Caitlin Craig Malde Chapter 5 part 2

The muscle of the lips extends all the way up to the nose and all the way down to the indentation above the chin, forming a thick band around the opening of the mouth.  

Describe the buccinators: include location, attachments, and function and resonance effect. The Buccinator muscles form the inside of the cheeks. They connect the lips in front. At the back they connect to the upper pharyngeal constrictor at a tendinous raphe inside the cheekbone. The buccinators also have fibers that originate above the upper molars and run obliquely to attach below the lower molars. When we sing with the lips pulled back at the sides with a wide lateral opening, we are using the buccinator muscles. When the buccinators contract, they not only pull on the lips but also on the upper pharyngeal constrictor. This sets off a chain reaction. There are two muscles that run vertically along the inside of the pharynx, the palatopharyngeus and the palatoglossus muscles. Both of these muscles are discussed in connection with the soft palate above. When the cheek muscles engage, they constrict the oral pharynx by pulling forward on the upper pharyngeal constrictor. This in turn affects the palatoglossus, which can pull up on the base of the tongue, and the palatopharyngeus, which can pull up on the larynx. The resulting resonance is called spread. This is to be avoided in classical singing, but can be desirable in other forms of singing. 

What is the tongue’s survival function? As a survival function, the tongue is used to move food around and start the push down to the stomach. 

What is the function of the tongue for singing? For singing, the tongue has the function to form vowels and consonants.

How many intrinsic tongue muscles are there?  What is their function? The 4 intrinsic tongue muscles are responsible for the fine motor movements of articulation.

How many extrinsic tongue muscles are there?  What is their function? The 5 extrinsic tongue muscles are responsible for moving the tongue forward, up, back, or down..

Where does the tongue have attachments? The tongue attaches to the hyoid bone and to the mandible (jaw) at the back of the chin.

What is the septum of the tongue?  What is its function? It is a fibrous septum that extends vertically from the center of the hyoid bone and serves as a point of attachment for the intrinsic muscles. 

What are ways that singers use their tongues inappropriately? Many singers recruit the tongue to do the work of other muscles. Singers often push down on the larynx with the back of the tongue. This will not lower the larynx appreciably. It will only make your sound throaty and unnatural. Another way singers use the tongue improperly is to pull it back in an attempt to increase pharyngeal resonance. The eustachian tubes open into the top of the pharynx and carry the sound wave from the pharynx to our ears. Doing this makes that pharyngeal resonance sound louder and richer through the eustachian tubes. Unfortunately, to your audience it simply sounds overly dark and muffled. 

What is the only healthy way to lower the larynx? The only way to lower the larynx healthily is to use the muscles that connect to it from below. These muscles are the sternohyoid, and the omohyoid muscles. 

Which four muscles in the neck are the only muscles  that can play a positive role in vocal resonance? the sternohyoid muscle, the omohyoid muscle, the sternothyroid muscle, and the stylopharyngeus muscle. 

What is the function of the rest of the next muscles? They are responsible for other important tasks, such as turning the head and lifting the arms. In other words, most of the neck muscles function only for expression and gesture in singing. 

What are the strongest muscles that pull up on the larynx? The hyoglossus muscles.

Describe the aryepiglottic sphincter (location and function). The AES plays a role in successful belting. It is located just above the vf's and is defined by the muscles surrounding the epiglottis cartilage. The muscles that narrow the AES are the aryepiglottic muscles, which originate at the back of the larynx and extend along the sides of the aryepiglottic folds to the epiglottis. Engaging these muscles to narrow the space where the larynx opens into the lower part of the pharynx allows belters to gain the acoustic advantage of the singer's formant without lowering the larynx. This result is a brighter, steelier sound with less vowel modification.  

What causes the Singer’s Formant? The ring of the voice happens when the opening of the larynx is much smaller than the width of the lower pharynx. There are 2 ways we can achieve this: widen the pharynx or make the laryngeal opening smaller. To widen the pharynx, we lower the larynx. To narrow the laryngeal opening, we close the aryepiglottic sphincter. They can also be combined.

What is vowel modification? Vowel modification is when we open our jaws slightly as we go up in pitch to accommodate the vowel in our upper range.

How can we be singing the correct pitch and still be off in terms of intonation? Resonance affects the listener's perception of pitch through emphasizing certain parts of the sound wave. If high overtones are emphasized with resonance, the pitch may sound sharp. If low overtones are emphasized, the pitch may sound flat. This is especially true if the resonance is not consistent. For instance, if a singer habitually sings a bright, somewhat nasal [e] vowel and a throaty, dark [a] vowel, the intonation will sound inconsistent, even if the vf's are producing the correct pitch at all times. Awareness of the structures of resonance will help eradicate tension and build consistency in resonance, which will help intonation.