Zipping Up Vocal Cords - Advice?

[DukeOfBoom]

Lately, I've been working very hard on trying to adduct, or "zip up" my vocal cords to smooth the chest/head registers. However, I'm stuck.

 

Brett Manning advises to use the "gee" sound to learn what it feels like to feel the vocal cords open and close with the hard "g". Kevin Richards advises to grunt and feel the vocal cords adducting. I understand and can feel the hard "g" close my cords, but I cannot for the life of me use a grunt to mimic that feeling.

 

More importantly though, if I try to imitate that closing-the-cords feeling that I get with the "gee" exercise, it leaves me with very sore muscles in my neck, leading me to believe that I'm doing it totally improperly.

 

Additionally - and this leaves me even more confused - I've watched Laryngscopy videos on youtube like

or

and cannot for the life of me even see where the vocal cords are zipping up (the see the cords coming together on a planar level but never zipping up like this:

 

So, any advice is appreciated - what does it feel like to adduct your cords? What muscles are you using specifically? Your Larnynx? Your Soft Pallet?

[DukeOfBoom]

Another thing I do, which I don't know if it is zipping up the cords, but it seems to me to be the same:

 

I'm exhaling, and I constrict my larynx slowly to slow the air going out. It would seem that doing this is zipping up the vocal cords, but it could be other muscles around the folds that I'm constricting during the exhale to stop the flow of air.

 

When I apply this to a sustained head-voice/falsetto note, nothing much happens to the tone of the note except it suddenly fizzes out. Is this adduction, or at least half-way there?

[davie]

You could try using an unvoiced 'H'. Kinda like the laugh 'hah', but without the vowel.

[JohnBenussi]

Duke, if I knew technically what you meant I

could try to help but I'm only a play by ear singer man.

[Masklin]

What you feel when making g-sounds is your tongue clogging your airways, not your vocal cords.

 

You can feel your vocal cords by for example:

 

1. Inhale

 

2. Relax in your abdominals but keep the air in with whatever else you've got.

 

3. when you relax this mystical mechanic that in step 2 just kept your lungs filled, you feel your vocal cords letting go from each other.

 

If you do step 3 in quick succession you can hear your vocal cords moving in a sense.

 

Also good luck on this zipping business. Don't expect anyone to know what he or she is talking about. Manning might be sure of that the cords zip up, but others can say that pitch rises when you increase the tension force along the vocal cords (and if you know some physics, this increases the pitch) and bla bla.

 

So, good luck

[oiselle]

If you "try" to make the zipping happen, I doubt it will work. The zipping will occur naturally if you create the right space for the larynx to tilt forward and its back to pull the vocal cords to their max then transition to the zipping. A good exercise to develop proper coordination is to slide down. Choose a comfortable pitch in the top of your range and slide down. The goal is to do that smoothly without hearing a break between your register. Make sure you open your jaw properly as in biting an apple. Good luck!

 

--

Valerie Bastien

Teacher and Vocal Coach

Check out my new websites: www.voiceyourselfintheclassroom.com, www.voiceyourselfforsingers.com and www.valeriebastien.com

Also read my interviews with rock stars at www.rocksource360.com

[Tiffanihg]

DukeofBoom, how’s it going with zipping your vocal cords? I teach voice and that’s my whole class, strengthening the muscles that zip the cords...

[FelipeCarvalho]

In regards to closure/adduction, the most evident result in what you will do will be level of intensity, and secondarily (but very important too), clarity.

So before looking for sensations, which is what most of these teachers are talking about with the idea of "zipping", it is important to explore sounds that are very loud vs very quiet, as well as  very clear vs very hollow (falsetto). And then develop your own references of how these feel like.

There is no actual "zipping" action you have to learn besides the folds approximating, as the OP correctly observed in 2010.

 

The technique references mentioned on the start of the thread are not very good in this sense since they work from a sensation as if it were a mechanical aspect, and do not provide ideas on exploring the dynamic range, instead it is limited to a soft condition that will not be ideal for most modern, and even classical songs.

Cheers!