Mal Webb's Larynx in Hamburg

In 2006, I was flown to Hamburg by an esteemed group of French and German physicist to act as a vocal guinea pig. I'm useful to those studying the acoustics of the voice because I'll try nearly anything (short of damaging my voice!)
Nathalie Henrich, Lucie Bailly, Markus Hess, Anna-Katharina Licht and Frank Müller all coincided upon Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf for a few hours. Using a microphone, an ECG, a nasal laryngascope (with a strobe at times, which matches the frequency of the sound being produced) and several white coats, they recorded me making a wide variety of sounds.

The video starts with the journey though my nose. Then there's some sideways yodeling (crossing the break from chest voice (and true head voice) into falsetto). This is my favourite thing and my instructional video on this is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_6nNWX7TTI )
Next, we have inbreath singing (starting with a triplet of chest to falsetto to inbreath).
Then there's throat singing. I'm not much of a throat singer (especially with an endoscope right next to my larynx), but to have one larynx doing each of the 4 different "growly voices" on roughly the same pitch was rather useful to them. First, there's the sob/whinge growl (no-one seems to know what to call this one). Second is the vocal fry or croaky/morning voice. Thirdly, the Louis Armstrong/Fat Albert/Fozzie Bear which is where the ventricular folds (also called "false vocal chords") interact with the epiglottus (firstly with and then without vocal folds (which is the Dr. Claw "I'll get you, Gadget" voice)). An fourthly, there's the classic growl (which is akin to the Tibetan/Mongolian style). This leads into a scream and some heavy belting (not things I like to do for prolonged periods!)

Finishing with a snippet of my song "Got to Go" was apt, as I had a plane to catch and the others all had to race off as well. You might notice from the time code that I've edited out quite a lot of coughing, gagging and chatting. Fun stuff... all in the name of science!

The above ways of describing vocal sounds are mine and I'm sure there are voice specialists out there who might disagree with me (and eachother) about how to describe these things... it's complicated in there! Bewdy, love, Mal
http://www.malwebb.com

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Mal
• Webb
• Laryngoscopy
• Larynx
• Yodel
• Throat
• Singing

[Alexawrgren]

That's false chords at 2:23 ? And what's that thing like a mini tongue at 2:27 ? Is that the epiglottis ?

[malwebb1]

@Alexawrgren 2:23 is just vocal folds (which is kind of easy to see) and the distortion comes from overblowing, I guess you could call it. The floppy thing in front and below (in the picture) is indeed the epiglottis.

[metallicatilldeathhh]

lol i wanna see a vocal fry, im curious what it looks like.

[malwebb1]

@metallicatilldeathhh 2:29 to 2:50 is glottal fry variations. Also known as croaky voice.

[krzyxbne]

FAP FAP

[Wolfbloodvamps171]

Well I am glad I am different and use my false vocal cords.

[BestNameEvar]

holy shit, THANK YOU

I've wanted to see a laryngoscopy of ridiculous vocal techniques for years, you've made me very happy =D

[KrustytheKiller]

ahh i needed to see this so badly

[thevoiceharmonic]

Great stuff Mal. I lost the ability to yodel at puberty and didn't miss it for a couple of decades. I can yodel whistle by flicking from a mouth sound to a combined mouth and throat sound. I feel like I don't have the power orthe stamina with the voice that I had a decade ago. The 51y voice wears out quickly and recovers slowly

[stebolian]

@malwebb1 i can now do the two octaves with full light headvoice, its weird how that low octave comes through, can only get better now i hope. sounds good for high screams, more punch