How Your Physical Body Affects Your Voice - with special guest, Elizabeth Zharoff
If you’ve ever watched a “vocal coach reaction” video on youtube, you’ve probably seen one of Elizabeth Zharoff’s. She is an internationally acclaimed opera singer, producer, multi-genre vocal coach & guru, video game voice actor and YouTube star with over 800,000 subscribers to her channel, The Charismatic Voice. I first met Elizabeth at a holiday party in LA several years ago. When we discovered we were both singers, her eyes twinkled with excitement as she made a very interesting comment about my facial structure for singing which really fascinated me. Today, I am talking to Elizabeth about how our anatomy influences the sound of our voice.
Elizabeth Zharoff / The Charismatic Voice
Voice lessons are generally focused on what you can do with the voice inside the body you’re in. But it’s fascinating to learn and understand how each person’s unique body influences the voice. Did you have a teacher that taught you about this, how did you learn about it?
A combination of private voice teachers, colleagues and voice science courses helped me to better understand how the body influences the voice. Since the larynx and structures supporting singing are inside the body it is inevitable that how your body feels on a particular day will affect your singing - and it’s also inevitable that genetics and cultural conditioning will affect how you may optimize your particular instrument.
What physical factors go into a person’s range?
Imagine a line of orchestral instruments, and if you’re a keen observer then you’ll note that often bigger instruments (like the bass and tuba) are associated with lower pitches, whereas smaller instruments (like a violin and piccolo) are associated with higher sounds. Similarly, longer vocal folds and a longer vocal tract more easily create deep and lower sounds, whereas shorter vocal folds and a shorter vocal tract more easily create bright and higher sounds. It’s fairly common to see a basso profundo who is really tall and a coloratura soprano who is really tiny, so it isn’t unusual to associate the size of a person with what kind of voice type they may naturally have. However, this isn’t always the case - it’s simply a trend. I’ve met many people who broke this pattern.
It’s also worth mentioning that the differences in natural vocal fold length we’re talking about are very small. The average length of an adult male’s vocal folds is around 22mm, and the average length of an adult female’s vocal folds is around 15mm. Children have shorter vocal folds (hence higher voices) until they hit puberty, and then the vocal folds lengthen - especially in males.
What physical factors go into a person’s tone? Are there any physical factors that make certain styles of singing easier, like doing riffs, or singing opera?
I like dividing singing into three main parts - breath, phonation (when the vocal folds come together to create a pitch), and shaping the sound. Tone is primarily made in the latter two parts - phonation and shaping.
During phonation, the amount of contact that the vocal folds have can cause the tone to be more or less airy, or more or less pressed. The true vocal folds are responsible for creating a defined pitch, but there are also other sound sources in the larynx - like the false/ventricular folds and aryepiglottic folds - which can create distortion (or grit/growl) in the sound. This also massively affects tone.
Once you have a sound created by a source (whether it’s true vocal folds and/or a source of distortion), that sound then travels through a resonance cavity called your vocal tract. Think of it like banging a pot in a bathroom or a closet - your vocal tract shape can define how that original sound is amplified and shaped. Some people have naturally larger or smaller spaces, which you could compare to a larger or smaller room. The tissue in your vocal tract also controls how the sound is shaped. Your tongue and lips determine what vowel or consonant is created, and your soft palate determines if the sound will exit through your mouth or nose.
People can train to shape their vocal tract and adapt to various styles, but some natural shapes could make a person’s voice more inclined to one style or another. Opera singers don’t typically use microphones - so any additional amplification that can be found in their tract formation is useful (in addition to creating powerful phonation). Belting that’s required in contemporary singing styles typically has a more forward placement and less room in the back of the vocal tract, so singers that are genetically inclined towards this could have an advantage. But again - training makes a huge difference.
What parts of the face affect a person’s voice?
There is so much in the face that affects a person’s voice! All of your facial bones can provide resonance, and soft tissue in your face can direct and/or dampen the sound. If you do anything to change your face or mouth shape, it will change how your sound is also shaped.
A common surgery that professional singers have is a tonsillectomy (where the tonsils are removed). This is likely because singers are much more sensitive to inflammation in the throat, and even catching the smallest cold can drastically affect a singer’s performance. Having the tonsils removed increases space in the vocal tract and many singers report that they notice a significant change in resonance. This change isn’t necessarily good or bad - it’s just different, and requires some adjustment.
Myth or Truth - Heavier, or big-boned bodies can sing louder/more powerfully?
Myth - but perhaps with some nuggets of truth. It could be that bigger-boned people have more natural inclination for power, but I’ve personally witnessed tiny singers vocally overpower their larger colleagues.
The biggest factor that contributes to loudness is breath pressure that builds-up underneath the site of phonation. Resonance helps - but breath pressure is a larger factor. People with a naturally larger breath capacity can have an advantage in this, but training can increase a person’s breath capacity. It’s also crucial to develop good vocal technique to sustain that pressure build-up without causing harm to the vocal folds, which again can be accomplished through training.
Nature vs. nurture: When it comes to improving your vocal skills, which is more significant? If we take years of voice lessons, can we expect to make significant improvements, or are there certain limitations created by the architecture of the body, that can never be changed?
I think that one of the most difficult things to train is pitch matching - which is more mentally than physically centered. Very few people are actually tone deaf, but some people have a better inane sense of pitch than others. This absolutely can be developed, but it takes more time for a person who is less “talented” at pitch than someone who was likely raised with early musical training or pitch awareness. Cultural conditioning plays a huge role in pitch awareness, which can be seen simply in speech patterns from different languages. Around 60 percent of raised Chinese speakers have perfect pitch, whereas only 14 percent of US non-tonal language speakers have perfect pitch.
Ultimately good voice lessons will improve a voice - that’s inevitable, as long as someone is practicing/training regularly. How quickly they’ll improve or how far they’ll go though is more dependent on natural talent (whether genes or cultural conditioning). One person may practice for 5 years to achieve a particular sound while another is able to achieve it in 1 month. There are also limiting factors like vocal fold length and age.
For me, it’s often crucial when training a voice student to emphasize that communicating message and emotion is more important than having perfect vocal technique. We have many instances of great performers who embraced their unique sound and message - performers like Johnny Cash and Chris Cornell, for instance. They left a huge mark on society. Studying voice and improving your technique will help you to have more freedom in expression and more easily communicate emotion, so it’s absolutely worthwhile to do! Just don’t lose sight of the main goal - connecting with other humans.
Elizabeth Zharoff began her operatic career in France at the age of 18, and has since performed in major halls throughout America, Europe, and Asia. She has degrees in music and voice from Oberlin Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music. Ms. Zharoff has a uniquely modern career, bridging the gap between voice and technology. She has directed an album and lent her voice to over 50 titles in video game music, in addition to defining the speaking voice for an emotionally complex AI assistant. Elizabeth has gained a mass following on her youtube channel, The Charismatic Voice, with nearly 1 million followers. She is also the voice of “Charisma” sound library by Impact Soundworks.