Live data from Hacker News

Vocal fry register

en.wikipedia.org

31–40 of 50 posts

Re: Vocal fry register

#31
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it bother you? Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. There's nothing inherently wrong about vocal fry: there are human languages where vocal fry is an essential component of native speech.

> Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. I don't think it has anything to do with some vague notion of "hate". Some people simply find it to be a distracting phenomenon that can make it harder to understand what somebody else is saying, even when they like the speaker.

In that case it shouldn't depend on being aware of the phenomenon, which is what gp said.

Re: Vocal fry register

#32
post #18
post #2

e.g. Kardashian speak

Vocal fry in the English language is historically associated with British men; it's curious to me that only when women adopted it did we start getting told to hate it.

Told to hate it? Please. I'm British and barely even know of the existence of Kardashian, much less how she speaks and what she's famous for.

My first experience with vocal fry was a Finnish woman at my job who would use it constantly. This was several years ago and I had no idea what vocal fry was until recently. All I knew was I found the way she talked annoying. I liked her, but I did not like the way she talked. I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that?

Later there was a young guy at work who would drop into vocal fry a lot. I still didn't know what it was called but I still found it very annoying.

I don't know why I don't find men like Bertrand Russell annoying.

But all I know is nobody told me to hate anything. Even people that didn't like the woman I worked with never mentioned her voice.

Re: Vocal fry register

#33

Worst part is once you learn what the Vocal Fry sounds like, you will start hear it literally everywhere. At best, it was interesting to recognize in the real world; at worst, it ruined some podcast hosts for me.

[flagged]

Re: Vocal fry register

#34
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heavy vocal fry annoys me. Maybe I'm a class-oriented bigot, but I think it's just an annoying sound.

> I think it's just an annoying sound. Agreed. Your PP is strangely very strongly invested in it going by the number of comments. I wonder why.

What's "PP"?

Re: Vocal fry register

#35
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vocal fry in the English language is historically associated with British men; it's curious to me that only when women adopted it did we start getting told to hate it.

Told to hate it? Please. I'm British and barely even know of the existence of Kardashian, much less how she speaks and what she's famous for. My first experience with vocal fry was a Finnish woman at my job who would use it constantly . This was several years ago and I had no idea what vocal fry was until recently. All I knew was I found the way she talked annoying . I liked her, but I did not like the way she talked…

> I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that?

This is like complaining someone speaks with a certain accent. Sure, we can all change how we speak, but we speak and certain way and there is nothing wrong with it.

Re: Vocal fry register

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Told to hate it? Please. I'm British and barely even know of the existence of Kardashian, much less how she speaks and what she's famous for. My first experience with vocal fry was a Finnish woman at my job who would use it constantly . This was several years ago and I had no idea what vocal fry was until recently. All I knew was I found the way she talked annoying . I liked her, but I did not like the way she talked…

> I think the most annoying thing is that it's clear it's being done on purpose for some reason. I know she can talk normally and I know I can talk like her, so why is she choosing to talk like that? This is like complaining someone speaks with a certain accent. Sure, we can all change how we speak, but we speak and certain way and there is nothing wrong with it.

I didn't say there was anything wrong with it. I merely said I find it annoying. Am I not allowed to reflect on what I find annoying? And yes, I do find certain accents annoying too, but my feeling is it's much harder to change one's accent than it is to not do vocal fry. I can't change my accent at will, but I can certainly do vocal fry.

Re: Vocal fry register

#38
post #15

Worst part is once you learn what the Vocal Fry sounds like, you will start hear it literally everywhere. At best, it was interesting to recognize in the real world; at worst, it ruined some podcast hosts for me.

Why does it bother you? Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. There's nothing inherently wrong about vocal fry: there are human languages where vocal fry is an essential component of native speech.

To me it is a disease that spread among youth. It sounds terrible.

Re: Vocal fry register

#39
post #15

Worst part is once you learn what the Vocal Fry sounds like, you will start hear it literally everywhere. At best, it was interesting to recognize in the real world; at worst, it ruined some podcast hosts for me.

Why does it bother you? Probably only because you've been taught that you're supposed to hate it. There's nothing inherently wrong about vocal fry: there are human languages where vocal fry is an essential component of native speech.

[flagged]

Re: Vocal fry register

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throat singing is just a band-pass filter. Having a rich set of frequencies can be helpful, but it's unnecessary for producing the overtones. Throat singing and "whistle singing" are effectively the same technique, except that in throat singing a wider collection of overtones is selected for (not necessarily wider band , but wider "matching partials" to the fundamental frequency)

Are we talking about the same thing? I mean the Mongolian throat signing in that YouTube link, which has crazy low fundamentals (I have a deep bass voice and it's much lower than I can sing).

No, you aren't, and it isn't vocal fry. Overtone singing is a distinct technique in Tuvan throat singing, and comparing it to a bandpass filter is accurate — as a whole, Tuvan throat singing is a set of techniques designed to induce vocal sounds with extremely rich harmonics, which can then be modulated and selected for by shaping the mouth.

What you're thinking of is called "Kargyraa", a particular subset of Tuvan techniques that involves singing with the vocal cords as normal, but also tightening the voicebox such that your "false vocal cords" (some flaps somewhere in your throat) are struck at a frequency an octave below the sung note — for every full cycle your vocal cords complete, the false vocal cords complete half of 1. It creates a rich sound which can be useful for the "bandpass" technique, but is fundamentally something different.

Take this with a small grain of salt, I came to this technique through the modern beatboxing community who independently discovered it as the standard "throat bass" and only bothered researching the Tuvan equivalent a long time ago.

There is a bass singing technique called "subharmonics" that uses something similar (identical?) to vocal fry to create interference with a sung note for a similar effect.

Post reply on HN