Joe's Vocal Ped Blog

      This week we started Phonation and man was that a heavy subject. Not that there was anything controversial or morally weighted but it was a lot of information to take in and process. Dr. Hoffman explained all of the working parts of the larynx including cricoid cartilage and the epiglottis and other names the sound like planets from Star Wars.  The workings of the TA and CT really intrigued me. Especially how the cricothyroid muscles lengthen the vocal folds to make higher pitches like a stretched out rubber band, the farther you pull it and flick it, the higher the pitch.       Seeing the functions of phonation was made much easier with models and multiple different ones at  that. It was nice referring to the large expensive plastic model to see everything bigger and with more detail, but the smaller paper model had things color coded and was able to move to show how these parts more in practice. If one truly wants to understand p...

      This week in Vocal Ped, we have been learning about the power behind breathing, respiration and  breath options. What this means is that we have been learning about why and how do we breathe? All throughout high school, my choir director would review proper breathing techniques such as breathing low as well as give us little run downs on the function of the diaphragm. It wasn't until college that I really understood the physics of breathing and the relation between the spine, diaphragm, rib cage and lungs all shared in the process of breathing. After talking about the physics of breathing over the course of about four semesters with Dr. Hoffman and after watching this weeks videos of breathing, I found some interesting knew tips and busted a few breathing myths.      One of the myths I learned was that low breathing doesn't always have to be your only method of breathing, there is also higher breathing called clavicle breathin...