Vocal fry, aka “creaky voice”, is a characteristic drop in pitch, usually at the end of sentences, which is particularly associated with the speech patterns of young women. Britney Spears is a prime example of this trend, having famously used it in her smash 1998 hit, “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)”, and she’s far from the only trend.
But what if that popular gender-based stereotype is wrong? McGill University graduate student Jean Brown, detailing her experimental findings at this week’s meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Philadelphia, found that vocal fry is actually more common in men than women. According to Brown, we find it more prominent in young women.
Vocal fry is the lowest of the human vocal registers, the others being the modal and falsetto registers, as well as the whistle register. This occurs when the vocal cords become loose, causing irregular vibrations and a crackling or rattling sound as air is expelled rapidly. Vocal fry are characterized by very low fundamental frequencies of around 70 Hz. (The lowest end of the range of human hearing is 20 Hz.)
Ten years ago, I reported on an experiment by John Nix, a voice professor at the University of Texas, San Antonio, who concluded that singers like Spears, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga use vocal fry in pop music because it enhances articulation. “Simple genres, like classical music, tend to hide effort and express emotion in more subtle ways,” Nicks told me at the time. “Amplified genres, such as popular music, display effort as real, intimate, raw, exciting, and emotional. Fry may be a way to convey such effort, or honest, raw emotions.” Nor is vocal fry used exclusively by female singers: gospel bassists such as Justin Bieber, Tim Storms (who holds the world record for the lowest note produced by a human), and Mike Holcomb have also used it.
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