Ok – confession time: a while ago, I discovered that I could sing – quite by accident, while I was driving home from voice therapy.  I was singing “We Are Young” by the group Fun. And I literally turned the radio down because I thought to myself, “hmm, that sounded almost like my ‘normal’ voice,” and with my vocal condition, I had honestly kind of forgotten how my voice actually sounded.

I brought it up at my next voice therapy session and the therapist shared that many people with vocal disorders like mine are able to sing because it’s a different set of vocal cords called ‘false vocal cords.’ So, of course, being me… I had to look up these “false vocal cords” and learn more. Here’s what Wikipedia shared (more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_folds):

False vocal folds

The vocal folds discussed above are sometimes called ‘true vocal folds’ to distinguish them from the false vocal folds. These are a pair of thick folds of mucous membrane that protect and sit slightly superior to the more delicate true folds. They have a minimal role in normal phonation, but are often used to produce deep sonorous tones in Tibetan chant and Tuvan throat singing, as well as in musical screaming and the death growl vocal style.^{[citation needed]}

The false folds are also called vestibular folds and ventricular folds. They can be seen on the diagram above as ventricular folds.^{[citation needed]}

So now that I understood more clearly about why I could sing and still have the vocal disorder, I find myself singing more often. I’ve also learned from a few of my support groups that singing can potentially help to restore the regular speaking voice – so why not? 🙂

Here’s one of my favorite songs to sing because the vocal range is all over! It’s “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey – which I would say is a good omen to my vocal condition as well as a general way of life.