Many people looking into performing extreme metal are wondering how false chord growls/screams and fry screams work. What’s the difference, and how do you do them safely and find your own voice? Let’s start off with the false chord stuff in this blog post. This my guide, based on expert opinions and my own experiences. Remember: if it hurts, stop before you wreck your voice.
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- Stefan Nordström
- Musician, songwriter, content creator, digital freelancer
- Stockholm, Sweden
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What are false chord growls?
I’m far from a vocal professor or anatomy expert, so I will focus on my personal experience and evolution, but the basic techniques of false chord work like this: a false chord scream uses your false folds which are located slightly above your true vocal folds, and the false chord distortion occurs when the chords flap. You can use this distortion to form sounds in various pitches. Voila, death metal vocals!
But it’s far from simple, and for most of us it takes a long time to get there. Most professionals recommend finding it by leaning into a frustrated sigh. The airy “haaoooww”/”urrrghhhhh” type sound should cause a soft false chord growl without hurting or making you hoarse, if you do it right. Start by trying to find a comfortable way of performing that sound, and then progress to doing it with more power.
In my experience, false chords generally produce a lower tone than fry screams, but it varies between different voice types. It’s not a matter of pitch, false chord growls just have more body and depth to them.
Differences and combinations of false chord and fry
It’s good to remember that false chord and fry techniques rarely are completely isolain from eachother. Most extreme vocalists combine it one way or the other. I’ve discussed this with some fellow singers, and most of them have some fry sensations in their false chord delivery. I think it’s good to think of the techniques as ingredients in your vocal delivery, rather than the complete dish. Also, the more you combine them and experiment, the likelier you are to develop a unique delivery.
My personal experiences and pitfalls
I’ve wrecked my voice doing false chords. A lot! My first 6-7 years was basically a vocal chord beatdown over and over again, and at that point I was only doing false chord techniques. It was loud, it was shouty and it was wreckless, probably having more in common with hardcore vocals than typical extreme metal false chords.
It took until I was in Desolator around 2009-2010 to get any kind of control and base-level technique in there. Here are some of my main mistakes (they still show up on occasion):
- Pushing too hard/voice-economy: I’m a sucker for getting into the moment and going overboard with pushing. It’s a voice-wrecker and it also makes me uneconomic. Many times, I can bang out phrases or a verse or two with 10/10 intensity, but that doesn’t matter when I’m done for before the song is over. Focus on economy and consistency as early possible. Get used to singing full songs instead. Don’t fuck around with micro-recording seven words here and there like I did. It’ll come back to bite you in the ass later on.
- Mimicking other vocalists too much: covers and mimicing are good for learning early on. But try to find your own voice as soon as possible. I’ve been Matti Kärki (Dismember), I’ve been Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth), and I’ve been Tomi Joutsen (Amorphis). Should’ve just been me instead. Helps a lot to sing a more comfortable and natural way, and it also sounds better and more unique.
- Screaming without feedback: recording your vocals early on is a great tip, no matter the style. But with screaming vocals, I’ve noticed that a main reason that I wreck my voice is that I don’t get feedback on how they sound. As soon as I’m in the studio with earphones on and clear feedback, I’ll never wreck my voice. After I got aware of this, I stopped practicing extreme vocals without having clear feedback, either by earphones, blocking my ear, or whatever that goes in that certain situation. It’s been a voice-saver for me, and something I wish I discovered earlier. Reason is simple: without feedback you often find yourself screaming louder and louder. Usually it doesn’t make your voice sound better, probably worse actually. An example: see how Mikael Stanne, one of the most economic vocalists in extreme metal, doesn’t want to scream in the mic in that situation in this vid.
- Relaxation and mental health: professional vocal lessons taught me a lot, but perhaps one thing more than anything else. Granted, they were for clean vocals, but a main takeaway is that I am tense like a stick. Vocals are a demanding physical activity. Your body and soul needs to be comfortable, doesn’t matter if it’s false chord growls or soft singing. My mind keeps playing tricks on me and wrecks many recordings and performances for me, but at least I’m more aware of it now.
Do your best to avoid these, and you probably won’t have to spend as much time as I did wrecking your voice. And hire someone to help you out if you want to progress faster.
My favorite false chord vocalists
You often hear false chord growls in death metal, and I bet many of your favorite vocalists use it. These are some of my favorite false chord growlers that I’ve learned the most from during my evolution as a vocalist:
- Ross Dolan (Immolation)
- Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth, ex-Bloodbath) in his peak around 2000-2008
- Tomi Joutsen (Amorphis)
- Matti Kärki (Dismember)
- Johan Lindstrand (The Crown)
- Paul Kuhr (Novembers Doom)
Great resources for false chord screams
A big part of me going from “HAY I’LL SCREAM ALONG TO THAT DISMEMBER SONG RANDOMLY” to thinking in terms of false chords, fry screams, placement and so on are online vocal experts. Random screaming has it’s charm, but I’d recommend these guys to learn stuff like false chords and so on:
- Britta Görtz: extreme vocal coach with a broad knowledge in all forms of screaming, including false chord growls
- Enrico H. Di Lorenzo: Hideous Divinity vocalist with high knowledge in brutal vocal techniques
- Kardavox Academy: super informative YouTube channel with extreme vocal tips, analysises and interviews
- Scream Dudes: in essence an amateur channel, but it has a lot of interesting guests that can help you progress as a screaming vocalist
More growl-related content:
My 20 favorite death metal vocalists ->
10 extreme vocal tips based on my experiences ->
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Hope you found these false chord tips and tricks useful. If you’re curious what my music sounds like or if you want to support me, check out my progressive death/doom metal band Soliloquium on Bandcamp, Spotify or YouTube. Maybe you’ll dig it?
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