Female voice: that subtle "creaking" sound

[Stranger]

I think it's called vocal fry, or something...

anyhoo, I'm having troubles (as usual) with the voice. When I use what I presume is more feminine resonance + pitch, it has the effect of completely cutting out any croaky-vibrating sound. Problem is, all the females around me, on TV, and so on, still have that little bit of a creak in their voice. As a consequence my voice sounds too "clean" and artificial in comparison.

When I try forcefully to add creak, I just end up screwing up my resonance and sounding completely male again. Boo! I've heard some recordings in the big topic where transwomen have managed to combine female resonance while still including that natural sounding vocal creak, so I know it can be done, but I've no idea...

My guess is that I'm having trouble disassociating chest vibrations from some subtle effect of the vocal chords, and that the sound in question is a product of the latter?

[Jamie D]

Would you like to post a demonstration of what you mean?  So members could hear for themselves.

[kae m]

It's something that some people consider obnoxious, but you're right, women seemingly across the US have adopted it as part of the way they speak. This video exaggerates it ridiculously at times, but then she speaks normally and you can still pick up hints of it naturally occurring when she pronounces some words. She does go into a description of what causes the sound, and that might help you try to reproduce it. It is a normal sound that we produce by speaking English, it's just that it tends to get drawn out over other sounds as well.



Also, one theory behind the proliferation of vocal fry/creaky voice is that it is a socialization for women to sound more masculine. I do not have access to the article, but I think this is about a small study that revealed people took female speakers using vocal fry more seriously than speakers who did not use vocal fry.

As for practicing, maybe find some sounds that typically have some small amount of naturally occurring vocal fry. The last sound in "action" and the first sound in "if" seem to produce a very slight amount for me. I can make those sounds and drop into vocal fry from there, but it's really hard to keep my pitch at an appropriate level or to maintain it for more than a couple seconds.

And one final note: I've never done voice therapy, but I have a friend who is in a program now and apparently one of the major things they work on is to eliminate vocal fry. I suspect it's because no matter what it is a more masculine sound and that's not what they're going for.

Good luck

[Joelene9]

  Vocal fry was mentioned in my AARP newsletter from complaints from grandparents.  We are mostly hard of hearing and we have problems hearing the consonants in speech as it is.  It is annoying to say the least.  Vocal fry reminds me too much like Henry Kissinger, not for young women. 

  Joelene

[Nero]

Umm that's just an artificial voice teen girls use to sound 'cool' and 'sarcastic'. Not natural at all. Any female using it past the age of 20 has got issues. I never had anything like that in my voice and it was a perfectly normal female voice. Not deep at all. I would NOT recommend trying to incorporate it. Not if you like being taken seriously.

[kae m]

It is pretty annoying when kids speak that way at length, the video was merely to illustrate what the sound is.

I could be wrong, but I think what Stranger was referring to is how some sounds do have a subtle creakiness that incorporates it for a fraction of a second or for slightly longer to add emphasis or stress to a word. That aspect of it is a totally normal part of english speech and all genders do it, the extent to which it gets into language is still regional like other accents and it is usually more noticeable in women.

[Nero]

Okay, I watched the rest of the video. I don't hear it in her voice when she's talking normally. It's odd that she characterized it as an attempt to sound 'sophisticated'. I mostly hear it in a certain socio-economic bracket. You know, the girls Eminem sings about? 

Anyway, like she said it's unnatural and unhealthy and usually learned. If Stranger wants to sound like that, that's fine. But it's certainly not an ideal female voice. Also, most people see it as an affectation. As an mtf, you don't want to sound like you're faking any part of your voice. And like I said, I never had it in my old voice. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Stranger]

Umm that's just an artificial voice teen girls use to sound 'cool' and 'sarcastic'. Not natural at all. Any female using it past the age of 20 has got issues.

My (cis) girlfriend is 25, has a hint of that "vocal fry"-ish sound in her voice, is Australian not American, does not deliberately affect it in any whatsoever, and certainly does not have issues. We of all people should know to be sensitive about accusing anyone of having "issues", trans or otherwise.

This is a voice recording of my girlfriend reading Harvard Sentences. Apologies for the low quality. The sound in question is the "creakiness" in words like "parked truck" and "hard to sell". My voice loses that quality when I increase resonance. I hear it in most female and male speakers, but I can't change my resonance and keep that sound.

https://soundcloud.com/user90683091

I've heard some MTF speakers in the other thread who do it and sound wonderfully feminine, but honestly, I don't feel I ought to link to them while odd exaggerations (and remarks about socio-economic status - really, was that necessary?) are dominating the discussion.

I think what Stranger was referring to is how some sounds do have a subtle creakiness that incorporates it for a fraction of a second or for slightly longer to add emphasis or stress to a word. That aspect of it is a totally normal part of english speech and all genders do it, the extent to which it gets into language is still regional like other accents and it is usually more noticeable in women.

Yes, thank you. This is exactly what I was referring to.

[Nero]

Umm that's just an artificial voice teen girls use to sound 'cool' and 'sarcastic'. Not natural at all. Any female using it past the age of 20 has got issues.

My (cis) girlfriend is 25, has a hint of that "vocal fry"-ish sound in her voice, is Australian not American, does not deliberately affect it in any whatsoever, and certainly does not have issues. We of all people should know to be sensitive about accusing anyone of having "issues", trans or otherwise.

This is a voice recording of my girlfriend reading Harvard Sentences. Apologies for the low quality. The sound in question is the "creakiness" in words like "parked truck" and "hard to sell". My voice loses that quality when I increase resonance. I hear it in most female and male speakers, but I can't change my resonance and keep that sound.

https://soundcloud.com/user90683091

I've heard some MTF speakers in the other thread who do it and sound wonderfully feminine, but honestly, I don't feel I ought to link to them while odd exaggerations (and remarks about socio-economic status - really, was that necessary?) are dominating the discussion.

I think what Stranger was referring to is how some sounds do have a subtle creakiness that incorporates it for a fraction of a second or for slightly longer to add emphasis or stress to a word. That aspect of it is a totally normal part of english speech and all genders do it, the extent to which it gets into language is still regional like other accents and it is usually more noticeable in women.

Yes, thank you. This is exactly what I was referring to.

I was just being honest. Others may have different opinions and that's ok. But no, I don't think it's a good thing to try to imitate. I would discourage mtfs from trying to develop it. Like it or not, people do judge it.

EDIT: I really didn't mean to offend. I was just trying to convey the fact that as someone born with a female voice I know that that particular 'voice' is

1. unnecessary and not an essential or necessarily natural part of the female voice. Even the woman in the video calls this 'sound' unnatural and unhealthy. Maybe all English speakers pronounce a certain 'sound' at times. This is not what I'm getting at.

and

2. not really seen as desirable. Hence, the 'socioeconomic status' comment. I'm not sure how else to convey that. I would just rather communicate this than watch mtfs obsess over developing something not necessary or even desirable in the first place.

[Nero]

I think girls would want to do that because it is stereotypical of preppy cliquey types, who are usually white upper middle-class, so there you go.  I hope nobody actually thinks that sounds classy though

Yep. Hence the reason the class factor goes down the older the girl is using it.

[kae m]

EDIT: I really didn't mean to offend. I was just trying to convey the fact that as someone born with a female voice I know that that particular 'voice' is

1. unnecessary and not an essential or necessarily natural part of the female voice. Even the woman in the video calls this 'sound' unnatural and unhealthy. Maybe all English speakers pronounce a certain 'sound' at times. This is not what I'm getting at.

and

2. not really seen as desirable. Hence, the 'socioeconomic status' comment. I'm not sure how else to convey that. I would just rather communicate this than watch mtfs obsess over developing something not necessary or even desirable in the first place.

The evidence is actually not conclusive that it's an undesirable trait. The abstract of the study I linked to in my earlier post reads (bolded sections added by me for emphasis):

An examination of creaky voice occurring in natural conversations among relatively young educated American and Japanese speakers revealed that female speakers of American English residing in California employed creaky voice much more frequently than comparable American male and Japanese female speakers. Previously, creaky voice was interpreted as a voice quality of masculinity or authority. Moreover, a matched-guise perception survey indicates that college-age Americans residing in two contrasting regions, northern California and eastern Iowa, perceive female creaky voice as hesitant, nonaggressive, and informal but also educated, urban-oriented, and upwardly mobile. The sociocultural meanings indexed through this voice quality may have been reinterpreted recently as a new type of female voice in America. In addition, these American listeners reported frequent creaky voice usage by women in both regions. Creaky voice as a new type of female voice quality may also be becoming a conspicuous part of relatively young American women's unconscious (linguistic) performance. This investigation constitutes an exploratory study that stimulates and encourages new research on sociocultural usage of female creaky voice from various perspectives.

It's important to take that as a whole. Where it may deliver more authority it is also perceived as a traditionally masculine sound, where it may be perceived as educated, urban, and upwardly mobile, it's also seen as hesitant and informal. I do not have access to the full article, but I found it by reading an analysis of their results. The theory seems to be that it is an adaptation by women to be taken more seriously in traditionally male spaces by affecting their voice to take on a slight masculine quality. There are obvious reasons why a female identified trans person would avoid it, but that might seem more difficult if their peer group largely identifies it as normal.


Which is really besides the point. Based on Stranger's clarification I still take it to mean she is talking about the individual sounds in pronunciations of certain words that have a glottal sound and incorporate vocal fry, not that she's aiming to speak with that voice all the time.

People want that in their voice?? I'm trying really hard to stop doing it because it's somehow easier There are some things that are very hard to say without it.

I recorded it so you can see what I mean:

https://soundcloud.com/user963959415/vocal-fry

Your voice is great! But the "there are some things that are very hard to say without it" is basically my point. Glottal sounds, including vocal fry, are part of normal pronunciation of certain sounds we use in English. If you can't get that throat resonance right you either drop into your chest resonance or try to avoid it completely. It's a minor detail, but I don't think anyone needs to be talked down to for attempting to get it right.

And for the record, I don't think it's something to lose sleep over either way.

[Nero]

EDIT: I really didn't mean to offend. I was just trying to convey the fact that as someone born with a female voice I know that that particular 'voice' is

1. unnecessary and not an essential or necessarily natural part of the female voice. Even the woman in the video calls this 'sound' unnatural and unhealthy. Maybe all English speakers pronounce a certain 'sound' at times. This is not what I'm getting at.

and

2. not really seen as desirable. Hence, the 'socioeconomic status' comment. I'm not sure how else to convey that. I would just rather communicate this than watch mtfs obsess over developing something not necessary or even desirable in the first place.

The evidence is actually not conclusive that it's an undesirable trait. The abstract of the study I linked to in my earlier post reads (bolded sections added by me for emphasis):

An examination of creaky voice occurring in natural conversations among relatively young educated American and Japanese speakers revealed that female speakers of American English residing in California employed creaky voice much more frequently than comparable American male and Japanese female speakers. Previously, creaky voice was interpreted as a voice quality of masculinity or authority. Moreover, a matched-guise perception survey indicates that college-age Americans residing in two contrasting regions, northern California and eastern Iowa, perceive female creaky voice as hesitant, nonaggressive, and informal but also educated, urban-oriented, and upwardly mobile. The sociocultural meanings indexed through this voice quality may have been reinterpreted recently as a new type of female voice in America. In addition, these American listeners reported frequent creaky voice usage by women in both regions. Creaky voice as a new type of female voice quality may also be becoming a conspicuous part of relatively young American women's unconscious (linguistic) performance. This investigation constitutes an exploratory study that stimulates and encourages new research on sociocultural usage of female creaky voice from various perspectives.

It's important to take that as a whole. Where it may deliver more authority it is also perceived as a traditionally masculine sound, where it may be perceived as educated, urban, and upwardly mobile, it's also seen as hesitant and informal. I do not have access to the full article, but I found it by reading an analysis of their results. The theory seems to be that it is an adaptation by women to be taken more seriously in traditionally male spaces by affecting their voice to take on a slight masculine quality. There are obvious reasons why a female identified trans person would avoid it, but that might seem more difficult if their peer group largely identifies it as normal.


Which is really besides the point. Based on Stranger's clarification I still take it to mean she is talking about the individual sounds in pronunciations of certain words that have a glottal sound and incorporate vocal fry, not that she's aiming to speak with that voice all the time.

People want that in their voice?? I'm trying really hard to stop doing it because it's somehow easier There are some things that are very hard to say without it.

I recorded it so you can see what I mean:

https://soundcloud.com/user963959415/vocal-fry

Your voice is great! But the "there are some things that are very hard to say without it" is basically my point. Glottal sounds, including vocal fry, are part of normal pronunciation of certain sounds we use in English. If you can't get that throat resonance right you either drop into your chest resonance or try to avoid it completely. It's a minor detail, but I don't think anyone needs to be talked down to for attempting to get it right.

And for the record, I don't think it's something to lose sleep over either way.

Interesting. I dunno. Could be we're talking about two different sounds/voices. Anyway, if women are doing it to sound more 'masculine' and thus to be taken more seriously - that's more a comment on sexism than desirability. 

[Stranger]

People want that in their voice?? I'm trying really hard to stop doing it because it's somehow easier There are some things that are very hard to say without it.

I recorded it so you can see what I mean:

https://soundcloud.com/user963959415/vocal-fry

Ironically, yours was exactly the voice I was thinking of when I mentioned MTF speakers here who have vocal fry and sound perfectly feminine. Girl, you sound fierce, and the reactions you get when you post links to your voice prove it. Which I think serves to demonstrate the point.

to FA (and everyone in general)

kaellexi has my question figured out right. I'm not trying to ask how to use vocal fry all the time. For me, the reality is that most women I encounter throughout any given day, be they inner-urbanite 20-somethings or 50-year old office workers, have that extra texture to their voices. Maybe it's something peculiar to where I live: I couldn't say. But listen to my GF's voice and you'll hear the sounds I mean.

As a MTF woman who is trying to improve her voice, with lots of practice and deliberately affecting all kinds of sounds, I've chosen to believe that anything the voice can do is natural... I just wanted to be able to incorporate more of the sounds females around me use. I don't think that's any more affected than deliberately raising my pitch or changing my resonance.

as a final food for thought: is it fair to imply that a feminine voice needs to be "classy"? should we really be aiming to transcend the voice-culture of our own generations and social settings to realise some kind of universal ideal about how real women speak? I'm no grammar school girl, and even if it was 100% passable, I'd be disappointed if I ended up sounding like one. I guess that's the unavoidable paradox of voice training - you work hard to get a voice that doesn't draw attention, and as a result get one so careful and polished that everyone wonders where you got that fancy education!

[sylvannus]

In Japan, female voice training is kind of popular, and a lot Japanese learn it, who are not restricted to TS folks. However, according to the materials that I got from Japan, vocal frying is considered as a failure due to over- tightening vocal cord and is believed to cause imbalance in resonance. Curiously it is loved in English. To create vocal fry but not to lose female voice, you can tighten your vocal cord at a slightly higher level but not too high to break up your voice. But I don't really believe it is necessary or favorable or healthy.

[Seras]

I have kinda the same problem

Just gotta relax into the voice though innit

[Elspeth]

Ironically, yours was exactly the voice I was thinking of when I mentioned MTF speakers here who have vocal fry and sound perfectly feminine. Girl, you sound fierce, and the reactions you get when you post links to your voice prove it. Which I think serves to demonstrate the point.

Please correct me if I'm off-base, but when you described this (before the distractions about affectations) I was thinking of Terry Gross's voice. For anyone who isn't an NPR fan, here she is interviewing Jon Stewart at the 92nd Street Y.



What she has of this is very subtle, and mainly happens in the lower part of her usual range. It adds a certain depth without being distracting, though I won't debate that some of this might be some sort of borrowed sense of seriousness that relates to it being somewhat associated with deeper male voices.  I'm struggling with this myself, in that I can easily slip into it, and when I practice with my daughter, at least, she reads it as male rather than Terry Gross-like. It's not that I'm trying to do this, my singing range is quite large, and can extend into the deep bass range, so at least until I can be sure I'm totally controlling it, and only using it no more than someone like Terry Gross does, I've been trying to avoid it.

My own concern is that the easiest way to avoid it is to push my range up to a point where it seems like I'm imitating a much younger woman than I'm likely to be seen as in public, and most women my age do seem to have this in very subtle ways... I even noticed the less exaggerated form in some parts of the vocal fry videos when the  YouTube personality was trying NOT to used the form that she finds annoying.