"We Represent the Lollipop League"

Cutting the balloons off of their ribbons.

Cutting slits to make inhalation faster.

End products of our music videos.

This weekend we went to Nicole's baby shower where there were super fun games, good food, and of course, balloons decorating the place. So, of course, as teenagers, Elysia, Erika, Laurie, and I sucked up some helium and made our voices squeaky. Up until this past week I wouldn't have thought anything of it, other than pure fun, but now, after a week of learning about sound, I realized that it's physics! We get such squeaky, high pitched voices because the air around our vocal cords is changed by the helium gas which is lighter than our usual oxygen/nitrogen blend that we use when we talk/sing. The lighter helium gas causes the natural resonance of our vocal tract to change, creating a faster vibration, which results in a higher pitch than normal. Too much inhalation of helium can be dangerous, i.e. making breathing hard, but a little bit once in a while is (hopefully) innocuous. In these brief moments where we were under the influence of helium, we managed to make a few music videos, the one above was the best one, I wonder if that was really how they got the Lollipop League to sound like that...?