So while browsing Youtube today I came across a cover of X’s and O’s by the 12-year-old current America’s Got Talent winner, Grace Vanderwaal. Upon playing it I was struck by the way her entire throat seems to expand when she vocalizes, especially at the base where it meets her sternum and rib cage. It really puffs out. (Most noticeable at around 1:03 or so, and very much so at the end of the song when she’s straining.) I’ve never noticed this with any other singer and am wondering what causes it. Any ideas?
That was a cool song. If her school has a talent show, she should totally enter it.
I’ve seen Ted Neeley a couple times in Jesus Christ Superstar, and his throat inflates like a bull-frog. Don’t know why.
I think it’s just because they’re very thin, but bony-- usually thin people have small bones-- so you really see all the muscles moving under their skin, and their skin tightening over their bones. Little subcutaneous fat coupled with prominent bones. That’s all.
sigh Oh, well, thanks for your input, guys. I was hoping to find out what was going on physiologically that results in someone’s neck popping out like that when vocalizing but I guess it’ll have to remain a mystery.
Oh yeah, props to Elle King for her tweet about Grace’s cover. Very classy and sweet.
The apex of the lung actually does run up above the clavicle and into the base of the neck. When this singer is straining she’s performing a moderate Valsalva maneuver, increasing the pressure in her chest cavity by contracting the abdominal and chest wall muscles while restricting air flow out of the chest. The lungs are compressed from the sides and from below, so they tend to bulge in the other available direction, i.e. upwards.
I thought at first that there might be some filling of the neck from distension of the jugular/subclavian veins (and you can indeed see her neck veins distending), but the effect is much more pronounced than simple vein bulging from a Valsalva.
In a skinny kid without significant body fat or musculature, the bulging of the lung apices is going to be more apparent. That said, people who do this sort of thing a lot are prone to stretching out normally tough connective tissues: think Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks. She may have unusually lax Sibson’s fascia at the thoracic opening because of her strained singing style. Or, for all we know, she has a connective tissue disorder that makes her ligaments loose.
It’s also possible to have an outright hernia of the lung up into the neck or out through the chest wall, much like an abdominal hernia. Lung hernias can be congenital or secondary to trauma/infection, or chronic Valsalva maneuvers, like chronic cough or breathholding during weightlifting.
Anyway, from a taste standpoint, it’s another reason to dislike that sort of half-throttled singing style. With a different singing technique she could maintain her volume without the ‘strain’; but then again that would change the character of the performance.
ETA: it’s not that her lung is directly under the skin there, but the bulgy lung is pushing everything else up and outward. Her lungs are probably surprisingly close to the surface there, though.
As an additional thought, she’s still a kid, so I wonder if her thymus gland could be pistoning upward in the midline as well?
Very, very, good, brossa! That’s exactly the kind of information I was hoping for. A lot of very interesting possibilities there, including things I’d never have imagined. I hope none of them portend serious medical issues for her. Thank you very much for your posts.