Vocal fry

It drives me around the bemd

Vocal fry isn’t just lower register though is it? It incorporates a sort of growl. Don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a type of voice projection that has to be forced. Nobody speaks like that naturally.

Yes, if you are a singer or study speech pathology, it's describes a particular way the sound is produced physiologically. Much like falsetto is a special type of vocal noise. But vocal fry can make your voice a lot lower than you could with normal speech. I think, though I'd not want anyone to quote me on this, that it's a similar sound to certain kinds of very low chant singing.

It's kind of a frog noise. Makes people sound smug and bored at the same time

If a woman uses her lower register, it's vocal fry.

Vocal fry isn’t just lower register though is it? It incorporates a sort of growl. Don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a type of voice projection that has to be forced. Nobody speaks like that naturally.

I don't agree with policing women's expression so I wouldn't 'correct' someone or seek for them to correct themselves, but that doesn't mean I don't find vocal fry intensely annoying.
As pp said both men and women can speak in an affected way. I remember watching an interview with a pop singer who said he knew women quite liked it when he made his singing voice break a bit. I'm pretty sure not all Phil Mitchell types do that growly whisper when they phone their mums.
I've noticed listening to American public radio (NPR) that a lot of American men upspeak now (or at least specific middle-class NPR bro does when he's trying to sound unrehearsed and interesting). Radiolab (on R4 Extra) is a textbook example.

Desirees it's a growly from the throat sort of a sound

OK thanks. In that case then I think I know what this refers to.

I have only ever associated female vocal fry with women from certain parts of America
If I've got it right I would add and some regional accents too.

but a lot of people hate it (poss cos associated with teen girls

• yes even on here teenage girls are getting a pasting.

Desirees it's a growly from the throat sort of a sound. Different from deep.

I don't mind it personally at all, but a lot of people hate it (poss cos associated with teen girls even though as noted men on criminal minds were at it a decade ago!).

'I remember a few years ago there was an article being passed around which discussed how the vast majority of voices for things like GPS and Siri/Alexa-type "assistants" were female, and how male voices were available but far less popular'

And weren't programmed to respond to female stuff. They were very good on I'm having chest pain, I've been raped got zero advice etc. Can dig out articles tomorrow, or Google if interested.

The whole thing of the 'assistants' being female is an issue.

Oh, and most of them / all of them, were unable to say no. Interesting.

So vocal fry is a low voice? I still wouldn't judge.

I'm not sure I even know what vocal fry is.

Possibly it might be the type of voice which my junior assistant has. She sounds much , much younger than she really is and her voice iso quite high.

I've never thought about it beyond that and I'm certainly not going to judge her in the way some of you presumably would.

Yes lots but it's late so will be brief! And hope makes sense

Read a thing years ago about how teen girls drive trends/ change in language ie it starts with them and gets adopted. The articles I read said, they drive popular change but are slagged off for it because, teen girls

Vocal fry not new. Old episodes of criminal minds, Vocal fry all over the place, men and women. Years ago I said to DH, why are they all doing that growly thing?

Watched brief encounter the other day. The women's voices were so high! Women's voices have deepened as we went into workplace. Guess why. Margaret Thatcher was trained to lower voice. Man at work last week said his toddler didn't listen to his wife as her voice is high! These things persist. Female voice is not associated with power. So females adjust.

In short. The focus on Vocal fry is interesting. From a feminist perspective.

I have only ever associated female vocal fry with women from certain parts of America, I've never really associated it with submissive femininity. So to me personally it is more like an accent than a social behaviour such as mitigated speech.

I don't think there is any such thing as a wrong voice because by what objective standard is a voice 'right'? I guess the male, lower, voice is perhaps the patriarchal society's neutral standard and is associated (in sexist fashion) with wisdom and authority and so women will be criticised either for simply not being that or, conversely, for having or adopting a tone more associated with male authority and overstepping a boundary! Can't win for losing really.

I think we all probably consciously and unconsciously tailor our voices in some way.

Fascinating subject actually.

I love Fiona Apple's singing voice, and Tracy Chapman's :)

I remember a few years ago there was an article being passed around which discussed how the vast majority of voices for things like GPS and Siri/Alexa-type "assistants" were female, and how male voices were available but far less popular. Of course sexism was brought up, followed by a wall of comments saying that women's voices were just more pleasant to listen to. Which is pretty rich considering how often women are told our voices are weak/grating/shrill/etc in basically every other aspect of life. No sexism there, nosiree.

I think it sounds like how children talk when they have really bad constipation.

I can think of many woman singers who have lower voices and aren't considered unwomanly. I can't say I've ever heard a woman bass but I'd think that must be rather rare just like the countertenor or the deepest men's voices. Quite a few people people don't really like the sound of the countertenor either, they find it a bit too weird, or there is a sense of it not being quite right somehow, I assume because it's unusual. Though I don't find people feel the same way about the pop falsetto for some reason.

As for vocal fry, yes, I really dislike it, and I don't think it has anything to do with low women's voices, because I like those very much. Vocal fry is not the same as a low women's voice, it's an affectation. I have occasionally met women with voices so low they sound like men if you don't see the speaker, and while I think they sound pleasant it can create a sense of incongruity, because it seems like mixed signals I think. You almost do a double take and think "wait, am I sure that's a woman?"

I don't think there is much hope that people will stop communicating things by the way we pitch or present our voices, unless we stop talking altogether.

I think vocal fry is a really important way for teenage girls to identify themselves and band together. I read a brilliant article a while back that essentially traced most of the development of language in modern times back to teenage twirls - they are the trailblazers in terms of vocabulary, tone, rhythms etc.

The beautiful thing about VF is that it's not for the boardroom, or for any of the other things that women have to mould themselves towards. VF doesn't make you cool, senior, C suite, employable, clever, educated, married or anything else - it just makes you a girl. Honestly, I think we should be celebrating it - although it nips my head to hear it!

She has a wide range- Sweet Dreams is in a lower register.

Saying there are no altos/ contraltos except a few who are "fat , ugly or lesbians" is ridiculous.

Annie Lennox a contralto? Who was singing "No More I Love Yous," then?

Aren't there more sopranos because that is naturally where most female voices fall?

But Carly Simon, KD Lang, Rumer , Grace Slick , Karen Carpenter, Annie Lennox Cher, Joss Stone, Alison Moyet , Alicia Keys, Sade, KT Tunstall, Roisin Murphy are /were contraltos and are/were hugely successful. There are plenty of others.

KD is obviously a lesbian but to say all altos are "ugly, fat or lesbian is pretty awful.

I sing, and my voice is rich, warm, and deep. Some choirs I've attended were happy for me to sing tenor with the menfolk, as tenors are often thin on the ground because younger men don't often want to sing in church, for instance, but some choirs have refused to let me sing tenor, often there is no alto section, and I've been stuck in with the second sopranos (mezzos). Because I have tits.

I can do it, but I don't like it. I don't like listening to it and I don't like having to concentrate to place the notes, and I think it sounds screechy at the top of my register despite my best efforts. Fine in a group, but I wouldn't do it solo.

A choir master once pointed out to me that they thought it strange my singing voice was so deep, as my speaking voice wasn't, and I'd actually never noticed. I knew I loved to sing, but I'd never liked listening to myself talk: I sounded like Minnie Mouse.

I had a think, and realised that I'd spent years desperately trying to signal that I was, despite my short hair and baggy jeans, a woman. My 'manly' voice had occasionally drew criticism from others, and I didn't want people to think I was, as my brother called me, 'a Lesley bean', and so I tried to appear girly, and the voice was something I could use to signal my femininity.

now I'm in my 40's, and my deep, commanding voice signals authority. I'm great at speeches, and great at crowd control: my voice makes people do as they're told and it makes people listen.

If you listen to female recording artists, most of them are soprano. There's a handful of altos, and they're usually fat, ugly, or lesbians. (The three cardinal sins). There's never any bass females. They exist, and yeah, they're rare, but they do exist. But nobody wants to buy their albums. Soprano is how women are 'supposed' to sound. Like children that you can easily dismiss, perhaps, the pretty fluff warbling about crap boyfriends and romantic entanglements. Safe, non-threatening, easy to control with a few slaps.

again, I suspect female socialisation and/or internalised homophobia are the culprits. Society needs to stop telling young girls what they should and shouldn't be to be 'real' women. XX Chromosomes. That's all. The rest is conditioning.

Vocal fry is a specific change to the voice which happens when the throat is tightened and there is less airflow to the vocal cords. It's not strictly about pitch, it's more of a dry rubbly sound.

It can be done to sound 'less bothered' - if you dont put much air behind something it would typically be because you dont care as much. Or it can happen in women or men who dont feel confident - they need to speak but dont want to sound forceful or worry about not being authoritative enough.

It's very annoying to my generation but its increasingly common.

Does anyone talk like that in real life? I've only noticed it in films and TV.
Every real woman I know just uses their natural voice and gets on with life.

When I was young, there was a widespread consensus that women couldn't be newsreaders because people didn't like the higher pitch of women's voices.

That must have been in the 50s right?
Nan Winton and Barbara Mandell proved them wrong.