By treating the vocal tract as a series of cylindrical sections, or acoustic lines, it is possible to use transmission line theory in finding the resonances. With constants uniformly distributed along each section, resonances appear as modes of vibration of the tract taken as a whole. Thus, the fundamental mode of the smaller cavity may be affected considerably by a higher mode of the larger; and in addition, higher resonances are found without postulating additional cavities. This is an advantage over the lumped constant treatment, where it is necessary to postulate a different cavity for each resonance, and where the interaction terms in the equation do not include the higher modes of vibration. Under the distributed treatment, dimensions for each vowel may be taken from x‐ray photographs of the vocal tract. The calculations then yield at least three resonances which lie in the frequency regions known for the vowel, from analyses of normal speech. Dependence of the different resonances upon the different cavities is discussed in some detail in the paper.An electrical circuit based on the transmission line analogy has been made to produce acceptable vowel sounds. This circuit is useful in confirming the general theory and in research on the phonetic effects of articulator movements. The possibility of using such a circuit as a phonetic standard for vowel sounds is discussed.