Published by Pilar Lirio, August 2023.

Original post in Spanish. Translated by artificial intelligence to achieve a wider diffusion. Please, if you notice errors, contact us in English or Spanish. Thank you for your understanding.

Voice production, both spoken and sung, is the result of the proper functioning and coordination of very complex systems. As always, the brain is the organ that initiates and maintains the whole process. Voice production involves cognitive and motor aspects that correspond to different areas of the brain. Once the brain has organised the vocal information from a cognitive point of view, it sends the corresponding motor commands to produce the vocal sound. Then it receives the somatic information, which tells it whether everything is correct or whether there are aspects that need to be changed. The motor commands are first received by the respiratory system, which is responsible for supplying and regulating the air that will later be used to vibrate the vocal folds. The resulting sound is then modified by the organs of articulation.

In other words, the major systems that produce the voice are the nervous, respiratory, phonatory and articulatory systems. The voice is not produced, or is produced with difficulty, if there are problems in the areas of the brain involved in voice production, if there are anatomical changes, if the musculoskeletal system lacks sufficient muscle tone, if the biomechanical aspects are not well coordinated, or if the physiological processes involved are not working optimally.

Step by step, we will go through each of the systems and aspects involved in voice production. Normally, this is information that has no secrets for medical and rehabilitation professionals, but it may also be of interest to other professionals who also work with the voice, such as phoneticians or teachers of artistic voice, spoken and sung. We hope that the entries in this section will be useful regardless of your level of knowledge, and that they will be of use to those who want to get to grips with the secrets of the human voice.

For more information…

• Patología de la voz (2013). I. Cobeta, F. Núñez, y S. Fernández (eds.). Barcelona: Marge Medica Books.