The larynx, for those who don't know, is the part of your throat often called the adam's apple. Its the bone in the front of your neck. If you look in a mirror and yawn (or fake yawn as realistically as possible) you should see it move. The larynx effects the timbre of your voice by adding either a yawny, clear, or pinched quality. Here are the options and how to do them.
Yawny timbre
To create a yawny timbre, literally just fake yawn and sing. Done to the extreme you should sound like a bad impression of patrick star from spongebob squarepants. Typically, this motion is the easiest to create of the 3 timbre options, but controlling it to a subtle yawniness is difficult. When the larynx is lowered less dramatically, you get a full and more operatic sound. This is often done in low country music, classical music, or even some pop music with deep full tones.
2. Clear timbre
This tone is created by keeping your larynx as neutral as possible. To discover the neutral placement of your larynx, swallowing a small sip of water will lift your larynx followed by it returning to neutral. Once you inhale after swallowing it will often lift up, so note the feeling after swallowing and before inhaling. It should be a non-feeling. It shouldn't feel neutral as neutral is a lack of flexed muscles. Rather, it should simply not feel. When singing, if you keep your larynx in this neutral state your tone will come out more clearly and crisper than it would with the other two options. Note that particularly high note and low notes are not possible without slightly lifting or lowering your larynx. Clear timbre is often used in pop, folk, acoustic, or indie types of music.
3. Pinched timbre
To create this tone, lift your larynx. When done to the extreme you'll sound extremely whiney. To create this, imagine you are about to sing a note beyond the top of your range and do everything as though you are about to attempt this except for sing, typically right before singing a note this high your larynx will move upwards. It may feel almost as if your are choking yourself from the inside. Just as with the yawny version, typically you want to do this in small amounts and not fully lift it. This is usually the hardest of the three to accomplish well and the methods I use for control of this are not communicated well through writing. I will say though, that a slight lift is used in rock, emo, or punk types of music.
If any of these vocal colors are a goal of yours, I recommend signing up for lessons. These can be hard to master and difficult to even accomplish in the extreme ways. You can sign up for lessons with me by clicking here or check out my post on finding a voice teacher.
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