very
authority on the physiology of voice-production believes that the vocal
tone is produced solely by the vibration of the vocal cords, and that
the entire vocal tract situated above the vocal cords is concerned
merely with augmenting the tone and determining its timbre or quality.
Let us examine this theory and ascertain how tenable it is.

To begin with, the term "cord" as applied to the vocal cords is
misleading. It suggests a resemblance between the vocal cords and the
strings of a violin, which are capable of great tension, or at least
a resemblance between the vocal cords and the vibrating reed of a
reed-instrument. In point of fact, the vocal cords are neither strings
nor reeds, and are not even freely suspended from end to end or from one
end like reeds, but are attached along their entire lower portion to the
inner wall of the larynx. Therefore they are not cords, nor strings, nor
reeds in any sense whatsoever. They are shelves composed of flesh and
muscle, their substance resembles neither the catgut of which the
strings of stringed instruments are made nor the cane, wood or metal of
which the reeds of reed-instruments are formed; and the entire length of
each cord is a trifle more than half an inch in men and a little less
than half an inch in women. Almost every writer on voice appears to
consider the term "cord" as applied to them a misnomer. They have been
spoken of as membranous lips. "The vocal 'cord' is not a _string_, but
the free edge of a projecting fold of membrane," says Mackenzie. Yet it
is not only claimed but announced over and over again as a physiological
fact that the human voice, sometimes sweet and mellow, sometimes
tense and vibrant and with its great range, is produced solely by the
vibration of two projecting folds of membrane, free only at their edges
and at their longest only a little over half an inch in length.

At least one writer on voice-production, Prof. Wesley Mills, appears to
have doubted the correctness of the old and oft-repeated theory.
"Allusion must be made," he writes in "Voice-Production in Singing and
Speaking," "to the danger of those engaged in mathematical and physical
investigation applying their conclusions in too rigid a manner to the
animal body. It was held until recently that the pitch of a vocal tone
was determined solely by the number of vibrations of the vocal bands,
as if they acted like the strings of a violin or the reed of a clarinet,
while the reson