The ultimate guide to fry screams

What are fry screams and how do you perform them safely in a way that sounds good? Who can you learn from? These are my experiences as a long-time extreme metal vocalist.

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Stefan Nordström - metal musician and content creator

Stefan Nordström
Musician, songwriter, content creator, digital freelancer
Stockholm, Sweden
Bands: Desolator, Soliloquium, Ending Quest, Ashes of Life, Trees of Daymare, The Ashen Tree
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What is vocal fry?

Before we get to the screaming part we need to have a look at vocal fry. Achieiving a basic vocal fry is far from the same thing as fry screaming, but it helps you understand the dynamics and create fry-based sounds.

Relax your voice, take a deep, calm breath and slowly let out a gentle “uhhhh” sound on the exhale. Does it kind of feel like it bubbles, cracks or rattles? Then you’ve probably found your base vocal fry. Keep it soft, but steady. It should feel effortless. If you push out too much air or squeeze the throat, it could start feeling painful or uncomfortable, and that’s not right. You can also inhale with fry engagement (doing exhales/inhales softly with full control is a common vocal coach exercise).

Finding your vocal fry and doing it safely is a good way to find placement and relax your voice, so it is useful in multiple ways.

From basic vocal fry to fry screams

Now, it’s time to get from fry gurgling to actual screams and vocals. Keep the fry sound and open your mouth and throat slightly more, kind of like a yawn.

Gently increase airflow while maintaining that loose fry feeling
You’ll start to hear more resonance or “grit” in your tone
Try using different vowels (“ah”, “eh”, “oh”) and head/chest resonance placements
The goal is resonant distortion, not volume or pressure
A proper fry scream feels like it “sits” in your mouth or mask, not in your throat.

Finding the resonance and placement in my mouth and face can be tricky for me at times with fry screams. The basic fry easily turns into throaty, hoarse sounds that go haywire on the vocal chords, so you’re definitely not alone if you find this part tricky. If you feel pain or get hoarse, have a break and try a different way of finding the engagement.

What’s the difference between fry screams and false chord?

Most extreme metal vocalists use fry screams or false chord, or both. Fry screams tend to sound more thin, sharp, sizzling, often with a shrieky quality to them. False chord screams are usually thicker, lower, roar-like, and more chesty. These traits can usually hint at or give away what technique vocalist is using, but only sometimes.

The tricky part is that many vocalists, myself included, use a mix of fry and false chord engagement at times. It makes it hard to pinpoint what technique is used and when. And physicality plays in quite a lot here: some vocalist can achieve similar sounds with the other technique, thanks to their voice character, and vice versa.

Fry and false chord mixed?

One important thing to remember is that many extreme vocalists use a mix of fry and false chord techniques. It’s rarely one distinct technique, which is important to have in mind. Trying to master one at a time when developing your vocals is usually good, but it’s good to remember that they often aren’t isolated sensations. Using a combination, e.g. spicing up your false chord voice with some fry, can also make it sound better and more unique.

My personal experiences and pitfalls

I screamed my ass off in various low- and high-pitched ways for years without having a clue what false chord, fry and other concepts were. It was all just death metal growls, shrieks and screams to me. Kind of a pity, because a bit of vocal science would’ve definitely helped me to develop faster. Could have probably avoided some damage to my voice that way as well.

I started introducing high screams in my late teens, after performing low growls for a couple of years. My teenage voice could hit the occasional blood churning Chuck Schuldiner scream, but it often came at a cost. I overpushed and engaged too much with my throat, so it certainly wasn’t a healthy way to do it.

It took a good 10 years or so before I was more comfortable hitting higher, more shrieky territory in a repeated, reliable way. Main lessons is to hold back a bit on volume and push, even if you feel like you’ve got more in you. Yeah, it’s fun to scream away, but you’ll get the same effect with a reasonable amount of power; it’ll probably even sound better. Let the microphone do the amplification for you.

My favorite extreme vocalists using fry screams

Many extreme vocalists (and clean for that matter) utilize fry in their singing. The one that turned me on and made me explore it was no doubt Chuck Schuldiner (Death). In my early days, I was fooling around with high-pitched fry songs like “Spirit Crusher” and “Flesh and the Power it Holds”. But back in my 20’s I had no idea how do it safely. Today, I can hit these later-era Death songs safely, unless I’m having a real off day.

Later on, fry screams and shrieks became a main feature in Desolator and Soliloquium. Doing both fry and false chord opens up new ways to make the music interesting. As I mentioned earlier, it can be hard to pinpoint the exact engagement when the voice techniques get mixed. I asked a few knowledgeable vocalists about my voice to be sure, and they said that some of my high stuff is fry, and some is mixed engagement. So if any vocal vids or examples I use are off, please tell me.

Great resources for fry screams

Here are some resources where you can learn more about fry screams and fry engagement:

Britta Görtz: vocal coach with a broad knowledge in all forms of extreme vocals, including fry screams
Chris Liepe: doesn’t focus so much on extreme vocals, but he has a lot of good videos on fry engagement and other forms of grit
Kardavox Academy: very good YouTube channel to learn fry screams and other types of extreme vocals
Scream Dudes: in essence an amateur channel, but it has a lot of interesting guests that can help you progress as a screaming vocalist, including fry and false chord engagement

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So, I hope this helped you to get a grasp of fry screams. I’m by no means a vocal coach or professional singer, but I thought it would be fun to share my experiences and some useful tips. If you appreciate my content and want me to keep churning it out, considering supporting me. The best way is to buy my digital music at Bandcamp. If that’s not your thing, just listen to my projects and spread the word about my music and content. Cheers!