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Physiology of messa di voce

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Hi!!  I'm trying to come to a deeper understand of the physiology behind the messa di voce, or the act of lightening the sound from a full voice in a gradual decrescendo and re crescendo back up with little to no discernible change in pitch, overall timbre, and oscillation rate of vibrato.  

From my current understanding, there are 2 main sets of muscles influencing singing in the larynx   The cricothyroids and thyroidarytenoids.  I know CT stretches cords making them taut and thin.  TA relaxes the cords making them fat and thick.  

Now, from my understanding, when the cords are stretched thinner, less air is needed to set the cords in vibration, because the cords are thinner.  However, when less air steam is used, I think it means also that the air must be more compressed so that the subglottal/transglottal pressure is correct (requiring more compression of air) for proper cord closure.  

Now, from what I know, when the singer performs messa di voce, the pitch is held, and the singer gradually engages more and more CT dominance (otherwise called head voice, though I prefer the term light voice function), while keeping the same pitch and correct cord closure.  Is the method this makes physiological sense is that, as the singer gradually introduces more CT dominance, the singer also antagonistically sends forth MORE AIR but LESS AIR PRESSURE?  To me, this makes sense, IF my understanding is correct that the actual PITCH is influenced by how many rates per second the cords are vibrating.   So, the reason it becomes possible to engage more CT dominance while retaining the same pitch is achieving antagonistic balance of sending slightly more and more AIR (thicker/bigger airstream) while simultaneously balancing this bigger air stream with less compression of air   The two antagonistic forces in balance help retain the balance of cord closure.  The concept of then crescendo'ing back to more TA dominance is therefore the entire opposite physiological action- the singer begins to make smaller the airstream while simultaneously compressing more the air.

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Is my understanding correct or make any earthly sense?

 

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