Your throat is made up of lots of different parts and the epiglottis is one of those parts. In fact it’s a really important part. Its a flap of tissue, shaped kind of like a leaf. It acts like a traffic guard. Directing liquids and food to your stomach and air-only into the lungs.It works like this, the epiglottis closes when you swallow so that anything you eat or drink goes to your stomach and doesn’t get into lungs. And when you inhale air, your epiglottis stays open and allows the air to flow into your lungs. So your epiglottis keeps liquid going to your stomach and directs the air that you inhale to your lungs!!
Its important to keep all these moving parts hydrated. Especially the vocal folds. The vocal folds are located on the “inhale air-only” side of your throat. And since you can’t inhale water to reach the air only side, you have to drink a ton of water to keep those parts hydrated. The water gets absorbed into your body and eventually hydrates your vocal folds and other moving partslocated on your air-only side of your throat. But remember it takes 2 hours for your body to absorb the liquid. Get into the habit of drinking water, staying hydrated is key to singing better.!