'What do you your vocal cords look like? Do you know?'
Wishbones and Giggles

By Whitley Setrakian

Photos by David Smith

When her student enters, Shirley Verrett's focus fastens immediately and totally onto her young charge. She asks Allison Denny, a sophomore performance major from Chicago, how upcoming projects and life in general are going. And then, down to business.

"I want to speak a little bit this morning," Verrett begins, "on something I began to speak about last year and then thought it was a little too soon. It's about when air escapes through the vocal cords too quickly. Remember that exercise I gave: 'ee-ee-ee-ee-eeee'--that thing. I want to go a little bit farther with that and ask you a question. When you think of the vocal cords--you know I don't talk too much about the cords in my class because I don't want to bring too much anatomy into the situation; you can know every bone in your body, every muscle in your throat and still not be able to sing!--a lot of those things work involuntarily--but having said that (the mind is so fabulous, like a computer!), I want to ask you, what do your vocal cords look like? Do you know?"

"Basically," Denny says.

"The vocal cords have that adjoining--sort of like this," Verrett says, demonstrating with her hands. "I always think of it as being like a wishbone of a chicken."

And what follows is a terribly technical discussion of cords and air and breath, and the tongue, and all manner of vowels. Denny begins to sing simple scales, following Verrett's exhortations to mentally picture her vocal chords opening and closing, regulating the flow of air. Her teacher keeps coming back to the brain. "The brain is so fabulous! Even though you say, 'Oh, that's involuntary,' but you know, you think about it and it happens! You think about your soft palate going up and all of a sudden, you feel a lift inside! It's incredible what can be done with the mind!"

Playing along at the grand piano, Verrett takes her student higher and higher through a series of scales with Italian words. Denny then tackles a series of arpeggiating "Alleluias" and gets so stratospherically high, she dissolves into giggles and they both laugh together. For a moment.

"Do it again, Miss Allison!"