My voice teacher of 20 years – my beloved Barbara Kierig – had a saying: “we sing as we are.” She would always add, “but that’s not me, that’s Tovini (her voice teacher in Vienna), what do I know? I’m just a bag!” I had always taken that to be a statement of self, related to emotional state in the moment. I also inferred the deeper meaning of how the stresses, the joys and heartbreaks of life, affected our physical state with regard to tension in the body and what impact that might have on vocal production.
Barbara’s statement wasn’t merely an observation and a demonstration of sympatico, it was also a word of caution. We manifest tension in our bodies in different ways; neck tension, shoulder tension, the knitted brow, and all manner of other manifestations – we are different after all. But the one thing we all have in common: the thyrohyoid muscle.
[One aside on tension: I have always defined tension as the chronic contraction to varying degrees of muscle tissue without performing any physical work.]
The function of this muscle is as part of the three-fold protection mechanism to keep foreign objects out of our lungs, particularly when swallowing. Part one: the vocal folds adduct. Part two the ventricular folds or false vocal folds which lie higher in the larynx adduct (a different process than vocal fold adduction, but that’s a topic for another post). Part three: the thyrohyoid contracts and pulls the larynx higher in the neck, triggering the closure of the epiglottis, the body that covers the trachea and directs food and drink to the esophagus and in so doing, prevents it from going into the lungs instead.
Brilliant and elegant design, isn’t it? Just one flaw: the thyrohyoid is also tied to emotional response. When emotion overruns our ability to control it, the body responds in weird ways, one of which is the lump in the throat, or choking back a sob when trying to speak. During periods of extreme sadness, it is a universal physical manifestation of emotional distress. It is tension that occurs or is directed to the thyrohyoid muscle through some evolutionary mutation that enabled us to survive as a species somewhere in our distant past. Tension of the thyrohyoid is also an indicator of stress. This is 2019! Who doesn’t have stress in their lives? By now, it should be clear the physical relationship that the thyrohyoid has to the larynx and how that could influence vocal production.
So singing as you are, without an awareness of how stress is manifesting in your body, that thyrohyoid may be working overtime and drawing the larynx up and out of its lower and relaxed position. This is particularly pertinent because we all strive to be professionals: buck up and power through your stress! Unknowingly we may be teaching ourselves to use our voices in ways that lead to malfunction and dysphonia. Sometimes, singing as you are is not the best idea.
More tomorrow…
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