cannot be too flexed or come loose from the neck’s bones. This causes the vocal cords to come loose.
“On rare occasions, cramps in the throat muscles cause muscles to pull the vocal cords off the skull, as in the case of a coughing fit or a spasm of the diaphragm.
However, most vocal strains result from a loosening of the vocal cords when the vocal cords are too flexed, causing them to move in any direction (front, back, up, down).
The rigid throat muscles prevent vocal cords from loosening.” – Public Domain.
You can actually see this in a vocalist by looking at the neck. The neck bone is keeping the vocal cords attached to the skull and keeping the cords from moving around.
The vocal cords cannot move if the neck is not flexible. If you take any extreme strain on your neck, your neck will most likely be weak enough to snap.
This is also why singing the wrong note can cause vocal cord rupture.
For example, if you are singing a note with a flat 3rd (a major 3rd like in our 8th chord), when your neck’s neck is not flexible, the vocal cords will be forced into flexion and push the cords to the side.
When the vocal cords push to the side, the vocal cords are too rigid, and the muscles around them cannot relax in time with the vocal cords and cause vocal cord rupture.
If the vocal cords cannot stretch in time with the vocal cords, then the vocal cords will contract too much, and the vocal cords will move from the skull, which can lead to vocal cord rupture.
