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The sound of our voice is produced by vibration of the vocal folds, which are two bands of tissue inside the throat that come together to vibrate. The larynx is located between the base of tongue and the top of the trachea. This is the passageway into the lungs. When we’re not speaking, the vocal folds are open so that we can breathe in. When it’s time to speak, they close together after the brain orchestrates a series of events, and then we push air through the vocal folds, making them vibrate and thus producing the sound. Those vibrations then travel through the throat, nose, mouth, and act as resonating cavities to modulate the sound. The quality of our voice, its pitch and volume, and its tone is determined by the size and shape of the vocal folds and those resonating cavities. This is why people’s voices are so different. Individual variations in our voices are the result of how much tension we put in our vocal folds. For example, relaxed vocal folds make a deeper tone. Tensing them makes a higher pitch.
