Social and Stylistic Correlates of Vocal Fry in a cappella Performances

To determine the social and stylistic correlates of vocal fry in a cappella performances.

A matched-guise experiment was used to measure listener evaluations of fry and non-fry guises.

Four singers, two male and two female, sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" with onset vocal fry. These recordings were used to create the two guises: (i) an unmodified recording with onset vocal fry on vowel-initial words and (ii) a recording in which the fry had been removed. In total, 253 participants listened to the recordings and evaluated the singers' social and stylistic attributes along a Likert scale, e.g., how confident, sexy, and sincere each singer sounded. A factor analysis was used to conflate correlated variables, and mixed effects linear regression models (n = 1,012) were fitted to each lone or joint factor to determine whether vocal fry significantly influenced listeners' responses to the singers.

Vocal fry significantly altered listener evaluations of the singers' sincerity/commitment, maturity/sophistication, naturalness, and confidence (P < 0.05). Unlike male singers, who were rated as significantly less sincere/committed with vocal fry, female singers were seen as more sincere/committed with vocal fry and younger listeners also found them less natural, suggesting vocal fry is associated with emotional intensity in female voices. Younger listeners perceived singers with fry as less mature/sophisticated, suggesting an association with youth. Finally, listeners with more musical training rated singers with fry as less confident, while less trained listeners did not exhibit this difference.

Listeners are highly attuned to vocal fry in music but respond to it differently based upon their age, musical training, and the singer's sex. Vocal fry is evaluated more positively among younger, less musically trained listeners, and it is better received in women's voices, suggesting that the use of fry strategically targets a specific audience, i.e., younger and less trained listeners, who interpret fry as a marker of youth and emotional earnestness. These findings show that a single stylistic feature like vocal fry can be imbued with multiple meanings depending on the singer and audience, and its use can serve to include or exclude particular listener groups.