Vocal fry

[HarryHarry]

I recently came across the term in an article about how women undermine themselves by speaking in a certain way and I was curious about why we do this and what we can do to change it.

I know for a fact that I speak differently when I speak to certain people, in part to stop them interrupting and to check that they’re still listening, but also to avoid coming across as cold and unfriendly. When I have experimented with speaking in my real voice, which is deeper and flatter and less expressive, I have found that people - especially men - have responded negatively, calling me stuck-up, rude and aggressive. They seem to treat me much better when they think I am a young, weak and timid little girl.

The reason I’m thinking about this is that since having children, I’ve become more aware of how strong women are, and how the patriarchy has been set up to make us think otherwise. I am now less willing to make myself smaller to make men feel bigger. But I also don’t want to be perceived as a bitch and I don’t want all my encounters with other people to be negative.

Does anybody have any thoughts?

'Fat, ugly or lesbian' isn't the potter's opinion. It's a paraphrasing of the phrase 'witches, bitches or britches' for true altos in opera - the music is written for characters that fall into those categories.

Having a contralto voice or extended lower range is different to fry - but the historical musical context is that women who have deep voices are not young, pretty heroines.

Fry is just annoying most of the time. If people actually learned to sing at school, they wouldn't do it in any context. But who wants to pay for proper tuition when they can get an NQT to 'run' lunchtime choir everybody shouts to music for free?

It seems to be passing as a fad, thankfully. Peak vocal fry was about a year ago.

Men do it all the time and no one notices.

Women do it and they're ditzy, fake, annoying.

I saw a video comparing men and women doing it recently but can't find it now.

None of the men were criticised for it. All the women were.

For this reason alone, I don't comment on other women's voices ever, no matter how annoying.

but the historical musical context is that women who have deep voices are not young, pretty heroines.

I guess what I wonder is, is this really a problem?

As far as it goes I think the main reason that young heroines are sopranos is that it reflects reality to some degree. If you look at a typical choir, you often see the sopranos dominated by fairly young women while the altos are somewhat older. And plenty of women getting on in middle age can sing tenor quite comfortably but would not have done so as young women.

Tenors almost always get to be the male hero, too, though personally I am much prefer a bass, both for listening too and for romantic purposes.

From the definitions I've seen of vocal fry, the people I know who do it most are men!

Some men at work do it (but not all the time, so I sent suspect it is at least partly put on) and when dh wants me to know he is tired/unwell, he has a "tired voice", which is basically a mumble with vocal fry at the end.

Contralto parts don't really exist in considerable number, and they're usually secondary parts. I think that's where the comment fat, ugly or lesbians came from. Unfortunately it is pretty accurate, for instance Mozart doesn't write a female part going below middle C (ingenues only please!).