6 ms·

Vocal fry register

42 points by Schiphol 3y ago

jgalt212 3y ago
e.g. Kardashian speak
- kibibu 3y ago
  Lots and lots of men speak almost exclusively in vocal fry, why is it so strongly associated with the Kardashians? Go listen to Jeremy Irons or Alan Rickman.
  - searealist 3y ago
    Male vocal fry is much less common and mostly exclusive to older generations. I wouldn't say either of your examples are vocal fry.
    - kibibu 3y ago
      They drop into vocal fry at the end of most sentences though.
  - elondaits 3y ago
    This video tries to explain the issue, with examples: https://youtu.be/Q0yL2GezneU?si=YfHHJXtVYWvqgFlD https://youtu.be/Q0yL2GezneU?si=YfHHJXtVYWvqgFlD
    - Biologist123 3y ago
      This was a brilliant video. Great story-telling, livened up with a mash-up approach. For Brits there is a major plot twist at about 12”30. Thanks for posting. Made my morning.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - KPGv2 3y ago
    Honestly it's probably misogyny. There are some women we are supposed to hate who use it, so therefore it's bad to use it.
    - LanceH 3y ago
      It sounds like people aren't putting into the effort to speak. It's the vocal version of the intentional bored look. Some people have it at full volume and speed and that's just their voice. But a lot of people (and fewer men) it's not their real voice, but an affectation. We get to have opinions on people's affectations still, right?
      - tsimionescu 3y ago
        The point is that vocal fry, even when it is an affectation and not just your normal speech, used to be seen as a marker of eloquence and high class. British actors, male ones, used vocal fry extensively. Sean Connery's James Bond uses it in the famous "Bond. James Bond" introduction [0], for just one example. Or listen to William F Buckley, an American high class conservative (buffoon that presented as an intellectual) using it to sound prim and proper [1]. It is an objective fact that hating vocal fry is just a fad, and that loving it has been a fad for at least as long. You are free to dislike it, but you can't pretend it should be hated on objective grounds, and it definitely doesn't convey boredom or low effort. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=1m20s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=1m20s [1] https://youtu.be/5Tek9h3a5wQ?t=43m39s https://youtu.be/5Tek9h3a5wQ?t=43m39s - in a debate where Buckley's arguing the "dignified" position that black people shouldn't receive more rights
        LanceH 3y ago
        And compare it to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU It's not even close to the same thing. It is what's going on in my link that's annoying as hell where Buckley and Connery might meet some technical definition of it, it is currently being put on to get across that "I'm bored with everything", which is annoying as hell when being spoken to.
- KPGv2 3y ago
  Vocal fry in the English language is historically associated with British men; it's curious to me that only when women adopted it did we start getting told to hate it.
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Told to hate it? Please. I'm British and barely even know of the existence of Kardashian, much less how she speaks and what she's famous for. My first experience with vocal fry was a Finnish woman at my job who would use it constantly. This was several years ago and I had no idea what vocal fry was until recently. All I knew was I found the way she talked annoying. I liked her, but I did not like the way she talked. I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that? Later there was a young guy at work who would drop into vocal fry a lot. I still didn't know what it was called but I still found it very annoying. I don't know why I don't find men like Bertrand Russell annoying. But all I know is nobody told me to hate anything. Even people that didn't like the woman I worked with never mentioned her voice.
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      > I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that? This is like complaining someone speaks with a certain accent. Sure, we can all change how we speak, but we speak and certain way and there is nothing wrong with it.
      - globular-toast 3y ago
        I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I merely said I find it annoying. Am I not allowed to reflect on what I find annoying? And yes, I do find certain accents annoying too, but my feeling is it's much harder to change one's accent than it is to not do vocal fry. I can't change my accent at will, but I can certainly do vocal fry.
lucas_codes 3y ago
Is this how throat singing works? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98
- IggleSniggle 3y ago
  Throat singing is just a band-pass filter. Having a rich set of frequencies can be helpful, but it's unnecessary for producing the overtones. Throat singing and "whistle singing" are effectively the same technique, except that in throat singing a wider collection of overtones is selected for (not necessarily wider band, but wider "matching partials" to the fundamental frequency)
  - lucas_codes 3y ago
    Are we talking about the same thing? I mean the Mongolian throat signing in that YouTube link, which has crazy low fundamentals (I have a deep bass voice and it's much lower than I can sing).
    - ajb 3y ago
      At the start he's doing overtone singing (like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC9Qh709gas https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC9Qh709gas) but yeah the low bits sound like fry.
    - humanizersequel 3y ago
      No, you aren't, and it isn't vocal fry. Overtone singing is a distinct technique in Tuvan throat singing, and comparing it to a bandpass filter is accurate — as a whole, Tuvan throat singing is a set of techniques designed to induce vocal sounds with extremely rich harmonics, which can then be modulated and selected for by shaping the mouth. What you're thinking of is called "Kargyraa", a particular subset of Tuvan techniques that involves singing with the vocal cords as normal, but also tightening the voicebox such that your "false vocal cords" (some flaps somewhere in your throat) are struck at a frequency an octave below the sung note — for every full cycle your vocal cords complete, the false vocal cords complete half of 1. It creates a rich sound which can be useful for the "bandpass" technique, but is fundamentally something different. Take this with a small grain of salt, I came to this technique through the modern beatboxing community who independently discovered it as the standard "throat bass" and only bothered researching the Tuvan equivalent a long time ago. There is a bass singing technique called "subharmonics" that uses something similar (identical?) to vocal fry to create interference with a sung note for a similar effect.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
neilv 3y ago
A friend of mine would do very noticeable vocal fry at the ends of some sentences, when laughingly speaking light-heartedly and enthusiastically about something. She's also an MIT PhD, and I don't recall any vocal fry when speaking seriously about science or some other topic. Before I learned that vocal fry was a thing, I thought she might be code-switching to a regional or socioeconomic group accent from where she grew up in the US, or a mannerism that a particular friend group evolved in a more carefree time. Her voice sounded nice, and a little unique. And you don't want to ask, and risk making someone self-conscious about how they sound or look when they're happy or laughing. Whatever is natural is best.
technocratius 3y ago
Ah so _that's_ how Sam Altman talks.
nickaflip 3y ago
Worst part is once you learn what the Vocal Fry sounds like, you will start hear it literally everywhere. At best, it was interesting to recognize in the real world; at worst, it ruined some podcast hosts for me.
- KPGv2 3y ago
  Why does it bother you? Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. There's nothing inherently wrong about vocal fry: there are human languages where vocal fry is an essential component of native speech.
  - recursive 3y ago
    There's nothing inherently wrong with nails on a chalkboard either.
  - VancouverMan 3y ago
    > Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. I don't think it has anything to do with some vague notion of "hate". Some people simply find it to be a distracting phenomenon that can make it harder to understand what somebody else is saying, even when they like the speaker.
    - iforgotpassword 3y ago
      In that case it shouldn't depend on being aware of the phenomenon, which is what gp said.
  - aaa_aaa 3y ago
    To me it is a disease that spread among youth. It sounds terrible.
  - MisterBastahrd 3y ago
    [flagged]
- dundarious 3y ago
KPGv2 3y ago
The hatred of vocal fry is just class-oriented bigotry. It's a variation on anti-AAVE. Previously, uptick speech filled the need for hatred. But then it turned out in studies that uptick was perceived as more intelligent by later Gen Y and all of Gen Z.
- recursive 3y ago
  Heavy vocal fry annoys me. Maybe I'm a class-oriented bigot, but I think it's just an annoying sound.
  - srean 3y ago
    > I think it's just an annoying sound. Agreed. Your PP is strangely very strongly invested in it going by the number of comments. I wonder why.
    - recursive 3y ago
      What's "PP"?
      - Lester_Square 3y ago
        Parent Poster I assume
Physkal 3y ago
Anyone find it kinda sexy?
- LanceH 3y ago
  No.
  - werrett 3y ago
    lots of people beg to differ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=80s&pp=2AFQkAIB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=80s&pp=2AFQkAI... [its bond/connery with the fry]
    - aaa_aaa 3y ago
      Or.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU
- somedude895 3y ago
  It's my hangover voice and I love it. Haven't figured out how to get it without drinking heavily the night before though.
alexjplant 3y ago
I accidentally discovered vocal fry screams (in the context of metal vocals) a decade or so ago. Now that I sing lead in a cover band that does slightly more aggressive music I get to leverage them on a weekly basis; the diaphragm control and breath awareness that I've learned doing heavy vocals has improved my regular singing. I had no idea that talking in this register was so divisive.

Vocal fry register

42 points by Schiphol 3y ago

jgalt212 3y ago

e.g. Kardashian speak

kibibu 3y ago
Lots and lots of men speak almost exclusively in vocal fry, why is it so strongly associated with the Kardashians? Go listen to Jeremy Irons or Alan Rickman.
- searealist 3y ago
  Male vocal fry is much less common and mostly exclusive to older generations. I wouldn't say either of your examples are vocal fry.
  - kibibu 3y ago
    They drop into vocal fry at the end of most sentences though.
- elondaits 3y ago
  This video tries to explain the issue, with examples: https://youtu.be/Q0yL2GezneU?si=YfHHJXtVYWvqgFlD https://youtu.be/Q0yL2GezneU?si=YfHHJXtVYWvqgFlD
  - Biologist123 3y ago
    This was a brilliant video. Great story-telling, livened up with a mash-up approach. For Brits there is a major plot twist at about 12”30. Thanks for posting. Made my morning.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- KPGv2 3y ago
  Honestly it's probably misogyny. There are some women we are supposed to hate who use it, so therefore it's bad to use it.
  - LanceH 3y ago
    It sounds like people aren't putting into the effort to speak. It's the vocal version of the intentional bored look. Some people have it at full volume and speed and that's just their voice. But a lot of people (and fewer men) it's not their real voice, but an affectation. We get to have opinions on people's affectations still, right?
    - tsimionescu 3y ago
      The point is that vocal fry, even when it is an affectation and not just your normal speech, used to be seen as a marker of eloquence and high class. British actors, male ones, used vocal fry extensively. Sean Connery's James Bond uses it in the famous "Bond. James Bond" introduction [0], for just one example. Or listen to William F Buckley, an American high class conservative (buffoon that presented as an intellectual) using it to sound prim and proper [1]. It is an objective fact that hating vocal fry is just a fad, and that loving it has been a fad for at least as long. You are free to dislike it, but you can't pretend it should be hated on objective grounds, and it definitely doesn't convey boredom or low effort. [0] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=1m20s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=1m20s [1] https://youtu.be/5Tek9h3a5wQ?t=43m39s https://youtu.be/5Tek9h3a5wQ?t=43m39s - in a debate where Buckley's arguing the "dignified" position that black people shouldn't receive more rights
      - LanceH 3y ago
        And compare it to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU It's not even close to the same thing. It is what's going on in my link that's annoying as hell where Buckley and Connery might meet some technical definition of it, it is currently being put on to get across that "I'm bored with everything", which is annoying as hell when being spoken to.
KPGv2 3y ago
Vocal fry in the English language is historically associated with British men; it's curious to me that only when women adopted it did we start getting told to hate it.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Told to hate it? Please. I'm British and barely even know of the existence of Kardashian, much less how she speaks and what she's famous for. My first experience with vocal fry was a Finnish woman at my job who would use it constantly. This was several years ago and I had no idea what vocal fry was until recently. All I knew was I found the way she talked annoying. I liked her, but I did not like the way she talked. I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that? Later there was a young guy at work who would drop into vocal fry a lot. I still didn't know what it was called but I still found it very annoying. I don't know why I don't find men like Bertrand Russell annoying. But all I know is nobody told me to hate anything. Even people that didn't like the woman I worked with never mentioned her voice.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    > I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that? This is like complaining someone speaks with a certain accent. Sure, we can all change how we speak, but we speak and certain way and there is nothing wrong with it.
    - globular-toast 3y ago
      I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I merely said I find it annoying. Am I not allowed to reflect on what I find annoying? And yes, I do find certain accents annoying too, but my feeling is it's much harder to change one's accent than it is to not do vocal fry. I can't change my accent at will, but I can certainly do vocal fry.

lucas_codes 3y ago

Is this how throat singing works? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98

IggleSniggle 3y ago
Throat singing is just a band-pass filter. Having a rich set of frequencies can be helpful, but it's unnecessary for producing the overtones. Throat singing and "whistle singing" are effectively the same technique, except that in throat singing a wider collection of overtones is selected for (not necessarily wider band, but wider "matching partials" to the fundamental frequency)
- lucas_codes 3y ago
  Are we talking about the same thing? I mean the Mongolian throat signing in that YouTube link, which has crazy low fundamentals (I have a deep bass voice and it's much lower than I can sing).
  - ajb 3y ago
    At the start he's doing overtone singing (like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC9Qh709gas https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vC9Qh709gas) but yeah the low bits sound like fry.
  - humanizersequel 3y ago
    No, you aren't, and it isn't vocal fry. Overtone singing is a distinct technique in Tuvan throat singing, and comparing it to a bandpass filter is accurate — as a whole, Tuvan throat singing is a set of techniques designed to induce vocal sounds with extremely rich harmonics, which can then be modulated and selected for by shaping the mouth. What you're thinking of is called "Kargyraa", a particular subset of Tuvan techniques that involves singing with the vocal cords as normal, but also tightening the voicebox such that your "false vocal cords" (some flaps somewhere in your throat) are struck at a frequency an octave below the sung note — for every full cycle your vocal cords complete, the false vocal cords complete half of 1. It creates a rich sound which can be useful for the "bandpass" technique, but is fundamentally something different. Take this with a small grain of salt, I came to this technique through the modern beatboxing community who independently discovered it as the standard "throat bass" and only bothered researching the Tuvan equivalent a long time ago. There is a bass singing technique called "subharmonics" that uses something similar (identical?) to vocal fry to create interference with a sung note for a similar effect.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

neilv 3y ago

A friend of mine would do very noticeable vocal fry at the ends of some sentences, when laughingly speaking light-heartedly and enthusiastically about something. She's also an MIT PhD, and I don't recall any vocal fry when speaking seriously about science or some other topic. Before I learned that vocal fry was a thing, I thought she might be code-switching to a regional or socioeconomic group accent from where she grew up in the US, or a mannerism that a particular friend group evolved in a more carefree time. Her voice sounded nice, and a little unique. And you don't want to ask, and risk making someone self-conscious about how they sound or look when they're happy or laughing. Whatever is natural is best.

technocratius 3y ago

Ah so _that's_ how Sam Altman talks.

nickaflip 3y ago

Worst part is once you learn what the Vocal Fry sounds like, you will start hear it literally everywhere. At best, it was interesting to recognize in the real world; at worst, it ruined some podcast hosts for me.

KPGv2 3y ago
Why does it bother you? Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. There's nothing inherently wrong about vocal fry: there are human languages where vocal fry is an essential component of native speech.
- recursive 3y ago
  There's nothing inherently wrong with nails on a chalkboard either.
- VancouverMan 3y ago
  > Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. I don't think it has anything to do with some vague notion of "hate". Some people simply find it to be a distracting phenomenon that can make it harder to understand what somebody else is saying, even when they like the speaker.
  - iforgotpassword 3y ago
    In that case it shouldn't depend on being aware of the phenomenon, which is what gp said.
- aaa_aaa 3y ago
  To me it is a disease that spread among youth. It sounds terrible.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  [flagged]
dundarious 3y ago

KPGv2 3y ago

The hatred of vocal fry is just class-oriented bigotry. It's a variation on anti-AAVE. Previously, uptick speech filled the need for hatred. But then it turned out in studies that uptick was perceived as more intelligent by later Gen Y and all of Gen Z.

recursive 3y ago
Heavy vocal fry annoys me. Maybe I'm a class-oriented bigot, but I think it's just an annoying sound.
- srean 3y ago
  > I think it's just an annoying sound. Agreed. Your PP is strangely very strongly invested in it going by the number of comments. I wonder why.
  - recursive 3y ago
    What's "PP"?
    - Lester_Square 3y ago
      Parent Poster I assume

Physkal 3y ago

Anyone find it kinda sexy?

LanceH 3y ago
No.
- werrett 3y ago
  lots of people beg to differ. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=80s&pp=2AFQkAIB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b15-P12gIf0&t=80s&pp=2AFQkAI... [its bond/connery with the fry]
  - aaa_aaa 3y ago
    Or.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDfJn1kcQuU
somedude895 3y ago
It's my hangover voice and I love it. Haven't figured out how to get it without drinking heavily the night before though.

alexjplant 3y ago

I accidentally discovered vocal fry screams (in the context of metal vocals) a decade or so ago. Now that I sing lead in a cover band that does slightly more aggressive music I get to leverage them on a weekly basis; the diaphragm control and breath awareness that I've learned doing heavy vocals has improved my regular singing. I had no idea that talking in this register was so divisive.