Hey YouTube, welcome to another episode of Voice Breakdown, the show where we teach you how to imitate some of the most iconic voices. Remember that if you just figure out six components, you can imitate any voice you wish. I'm your host, Brendan Hodeck. Fun fact about me, anyone who knows me knows I love chocolate chip cookies. I way too many over the course of a week, but my chocolate chip cookie obsession is no match for today's voice. That's right, today we are breaking down the voice of Cookie Monster. Cookie Monster! Let's break this voice down. At number one, the vocal chords. For Cookie Monster, we want to have a low pitched voice. Or the lowest you can make it, but it definitely should make a significant drop. We've talked in past videos about vocal chord compression, meaning how tightly or loosely the chords come together. We want a significant amount of compression for this voice. Make it the chords come tightly together. The most important quality to Cookie Monster's voice comes from the false vocal chords, however. The false vocal chords are structures that are superior to the true vocal chords. When we bring them together and cause them to vibrate, it makes a gruff sound. While there definitely is some true vocal chord vibration in Cookie Monster's voice, it is the false chord vibration that gives it that Cookie Monster sound. You can find the sound by first clearing your throat. Then, trying to add some true voice into the mix. What else can you put in recipe? I know cookies! Component number two, the Larynx. The Larynx is a simple component for Cookie Monster. We want to keep the larynx neutral. It can move a little bit up or down if necessary, but this is not where the deep sound of Cookie Monster's voice will come from. That comes more from the true and false vocal chords we talked about before. So you can allow your larynx to naturally move if necessary, but don't worry too much about this component. That's good enough for me! Component number three, the tongue. The tongue is also not a crucial component for this voice. However, there is a slight retraction to the back of the tongue. I find that when I pull the back of my tongue backward and downward, I have a little bit of an easier time mentally accessing those false vocal chords. If you are having a hard time getting the false vocal chord vibration, maybe imagine that the back of the tongue is pulling downward and backward. This movement of the tongue will also enhance the resonance a little bit, making things a bit darker sounding. Did somebody mention the cookies? Component number four, the soft palate. As we know, the raising and lowering of the soft palate affects the resonance of our voice. If we raise the palate, we get more oral resonance, and if we lower the palate, we get more nasal resonance. For Cookie Monster, we want more oral resonance. You can think of this in relation to his personality. Everything goes in the mouth. Cookies, any other type of food, really, whatever he sees. Well, sound goes in the mouth, too. So make sure to raise the soft palate and have the resonance in the mouth and back of the throat. Hmm. There's no cookie, there's cracker. Me don't care. Component number five, articulation. As a general rule, Cookie Monster's articulation is very forceful. You'll want to be sure to pop all of those plosive sounds. These are sounds like, t, t, t, t, and g. Make sure they pop. Additionally, oftentimes his voiceless TH sound is produced as a t sound. And his voiced TH sound is produced as a d, sound. Lastly, oftentimes when saying his name or his favorite food, cookies, he alters the vowel a little bit. While we would say, cookie, he would say it more like a true, oo sound, cookie. Me go do make cookies and eat them. Na na na na na, cookie. Component number six, prosody. Cookie Monster is always sounding a bit frantic and crazed. He has this real sense of urgency that he just has to have his cookies now. As a result, his speech tends to be very fast, with plenty of filler words and phrases in between like, oh boy. Oh boy, me voice so beautiful. He is so excited to have his cookies that he just can't contain himself. As such, it is rare for him to be quiet. You'll want to always be a bit more in your face. His speech, although fast, also tends to be very choppy. He'll want to not make your words flow together, but have them more separated and more staccato. We should also note his grammar. He often will use me instead of I. Instead of I want cookies, he would say me want cookies. But he has other grammar oddities like instead of saying can't, he'll say no can. So as sentence, me no can wait to eat cookies is a typical sentence. Do your best to simplify your grammar, making it as caveman as possible. Avoid helping verbs like will, should, would, etc. He wouldn't say what else should I put in my recipe. He would say what else me put in recipe, removing all the smaller non-content words. Take the grammar as simplified as possible. What's this? Fortune. Cookie! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's recap. C is for component number one. The vocal chords. We want to shorten our chords to create a lower pitch, have a good amount of compression, and utilize the false vocal chords distortion. C is also for component number two. The larynx. The larynx can stay relatively neutral, or you can let it naturally, slightly move. What you know, C is for component number three. The tongue. The back of the tongue should pull slightly backward and downward. Can it be? C is for cookie. And component number four. This off ballot. Ray is this off ballot to give his voice some oral resonance. C is for component number five. Articulation. Be sure to pop those plosives, make voiceless TH sound like T, voice TH sound like D, and say O instead of O for cookies. All the components don't receive. Component number six. Brosody. Make his volume and speed intense and fast. Make the speech choppy and simplify your grammar as much as possible. Thank you for watching another episode of New York's Speech Coaching's Voice Breakdown. Be sure to check out future episodes of Voice Breakdown, the show where we teach you to annotate some of the most iconic voices. See you next time.