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W W W W W W

Words Are in the Mouth— W W W W W

Quality is in the Throat

Brian J. Winnie
Western Illinois University

Macomb, Illinois

(Used with permission of the author) W W W W W W

Conductor: “Choir, echo me [s, s, s]” that the sound is not going to change its overall color even

Choir: “[s, s, s]” when pitch, overall amplitude, or vowel and consonants
shift. This is important because speech sounds have the po-
Conductor: “Great, now with more energy!” tential to influence the resonance, or color, of a particular

voice quality.
What are the possible goals of this basic exercise? Per- Vowels tend to get the greatest attention because voice
haps the goal is for students to be able to connect sound quality can be most apparent when sustaining a vowel
with breath, create more audible unvoiced consonants, or sound. Vowels can, however, be bright, dark, or somewhere
energize the body to prepare for the rehearsal. No matter along the continuum depending on various changes of
the goal, what are the potential fl ow-on effects? In other voice structures. This occurs when structures change place-

words, what else might we inadvertently be teaching along ments, causing different energy boosts of harmonics, which

the way? How does this correspond to a dynamic mark- we perceive as brighter or darker qualities.
ing above a phrase? Does a forte apply to all consonants For example, an [i] vowel, which is commonly perceived
and vowels in each word equally? Which consonants are as a brighter vowel, can be made darker by lowering the
louder than others? How loud does a consonant have to be larynx, or even brighter by narrowing the epilaryngeal
to match the dynamic level of a vowel? In order to answer space via the aryepiglottic sphincter as in the childhood

these questions, let’s reflect on the title of this article. What taunt “nyae, nyae, nyae.” This demonstrates the potential

does “Quality is in the Throat” mean? We first need to independence between voice structures in the throat and
understand the distinction between speech sounds (vowels speech sounds made with the mouth (i.e., tongue and lips).

and consonants) and voice quality. Consonants can have just as much influence on voice qual-
Kim Steinhauer et al. suggest that “speech sounds are ity. Care should be taken to understand the common conso-
produced primarily in the mouth or oral cavity; voice qual- nant interactions with vowels and voice quality.
ity is produced by what is happening in the throat within Consonants are constrictions or obstructions along the
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the larynx and pharynx.” Voice quality can be thought of vocal tract and can be voiced or voiceless. Voiced conso-
as the overall characteristic sound of the voice regardless of nants occur with vibration of the true vocal folds due to
frequency, loudness, or speech sounds. Basically, this means the interaction of air fl ow. Voiceless consonants occur with

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