Your voice says a lot about you and people make assumptions based on everything from your tone, to how breathy you are, to your accent. An increasingly popular form of speech, especially among women, is known as “vocal fry” but it may not be sending the message that you want it to send.
Vocal fry describes voice quality (not pitch or loudness) and occurs normally in languages like Vietnamese, Wu Chinese and Burmese. In English speakers too it occurs without effort and usually just for a moment when you wake up in the morning, when you are lacking energy, at the end of some phrases, and when you are stressed or anxious. It sounds “creaky” or “croaky” and low-pitched, and it is becoming increasingly a part of popular culture speak for young women as embodied by people like the Kardashian sisters.
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The technique of vocal fry is also becoming popular in contemporary pop and country music. When females use this lowest register people rate their singing as more expressive, while the opposite is true for men. Humans can hear tones between 20Hz and 20,000Hz and vocal fry is at the low end of the spectrum at around about 70Hz. To put this in perspective, Mariah Carey is at the high end of vocal artists reaching around 3,135Hz. What makes vocal fry unique is that there is a gap between each burst of sound. It is a gap that is too short to be consciously aware of and lasts about as long as a blink but it exists because when a singer uses vocal fry their vocal chords are slack and long. As air flows through vocal chords in this condition it makes a sound similar to food sizzling and popping in a fry pan, hence the term vocal fry.
The thing about vocal fry is that it is so low that it is difficult to project without a microphone which is why opera singers and classical singers can’t use it and it is largely the province of pop singers. The example given by the researcher as a classic example of vocal fry in singing is Britney Spears’ “Oh baby baby” in Baby One More Time. Essentially you only hear vocal fry when a singer has the microphone close to her mouth.
The problem with vocal fry in singing according to this researcher is that it is becoming overused. In everyday speech though the problem is greater in that women who use vocal fry are regarded as less competent, less employable, less educated and less trustworthy than those who do not.
So beware the overuse of vocal fry ladies, it might work for Britney Spears but don’t try singing “Baby One More Time” at your next job interview.
