Sam Meredith Malde Ch. 5 Part Deux

The muscle of the lips extends all the way up to the ___nose___________ and all the way down to the ______________indentation above the chin________________.  

Describe the buccinators: include location, attachments, and function and resonance effect. These muscles form the inside of the cheeks, connect to the lips in front and the upper pharyngeal constrictor in the back at a raphe inside the cheekbone. They are meant to pull the lips back and create a wide lateral opening. They also pull on the upper pharyngeal constrictor. Contracting these muscles gives singing a spread resonance

What is the tongue’s survival function? it is meant to move food and start the push of food down to the stomach

What is the function of the tongue for singing? to form vowels and consonants

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

How many extrinsic tongue muscles are there?  What is their function? 5; they move the tongue forward, up, back, or down

Where does the tongue have attachements? it attaches to the hyoid bone and to the mandible

What is the septum of the tongue?  What is its function? 

What are ways that singers use their tongues inappropriately? they recruit it to do the work of other muscles; the most common of these problems is when a singer pushes down on the larynx with the back of the tongue

What is the only healthy way to lower the larynx? to use the muscles that connect to it from below

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

What is the function of the rest of the next muscles? some of them play a role in respiration, but mostly they are involved in movement of the neck and are used for gesturing and not for singing

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

Describe the aryepiglottic sphincter (location and function) it is just above the vocal folds and is defined by the muscles surrounding the epiglottis cartilage; these muscles narrows the space where the larynx opens

What causes the Singer’s Formant? it happens when the opening of the larynx is much smaller than the width of the lower pharynx

What is vowel modification? the process of opening the jaw slightly in order to sing closed vowels (or something very similar to them) on high pitches

How can we be singing the correct pitch and still be off in terms of intonation? sometimes the listeners perception of pitch is changed by resonance. If high overtones are emphasized in a singers voice, they may sound sharp. If they emphasize low overtones, they may sound flat. Inconsistency in intonation in these cases is an effect of a lack of awareness of the structures that control resonance.