Set Your Voice Free: How to Get the Singing or Speaking Voice You Want

by Roger Love

Remember that there are two passages in your throat, one for air and one for food. When you swallow, one function of the larynx, the house of the vocal cords, is to rise, blocking the air passage so no food or liquid gets in your lungs. You can feel this happening if you put your finger on your chin and slide it backward down your throat until you get to the first bump, your Adam’s apple, which is the front part of the larynx. As you swallow, you’ll feel how it goes way above your finger and then back down. At certain times that “swallow, rise, block-the-throat” motion may be a lifesaver—none of us needs food in the windpipe—but when it happens at the wrong time, it cuts off the air passage and stops the production of great vocal sounds. To find out if your larynx is rising too high, closing up your throat as you speak, try this. Put your index finger back on your Adam’s apple and read the next few sentences aloud. If the larynx jumps substantially above your finger, as it did when you swallowed, that’s too much movement. The larynx is allowed to move up and down between one-quarter and one-third of an inch as you speak, but any more than that places it in a blocking position.