hey everybody chris liepe here with brita gertz a wonderful metal extreme vocalist
in the last video we went through screaming gateway sounds and aggressive singing singing with
distortion and got some wonderful perspectives also if you want to go deeper with brita and
her approach there's a link that links to a waiting list for a course that she's going to
be putting out here very soon click that link below and join that waiting list in this video
we're going to dive into thankfully something i have always had trouble with and that is growling
i feel like this is something that while i've been able to do it here and there and sort of
i will be the first to admit that that is not something that is a strength in my own
voice singing with distortion i'm very comfortable with that mixed voice madness and aggressive heat
yeah blood curdling long screams yes growls no so for someone like me or maybe someone who is
doesn't even have the screaming stuff down quite as much but actually selfishly for someone like me
how do you get into doing growls if you're so dependent on the feels and sensations
from screaming and aggressive singing what's the difference and why do people have trouble
making that leap i want to share my terminology on how i use it because i don't make a difference
in when it comes to growling between very low pitched fry sounds and like a full-on false chord
because like for me everything that is really high is scream everything that's in mid-range is shout
and everything that as low as growl and below that it's guttural that's how i use it
just to bring some order and to bring some terminology into my teachings
so um growl vocals like most people probably think of growl vocals as being like a full-on
false chord engagement and just be at least lower than your speaking voice and like super
low yeah uh so i'm assuming that we're talking about that when it when it when it comes to that
yeah that guttural that guttural from the pits of hell sound that's the one because i agree with you
with your terminology in terms of how things feel and sound right a scream is high has this element
of pitch even if it's not a note uh we're defining it as a high-pitched sound that's a scream
and then we have we have a yell uh which even if it's a very false chord engaged yell
sort of the corey taylor thing right corey taylor yells i mean that's what he does and then we have
that that low sub yell you don't have to be loud um you can be loud but it's a very
personal thing i mean like we don't even see our instrument come on like it's like we're really
it's not the easiest instrument to learn and anything that goes with vocals but
um i would say that if you want to achieve a very low pitched false chord engaged growl we first
have to explain a little bit on how that works because like the distortion that we're doing
we never distort anything in our throat like this is not something that's uncontrolled and grinding
against each other so i look at distortion more like what we hear but not actually what we do
because we need at least um like like two different um two different body parts that give
pitch that lay above each other and that interfere with each other to have this like pulsating growly
growly sound very good that's a really cool way to look at it so so there is something like a
clean growl where you don't hear much air hissing and i'm encouraging my students to first attempt
a sound like that that you have a clear growling sound without much air hissing through so um
would be like a kind of like very basic uh false chord um growl um and what it does is like you
have your vocal chords engaged they make a pitch and above the vocal four chords are the false
chords like going at a slower pulse creating a sound a sub-harmonic that is about like one octave
below what you're actually singing they're thicker your false chords are thicker and uncoordinated
and so you're if you're choosing a pitch a lower pitch for you it was you know that growl was like
an oh that that sort of sound which is very very low for you but for me it might be oh
maybe a full octave lower oh and then i engage my false chords above that so i add i'm adding
that false chord engagement to a clean pitch even though in the end we don't want that pitch to be
prominent as we go lower like we have to we have to um like decrease our loudness um it has to be
like because we cannot look at pictures of metal singers if you say if you see someone doing like
it's most likely not a low sound no and we know that right yeah and i noticed with even
with your face i mean you drew your jaw down and you're making this oh a very very long o sound
to further shape that tone downward as a you know you can't you could be low and be going like this
but then you just sound like a gargling witch um which might be perfectly useful for for some for
some um crazy aesthetics there but um but yeah that's that's a good point that you actually say
that because um um when you want to go lower than your actual vocal range allows you to do that we
need to pay a lot of attention to our timbre and our placement so there are certain areas in your
mouth and in your throat where you can place a sound that will either favor the higher pitched um
frequencies that are in it like um the overtones and everything and then there are also parts
that cut away those overtones and also just leave like a low end um prominent there so think of your
whole face like um an equalizer and set a high pass a low cut and stuff like that and think of it
like that so as you want to go lower you want to get rid of the higher frequencies and that means
we need to bring our tongue into the most awkward shapes on purpose to just cut away the higher
pitches or you choose for a very low basic tone of your true chords and go for a high frequency pitch
placement in in your shaping technique that will create just like monstrous weird sounds
okay so get us get us there let's take a clean bright middle of the road sound like
and take that and transition it into an evil growl
okay so first of all my suggestion would be that you change the vowel to an o or an oo
okay and then we go lower together just a little bit where it's still comfortable
where you can still like project the sound like don't go don't go super low and don't
especially like don't press on your larynx your larynx should be in neutral position so
yeah something like that and now project
it a little bit into the distance maybe something like 20 25 meters
that's a good basic example
in doing that i'm sensing i'm kind of trying to throw my voice out the front
of my face i'm trying to get it out of my face
and by doing that i have to feel it in my face first if i'm just feeling it in my throat i'm not
going to i'm not going to be able to project like you just asked me to project i have to be able
to feel it in my face first so that i can throw it i can deliver it out of the front of my face
okay got that got it yeah give it some direction and so the next thing we want to do
is we want to aim just like bring our false chords in and we have to understand
that the false chords um in just like every person's body is um plays a very crucial role
in the um life-saving department uh because the false chords are um among other things there
they are an excess pressure um body part so they might have like a little bit of
muscles but they don't have muscles that you can just bring them together like that
like you can bring together your fists right so you need a certain amount of excess pressure
because what they do is they save your life when the potato goes down the wrong way they make
and they catapult the potato out of your airway so when we
want to do that on a light tone we can just clear our throat
but but when we're clearing our throat there there's this
there's two ways to clear our throat right we could be
which is it's this sensation below our voice box and then we have the what might sound more
polite right like which is above the above i think it's important to draw this extinction distinction
above in that's false chord oh that is epiglottal and that right there will get in the way
of you doing what you want to do from a from a false chord engagement standpoint because
you're then you're then you're doing what you said earlier and you're kind of wringing out
you're you're risking the ringing out of your vocal cords uh yes that can easily happen and
um especially if you're a beginner but like the epiglottis is a good body part like for
um advanced and very advanced singers i would say that there's a lot of use for that in our
guttural department where we can have that come come in just a little bit um but you're absolutely
right so we're talking about more like oh let's say like you want to interrupt someone politely
yeah right yes and so and we try to bring those two sounds um together like
and make sure that your lips come to the front and that the o is very very small
and now a very crucial part comes in you need to really have feeling a feeling of release here
and i can hear in your voice that you're a little bit too compressed you want to
lean into a fry sound you don't need as much it's less than for the fry
less than friday okay okay so demonstrate that for me
now can you and it's it's it's really really super like um loose here loose
there's no pulling
that's closer yeah it's closer
oh yeah very good and where it feels comfortable and where it feels soft and warm that's the happy
place that is the first time i've ever feel like nails or something that is the first time i've
really felt something like that and you you got it you got me to feel that when you when you started
wiggling your throat and said it feels very loose you have to release into it which i don't have a
problem doing with screams but for some reason i have a problem i had a problem doing it down here
i'm going to continue to lean into that and and you you heard it you heard that point at which i
i stopped engaging my true chords and i kind of let them go and then that added beef
came in that that's fabulous thank you for helping me release that that's awesome
you're welcome you're welcome so if if anybody wants more of this kind of stuff click that link
below and join the waiting list for her course and you'll be able to take some of this stuff
a lot deeper and unlock some of these sensations and unlock your extreme vocals thanks again britta
thanks a lot chris we'll see you for more
excellent excellent stuff man thanks
you