I was listening to a podcast about voice training today, and heard this old chestnut: “We can’t control the vocal folds.” Is this true?
A lot of methodologies make this assertion, and there’s some wisdom behind it. For most vocal sound, if you’re trying to do something with your throat, you’re likely working too hard and focusing on the wrong things. Speech communication works best when the vocal mechanism is allowed to fade into the background of one’s awareness, and when phonation (the process of turning breath energy into sound energy at the vocal folds) is as efficient and spontaneous as possible. Most actor training looks toward this goal.
The basic idea here is to focus on fueling vibrations with adequate airflow, amplify those vibrations with resonant vocal tract shapes, and let the “middleman”–the vocal folds–take care of itself. It works…for the most part.
You can take this too far, however. Some methods prioritize breath and resonance at the expense of knowing very much about how phonation works. A voice method that’s entirely about the breath is missing part of the recipe.
I raised some eyebrows once among a group of voice teachers. We were debating “What is a [insert brand name here] voice teacher?” People had wonderful things to say about the teacher-student relationship, artistry, breath, body, action and impact…but conspicuously missing was much discussion of the actual vibratory mechanism. So I asked: “Does a [brand name] voice teacher know anything about the voice?” In other words, is there more to theatrical voice training than simply getting actors to breathe more?
The fact is, we can perceive our vocal folds and learn to work with them in different ways. Registration is the most obvious example–I can consciously speak the same note in chest voice (thyroarytenoid-dominant register) or head voice (cricothyroid-dominant). That’s a choice I’m making to use a different balance of muscle tension in the larynx. I can choose creaky voice–another conscious adaptation of the vocal folds themselves (and their relationship to airflow).
That’s not to say that vocal folds are easy to control. (I think there’s a better word than “control”, but you get my drift). They’re tiny. They’re hidden from view. They are both autonomic and voluntary.
But our eye muscles are tiny, and we can still look right and left. Our rhomboids are hidden from view, and I can still squeeze my shoulder blades together. And the diaphragm is both autonomic and voluntary. I can choose to breathe (or pause my breathing), but I can’t hold my breath indefinitely. I have a choice, but the automatic processes do have some say.
The diaphragm is probably the most apt comparison here, and I’ve heard from voice teachers that it is “involuntary” as well. I call BS. Certainly, saying it’s entirely under our control ignores the complexity of the situation. Ignoring the way our autonomic nervous system intersects with our respiratory and phonatory systems can lead to problems–it’s an important part of the process of making sound. On the other hand, saying that parts of our system are beyond our awareness and therefore beyond our access diminishes our sense of agency and action as speakers–not an entirely good thing for the actor.
I may not want to think about my vocal folds most of the time. But when I do, I want them to be part of my body and respond to my will and imagination in fun and useful ways. So I do spend some time thinking about my throat. Don’t tell the voice teachers.