Hey Singers!
I’m Justin Stoney - Founder of New York Vocal Coaching
here with you for Ep. 125 of Voice Lessons To The World.
I’m joined again by one of the world’s leading
distortion researchers and experts - Nicolás Hormazábal.
Yes sir!
Hello Justin!
[speaks Spanish]
Let’s do it again!
Ready to do it again!
So far, Nicolas and I have walked you through Growls,
[demonstrates]
False Fold Distortions,
[demonstrates]
Death Growls.
[demonstrates]
Charming!
and Vocal Fry fundamentals.
[demonstrates]
Today we’re putting it all together for one of the most
advanced and most gloriously brutal sounding distortions.
The Fry Scream.
Nicolás?
The house special.
House special!
[demonstrates]
Fantastic.
And we’re going to unpack this together.
But first, a couple quick disclaimers about Rasp and Distortion.
Distortions should not hurt.
They are not loud.
The microphone does the work.
They are usually much less aggressive
and much more subtle than we think.
They are not damaging to the voice if done properly.
Distortions take time.
Be patient with yourself and study with an expert
if you can.
So, Nicolás, how would you describe a Fry Scream?
It’s my favorite one.
It’s, I mean, it’s the most aggressive you know?
If you hear it you feel like, oh what’s happening here?
Who’s dying, you know?
It’s like an, ooh… an alarm?
It’s aggressive.
You can relate it with pain,
you can relate it with anger, yeah.
It’s versatile in the metal world.
In Heavy Metal usually, yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome
Well we also have a formal definition for Fry Screams:
Fry Scream is
an ‘aggressive’, ‘panicked’, or ‘gritty’ quality produced
by a balance of breathiness and compression
of the true Vocal Folds often accompanied by
False Vocal Fold, AryEpiglottic Fold,
and Epiglottic involvement.”
Alright!
Let’s listen to a few singers using Fry Screams…
So, how do we start developing our Fry Screams?
Let’s look at three strategies.
Number 1, character voices.
So you have some characters for us to try?
First a little disclaimer, I love cats and animals.
For this purpose, we can use a very old
and dying kitty.
So it’s like this…
[demonstrates]
Obviously if we add more compression
we will get something like this...
[demonstrates]
And we’ve got Fry Scream.
And another way is to try to make like you’re
throwing up.
[demonstrates]
Then you can add pitch, and then you can
add compression.
[demonstrates]
And we have it again.
Fantastic!
So, puking and dying cats.
And remember it’s not too loud.
Not too loud. Yeah.
Well, I hope my cats at home are not watching
this episode.
Okay, now
the second strategy we’re going to look at is
combining Breathiness and Vocal Fry.
We’ve definitely talked about Breathiness on this show in the past.
If you don’t remember, it’s pretty straightforward.
First say “Breathy Voice”. [demonstrates]
Good. Now say “Clean Voice”. [demonstrates]
Nice!
Now back and forth.
Breathy, Clean, Breathy, Clean.
Great.
But, here’s where it gets interesting.
Can we use breathiness and vocal fry at the same time?
We actually can.
We can go HAH… FRY….
HAH… FRY. [demonstrates]
And then try to combine them.
[demonstrates]
Eventually you see that they can work together.
Takes a little practice, but you can get there
if you play with it.
Okay, alright!
Last but not least, combining False Vocal Rasp
with Breathy Fry.
So now we kind of put it all together, right?
Yeah, yeah.
We can use breathy vocal fry plus rasp
or false cord distortion to get the final fry scream.
So, sounds like this.
The first sound is…
[demonstrates]
The second sound is…
[demonstrates]
If we put everything together it sounds like…
[demonstrates]
And we’ve got it!
[demonstrates]
And then we go to, I don’t know, maybe…
[demonstrates]
Or
[demonstrates]
Total glory.
So we’re really putting that breathy fry
along with some of the other distortions
that we’ve learned together.
It’s just great.
Well, I hope that you have enjoyed
exploring all of these distortions with us.
A huge thanks to my man Nicolás.
He’s the best in the business folks.
And if you’d like to go deeper with these topics,
we’ve got your covered.
Voice teachers looking to train distortions
or singers looking to master your distortions,
here are your next steps to making a “joyfully raspy noise!”
Thank you again.
Thank you!
If you’d like to sing with Rasp and Distortion
visit newyorkvocalcoaching.com/distortion.
If you’re a voice teacher wanting to teach Rasp and Distortion
safely to your singers, please visit voiceteachertraining.com/distortion
and become a part of our worldwide community.
To get your copy of Justin Stoney's book Sing Like Never Before,
visit singlikeneverbefore.com
If you'd like a vocal course that you can do from home,
check out the Voice Lessons To The World Vocal Course.
Our 12 part program takes you on a journey from beginner
to master level vocal exercises.
Find it at VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
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sign up at DailyVocalTips.com.
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