What is vocal fry, and should you stop using it?

The short answer

Vocal fry, also called glottal fry or creaky voice, is the lowest register of the voice: a low, creaky sound made of audible pops or crackles. You probably hear it at the ends of sentences, where the voice trails off. Anderson and colleagues (2014) describe it as a voice quality characterised by irregular vibrations of the vocal folds, typically occurring when speakers lower their pitch to the lowest register they can produce. Almost everyone can make it, and many people do without noticing.

What happens in the larynx

In a systematic review, Dallaston and Docherty (2020) describe creaky voice as intervals of low-frequency glottal pulses, often with some irregularity, and quote descriptions of its sound as a rapid series of taps, like a stick being run along a railing. Instead of the smooth, regular vibration of ordinary speech, the vocal folds close and release in slower, uneven bursts. Researchers such as Scherer (1989) have examined its physiology through muscle activity, imaging and airflow measurements.

A normal part of speech

Vocal fry is not in itself a disorder. Dallaston and Docherty report a general consensus that creaky voice is a physiologically normal type of phonation, and Scherer describes creak and vocal fry as linguistically normal voice qualities, while noting that they are often symptomatic in voice pathology. In English, unlike some other languages, voice quality does not change the meaning of words, which leaves speakers free to use creak more or less often without changing what they say.

Where it tends to appear

Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh and Slavin (2012) recorded 34 female college students aged 18 to 25 and found that approximately two-thirds used vocal fry, most often at the end of sentences. A matched study of 34 male college students by the same team (2014) also found vocal fry most often in sentence-final position, but its prevalence in sentences was significantly lower than had been reported for the women. Both studies were small, and they described particular groups of American students.

Is it becoming more common?

It is widely claimed that vocal fry is spreading, especially among young American women. The systematic review by Dallaston and Docherty looked for evidence and found only ten studies meeting its criteria, all with small numbers of speakers or short samples of speech. It concluded that the prevalence of creaky voice in English is not well understood and that widespread claims of a recent increase among young American women have not been empirically confirmed. The trend may exist; the data do not yet show it.

How listeners judge it

The perception question has more data. In a large national sample of American adults, Anderson and colleagues (2014) found that, compared with a normal speaking voice, young adult female voices with vocal fry were perceived as less competent, less educated, less trustworthy, less attractive and less hirable, and the negative perceptions were stronger for female than for male voices. This is a study of how recorded voices were judged. It says something about listeners and their biases, not about the ability of people who use vocal fry.

Does vocal fry damage your voice?

The evidence does not settle this. Dallaston and Docherty note that, despite the consensus that creaky voice is normal, some speech-language pathologists hypothesise that its overuse can be a symptom of voice problems or lead to them. That is a hypothesis, not a finding. What can be said is that occasional vocal fry in healthy speech has not been established as harmful, and that creak which comes with other changes in the voice is worth looking at more closely.

When creak may be a symptom

The NIDCD describes a hoarse voice as one that may sound breathy, raspy or strained, softer in volume or lower in pitch, and advises seeing a doctor if hoarseness lasts more than three weeks, especially without a cold or flu. Pain when speaking or swallowing, difficulty breathing or losing your voice for more than a few days are also reasons to see a doctor. If your voice has become creaky all the time rather than at the ends of phrases, that change is worth mentioning.

Why it happens at the ends of sentences

Both studies by Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh and Slavin found fry clustered in sentence-final position. Their 2014 paper discusses possible physiological and sociolinguistic explanations. A practical way to think about the physiological side is that, at the end of a sentence, pitch naturally falls and the breath is often running out, which makes it easy for the voice to drop below its comfortable level into creak. That also suggests where to intervene if you want less of it.

Hear your own vocal fry

Before trying to change anything, find out how much you use. Record yourself reading a paragraph and talking for a minute about something ordinary, then listen to the last word or two of each sentence. Creak sounds like a low rattle or a string of small pops rather than a clear tone. Count the sentences that end in it. Many people are surprised in either direction: some hear far more than they expected, and others find that the habit they worried about barely appears.

How to reduce it if you want to

If you decide to use less vocal fry, work on the conditions that produce it. Breathe before you run out of air rather than squeezing out the last words of a long sentence. Keep a little energy and volume through to the final word. Let the end of a statement fall only as far as your comfortable speaking level, not to the bottom of your voice. Shorter sentences help, because they leave you enough breath to finish them in a clear voice.

Exercise: the voiced ending

Write five short statements. Read each one, then read it again while imagining the last word must reach someone across the room at a normal conversational level, without shouting. Next, hum the last word on a comfortable note before saying it, “mmm-Tuesday”, so that it starts with a clear tone. Record the sequence and compare. The goal is a clear, relaxed ending that falls slightly, not a pitch that stays artificially high or a voice that has to push.

Should you remove it completely?

That is your choice, and it depends on context. The listener study by Anderson and colleagues reports how voices were judged in a hiring scenario, which is one reason people in interviews or presentations choose to reduce it. Vocal fry in casual speech is common, and trying to eliminate every trace can make speech tense. A reasonable aim is control: being able to finish a sentence in a clear voice when you want to, without straining to avoid a sound that is part of normal speech.

Where VocalMaxx fits

VocalMaxx records short voice samples and shows your pitch in hertz, how stable it is and the range you used, with guided drills for breath and pace. Recording a paragraph and listening back to your sentence endings is a practical way to hear your own vocal fry and to compare recordings over time. Pitch readings can become unstable or drop out on creaky segments, so trust your ears as well as the numbers. It is not a medical device. Stop if practice causes pain, irritation or hoarseness, and seek professional advice.

Further reading

• Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh & Slavin (2012), Habitual use of vocal fry in young adult female speakers, Journal of Voice
• Abdelli-Beruh, Wolk & Slavin (2014), Prevalence of vocal fry in young adult male American English speakers, Journal of Voice
• Anderson, Klofstad, Mayew & Venkatachalam (2014), Vocal fry may undermine the success of young women in the labor market, PLoS ONE
• Dallaston & Docherty (2020), The quantitative prevalence of creaky voice (vocal fry) in varieties of English: a systematic review of the literature, PLoS ONE
• Scherer (1989), Physiology of creaky voice and vocal fry, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
• NIDCD: Hoarseness