Where are the vocal cords located?
Your vocal cords are inside your voice box (larynx), which is on top of your windpipe, directly behind your Adam’s apple. Your Adam’s apple is the bony protrusion in the front of your throat at the midpoint. If you place a finger or two on this spot and swallow, you should feel the protrusion move up. If you yawn, you should feel the protrusion move down.
What is the structure of your vocal cords?
Your vocal cords are two pearly white bands of tissue in the center of your voice box. A vocal cord on the right and one on the left meet to form a shape like an upside-down “V” when your vocal cords are open. When they’re closed, they come together to form a slit.
Your vocal cords stretch from the left to the right side of your voice box and from front to back. They connect to muscles and cartilage inside of your voice box that help control the movement of your vocal cords.
What are vocal cords made of?
A moist, protective lining called a mucous membrane covers your vocal cords. Underneath the lining, vocal cords consist of three basic layers:
- An outer layer of cells called the epithelium.
- A middle layer called the lamina propria, which helps your vocal cords move.
- An innermost muscular layer that includes the vocalis muscle and the thyroarytenoid muscles.
What size are vocal cords?
When you’re born, your vocal cords are about 6 to 8 millimeters long. They grow as you age into adulthood. The length and thickness of your vocal cords help determine how high or low your voice is, or your pitch. Thicker vocal cords produce a lower pitch, or a deep voice.
- Men and people assigned male at birth (AMAB): The hormone testosterone thickens and lengthens vocal cords during puberty, producing deeper voices. The average vocal cord length is 1.75 to 2.5 centimeters. These changes are irreversible. This means that people who are transgender and AMAB who receive feminizing hormone therapy continue to have deeper voices unless they work with a speech-language pathologist to adjust their pitch and/or receive voice feminization surgery.
- Women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB): Vocal cords grow somewhat during puberty, so the average length is 1.25 centimeters and 1.75 centimeters. People who are transgender and AFAB who receive testosterone as part of masculinizing hormone therapy experience changes in their vocal cords, like thickening and lengthening. As a result, their voices deepen.
For some people, vocal cords and other muscles inside their larynx shrink and grow weaker with age, making it harder to talk.
FAQs
The vocal cords (also called vocal folds) are two bands of smooth muscle tissue found in the larynx (voice box). The vocal cords vibrate and air passes through the cords from the lungs to produce the sound of your voice. Some of the more common vocal cord disorders include the following. Vocal Cord Disorder.
When you speak, are your vocal cords open or closed? ›
When you breathe in (inhale) and breathe out (exhale), your vocal cords open so air can flow freely. When you speak, your vocal cords close by meeting in the middle of your exhaled airstream and vibrate. The vibration creates the sound of your voice. Most healthcare providers refer to vocal cords as vocal folds.
What do your vocal cords do when you speak? ›
Your vocal cords vibrate to make sound. The vocal cords are small bands of muscle and other tissues inside the voice box (larynx). The air from your lungs makes them vibrate when the edges of the vocal cords come together. This is what makes the sound.
How many vocal cords do you need? ›
There are 2 vocal cords, which produce sound in humans. There are, in fact, 2 other cords but they do not contribute in producing voice.
What are the vocal cords actually? ›
The vocal folds are a pair of pliable shelves of tissue that stretch across the top of the trachea (windpipe). They are enclosed within the thyroid cartilage, which is the hard structure that forms the mass in the neck known as the Adam's apple.
What are vocal cords actually called? ›
The vocal folds, also known as vocal cords, are located within the larynx (also colloquially known as the voice box) at the top of the trachea. They are open during inhalation and come together to close during swallowing and phonation.
Can vocal cords heal? ›
With proper voice training with a certified therapist, nodules can disappear within six to 12 weeks. Vocal cord polyps – With rest, some vocal cord polyps will go away on their own within a few weeks. Most, however, have to be removed surgically. Contact ulcers – It can take a long time for contact ulcers to heal.
Can you speak without vocal cords? ›
After surgery to remove the whole of your voice box (total laryngectomy), you are no longer able to speak in the normal way. But there are different ways you can communicate and learn to speak again.
Can you talk if your vocal cords are cut? ›
Your ability to talk will depend on how much of your voice box was removed. If all of it was removed, you will need to learn new ways to communicate. If only a part of your voice box was removed, you may be able to talk after your throat has healed. Losing your ability to talk can be very upsetting and hard to accept.
Does yelling damage vocal cords? ›
When we shout, our vocal cords are pushed together, which increases pressure. The throat muscles that perform this action are explosively powerful, but over the course of a long rehearsal, they can quickly get fatigued. The vocal cords will then begin to swell, resulting in hoarseness.
Just as a muscle grows stronger with exercise, your vocal cords can be strengthened to enhance vocal power. Incorporate vocal exercises that specifically target vocal cord strength and endurance. These exercises may include sustained notes, vocal sirens, and controlled vocal fry.
Does your brain control your vocal cords? ›
Voluntary voice production in humans is under the direct control of the laryngeal motor cortex (LMC), which gives rise to a final common cortical motor pathway descending via the corticobulbar tract and communicating with laryngeal motoneurons in the brainstem to innervate the laryngeal muscles.
When speaking, are your vocal cords open or closed? ›
Vocal cords open when you breathe and then close to produce sound when vibrating together. Your vocal cords are two flexible bands of muscle tissue that sit at the entrance to the windpipe (trachea). When you speak, the bands come together and vibrate to make sound.
Why does my voice feel tired when I talk? ›
About Muscle Tension Dysphonia
If your voice is tired, your throat feels tight, or it hurts to talk, you may have muscle tension dysphonia, or voice strain caused by muscle tightness. This common voice problem can occur even if your vocal cords are normal but the muscles in your throat are working inefficiently.
What happens if you never use your vocal cords? ›
Your vocal cords are muscles, and like all muscles they would eventually start to atrophy from disuse. However, if you were concerned that they would stop working altogether, you have little to fear. The muscles that control the voice also control breathing and swallowing, so they would still get some use.
What are the symptoms of a damaged vocal cord? ›
What Are the Symptoms of Strained Vocal Cords?
- Chronic hoarseness for more than two weeks (such as a raspy or breathy voice, a voice quiver, or a strained or choppy voice)
- Pain or a lump in the throat when speaking.
- Changes in pitch.
- Odd sounding speech.
The most common treatments for vocal fold paralysis are voice therapy and surgery. Some people's voices will naturally recover sometime during the first year after diagnosis, which is why doctors often delay surgery for at least a year.
Do your vocal cords act like a guitar string? ›
Although many people try and describe the vocal cords in terms of a stringed instrument (such as the guitar), the folds' makeup is very different from a steel or nylon string.
