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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 47 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over the world.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later.
But our question for this week comes from Sidd P. in Kanpur, India.
And this is going to be part two of our Vocal Fry Trilogy, okay.
Sidd writes, "Dear Justin, I've heard that the vocal fry
can help me with my high notes, how does this work?"
It's a great question Sidd and you're right to assume
that the vocal fry can do great things for us technically,
with our high notes, with our style, the works.
So today I'm going to show you how the vocal fry
really applies to style and to technique.
So just a little recap, last episode we talked about
what is the fry, right?
The fry is a register beneath our chest voice where
the cords make a sound that's a little bit different than
normal singing which is a sort of [vocal fry] sound, right?
The cords get short, fat, loose, but also compressed at the same time.
So, light but compressed.
And it's a register of our voice that today, like I say,
we're going to work on style and technique.
Now we heard last time some sort of crazy examples.
Elmer Fudd in my speaking voice, that's an excessive vocal fry.
And then Britney Spears actually gets a bad rap a lot for
excessively using vocal fry in her singing voice.
So we heard some of the extremes.
But now for something that's a little bit less extreme.
When you're doing a pop, rock, R&B or even country song,
the vocal fry is very, very present throughout, often.
And a lot of times what we do is start the note with a fry, right?
We begin the pitch with a low vocal fry
and then enter into the note.
And this typically happens when the word starts with a vowel.
It doesn't have to but that's typically when it happens.
So what I'm going to do now is do a song by Ryan Adams
called "Oh My Sweet Carolina" and I want you guys to see
if you can hear all the times that I'm using my vocal fry
to get into the notes.
It's a kind of cool, stylistic, and technical effect.
So here it is, and I've got my soul mate here today to help out.
"Oh my sweet Carolina".
♪
♪ Well I went down to Houston ♪
♪ And I stopped in San Antone ♪
♪ I passed up the station for the bus ♪
♪
♪ Was trying to find me something ♪
♪ But I wasn't sure just what ♪
♪ I ended up with pockets full of dust ♪
♪
♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
♪
♪ What compels me to go ♪
♪
♪ Oh my sweet disposition ♪
♪
♪ May you one day carry me home ♪
♪
Alright so that's "Oh my sweet Carolina" by Ryan Adams.
And you heard all the times that I was vocal frying into the pitch, right?
♪ Oh my ♪
Right?
I could have just done...
♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
But I do...
♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
And it helps me to not only get into that pitch
in a compressed light way, but it also is a cool stylistic effect
for our more contemporary sounds.
Now let's talk about how this can really benefit us technically.
That song is not all that high.
But what's cool is when I'm entering through a fry
I have a light connected sound.
Connected meaning not going to my falsetto.
So even though that goes to...
♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
If I did want to go sky high with it the vocal fry could help.
♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
Now it's going way higher than the song.
But the ♪ Oh my sweet Carolina ♪
that can help me get up into my high notes
with very little effort whatsoever
because the fry is helping me out.
So now how does this work?
The vocal cords are getting a little bit of that compression
while also remaining not squeezed.
So we're not blowing lots of air here.
We're just allowing the naturalness of that fry
to help assist us with closing the cords.
It's called medial compression and the vocal fry helps us
with that medial- to the center- compression, right?
So you heard what it is stylistically and you heard me
sort of messing around going sky-high with it.
Now I'm going to give you a chance to do an exercise
that will help you both with your style and technique all at once,
where we're going to enter in through the fry
and I'm going to actually let you go sky-high with this.
Now if it does go to falsetto, that's not a problem.
But we are going to let the fry help us to feel
a light medial compression today, okay?
So the exercise is going to be "Oh no no no".
Alright, you hear how that's got a little bit of a
conversational quality to it.
But we're going to put it as a vocal exercise.
And we're gonna do 8-5-3-1.
So the exercise will be this...
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
So you start with that fry...
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
So that's gonna be guys down there.
Ladies up here...
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Alright?
And we're going to go up and down together on "Oh no no no".
Okay so here we go!
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Nice.
♪
Good.
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Awesome.
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Great.
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Awesome work!
♪
Good for you.
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Good.
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Good!
♪
Nice.
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Good for you.
♪
That's it.
♪
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Awesome.
♪
Good stuff.
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Nice.
♪
A few more.
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
Awesome.
♪
That's it, last one.
♪ OH - NO - NO - NO ♪
♪
Spectacular stuff.
So you see that you can use the fry
to find a light, compressed sound going up and down.
You're going to use that for your technique, sometimes.
And you're going to use that for your style, sometimes.
Now I will admit that it can be a little bit fatiguing, alright.
It's not going to damage your voice
but it can be a little bit fatiguing.
So don't just do this fry, just like we said with the glottals,
don't just do it til the cows come home, right?
We've got to do this stuff in moderation.
When you're building these muscles
and some of these coordinations,
it can fatigue your voice a little bit.
Don't worry about it but also don't overdo this kind of work.
It's very athletic vocally.
But, Sidd and all, I hope that's helped,
and been helpful for you guys today as singers.
and if you have questions that you'd like to see us
answer on the show, you can send an email to
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
And we just encourage you, don't lose that joy, don't lose that passion, [♪]
don't let people tell you that you can't sing [♪]
because you and I both know that is not true. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
Or if you guys are in New York City or you want to Skype with one of our staff [♪]
you can visit us at, www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
And I also just encourage you guys to download our free app [♪]
for iPhone, iPad, and more in the future. [♪]
It's got free videos, articles, tips, resources for you guys [♪]
to help you take your singing to the next level. [♪]
So check out the app or visit, www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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