What is this "raspy voice" thing with young women?
Not as odd or amusing as a few years ago some young girls were talking with an English accent when some Brit TV show was popular. I actually ran into one of those.
June 16, 2023, 12:32 PM
flashguy
quote:
Originally posted by apprentice:
quote:
Originally posted by flashguy: Some of the voices of females in TV ads are really strange. The young girl in the Progressive ad meeting her motorcyclist parents is a great example--extreme nasal and most unflattering.
I have a hard time understanding how they can learn to speak like that. It is probably damaging to their vocal cords and is very obnoxious.
flashguy
If you remember the commercial and the product - it worked, and that's all they care about.
It's a company I won't use and a product I don't need. Some of their ads are humorous.
flashguy
Texan by choice, not accident of birth
June 16, 2023, 01:46 PM
HRK
always liked Stevie Nicks voice..... raspyness and all....
June 16, 2023, 02:18 PM
oddball
quote:
Originally posted by cas: Some women just have raspy voices. THIS isn't that, it's an affect. It's how they use it that bothers everyone. It's got a "valley girl" sound to it in pronunciation, but with the addition of attitude. An attitude that everyone and everything in the world is a burden to them that they shouldn't have to endure.
The voice is a pose, because others are using it as well. Then they drop the affection later as they get older when it times out, and another fad comes along.
"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
June 16, 2023, 02:25 PM
PASig
quote:
Originally posted by pbslinger: Not as odd or amusing as a few years ago some young girls were talking with an English accent when some Brit TV show was popular. I actually ran into one of those.
I ran into a girl I went to middle school with who somehow decided to affect a phony British accent after high school.
June 16, 2023, 02:30 PM
flashguy
If I'm in the company of an Oxford Brit very long I will start to adopt an Oxford accent--I think my brain considers it an improvement in diction. I don't generally adopt any other accents because my brain thinks my "dictionary" speech is OK.
flashguy
Texan by choice, not accident of birth
June 16, 2023, 03:07 PM
cas
^ That's something I struggle with. Always had an interest in accents, dialects and the like, maybe that's part of it. When I'm around people who speak differently than I do, I have to make a conscious effort not to start speaking like them. I don't mean to, it just happens. Also when I travel, I start to speak differently. Not necessarily adopting the dialect of when I am,but not sounding like everyone else does where I'm from. Again, not really intentionally.
June 16, 2023, 03:48 PM
ensigmatic
quote:
Originally posted by flashguy: If I'm in the company of an Oxford Brit very long I will start to adopt an Oxford accent ...
Same thing happens to me down South in the U.S. I start picking up the accent nearly immediately.
Hell, just talking to somebody from the South on the phone can start bringing it on. Must be in my blood or something
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
June 16, 2023, 08:41 PM
lyman
my Wife, from the Country in Southern VA, had a very Southern accent when we met,
being from RVA, my accent is not quite as thick, but still Southern, to most,
her accent has faded a bit ( she moved here) but when she goes home for a weekend to see her mom and sister, sometimes her accent will come back too,
then fade back to this region,
when in England years ago, we were at Canterbury Cathedral, and we stopped at a shop just in the town to get her a pair of gloves (it was chilly in March) the clerk, with a very soft British accent, asked where I was from, and when I told her the USA , she mentioned she thought I was from up north,,,
Originally posted by TMats: Paul, I gotta say I don’t consider these two singers, especially Janis, to be pioneers of “vocal fry.”
I definitely agree that Janis Joplin was not a pioneer of this phenomenon; she sang very naturally in a bluesy way.
Actually, that's exactly what it was, with careful diaphragm control for high pressure pushed through a constricted and elevated larynx. She used a number of vocal techniques, including overlay distortion and what is now called a vocal fry scream. She was absolutely a pioneer of that in music. There's entire genres of music that evolved off her era of rock and the techniques she pioneered. I used to do this technique at live shows with the band I fronted. Trust me, Janis Joplin is one of the originators of vocal fry in popular culture, but saying that is so in no way reduces her to a stupid valley girl if you're a fan.
She leaned hard on it because nobody else could do it like her and it set her apart from the pack, but that said, it was just one tool in the toolbox for her and she was absurdly talented and employed various techniques. She had a sonorous voice and didn't speak that way in conversation, which speaks to what it is: a conscious choice in how people use their voices and "trendy" for women in the modern era to speak this way. It'll come back around. Here's Janis in casual conversation. She has a pleasing conversational tone.
______________________________________________ Endeavoring to master the subtle art of the grapefruit spoon.
June 17, 2023, 08:42 AM
Aglifter
I think it’s related to the whiny tenor so many young/not so young men use.
June 17, 2023, 06:39 PM
davidjinks
It’s annoying as anything I’ve ever heard. It’s even worse when men do it!
quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK: It's called "vocal fry".
Originally posted by lyman: my Wife, from the Country in Southern VA, had a very Southern accent when we met,
being from RVA, my accent is not quite as thick, but still Southern, to most,
her accent has faded a bit ( she moved here) but when she goes home for a weekend to see her mom and sister, sometimes her accent will come back too,
then fade back to this region,
I experienced the same with an ex. She had a very clear accent (says the guy who grew up in WV, haha) and a day spent with her dad would bring it back to her big-time. It was pretty funny.
( Her dad was a really cool fella. RIP, George. )
God bless America.
August 14, 2023, 08:54 PM
egregore
August 15, 2023, 11:16 AM
maxdog
I think it came from the Great Vally Girl Movement on the West Coast which evolved into the promotion of “influencers” like the Kardashians.
For some reason both caught on with young females.
The inflections used are meant to convey that the speaker is way more cooler than everyone else and that regular ole mundane life is beneath them. That’s fine I suppose but in a professional environment when you convey that your job is so boring and beneath you and the customer is so uninteresting that you need to express your uninterested superiority through vocal inflection, well, it ain’t pleasing to the customer.
I know most who speak like this may not intend to convey this but that’s how it comes across.
August 15, 2023, 11:28 AM
vinnybass
quote:
Originally posted by maxdog: That’s fine I suppose but in a professional environment when you convey that your job is so boring and beneath you and the customer is so uninteresting that you need to express your uninterested superiority through vocal inflection, well, it ain’t pleasing to the customer.
How to weed oneself out of the interview process.
"We're all travelers in this world. From the sweet grass to the packing house. Birth 'til death. We travel between the eternities."
August 15, 2023, 11:41 AM
Gustofer
quote:
Originally posted by maxdog: That’s fine I suppose but in a professional environment when you convey that your job is so boring and beneath you and the customer is so uninteresting that you need to express your uninterested superiority through vocal inflection, well, it ain’t pleasing to the customer.
I recently sat through a medical conference where two of the presenters were mid 30s female physicians with vocal fry. Annoying is an understatement. It is the first time I have ever left a poor evaluation of a conference speaker and I outlined exactly why.
________________________________________________________ "Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.
August 15, 2023, 11:47 AM
jhe888
quote:
Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
quote:
Originally posted by amals:
quote:
Originally posted by TMats: Paul, I gotta say I don’t consider these two singers, especially Janis, to be pioneers of “vocal fry.”
I definitely agree that Janis Joplin was not a pioneer of this phenomenon; she sang very naturally in a bluesy way.
Actually, that's exactly what it was, with careful diaphragm control for high pressure pushed through a constricted and elevated larynx. She used a number of vocal techniques, including overlay distortion and what is now called a vocal fry scream. She was absolutely a pioneer of that in music. There's entire genres of music that evolved off her era of rock and the techniques she pioneered. I used to do this technique at live shows with the band I fronted. Trust me, Janis Joplin is one of the originators of vocal fry in popular culture, but saying that is so in no way reduces her to a stupid valley girl if you're a fan.
She leaned hard on it because nobody else could do it like her and it set her apart from the pack, but that said, it was just one tool in the toolbox for her and she was absurdly talented and employed various techniques. She had a sonorous voice and didn't speak that way in conversation, which speaks to what it is: a conscious choice in how people use their voices and "trendy" for women in the modern era to speak this way. It'll come back around. Here's Janis in casual conversation. She has a pleasing conversational tone.
[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CmgSzbdL1So" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]
Cavett had all the good guests, and did good interviews. I wish there was someone like him now.
The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
August 15, 2023, 11:50 AM
jhe888
quote:
Originally posted by egregore: [FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5YmOiKPBa8o" title="The journey is usually the part you remember anyways. #mileycyrus #dog" width="320"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]
Miley does have the raspy quality, but she doesn't have other characteristics of vocal fry - the falling inflections at the end of sentences, and the tendency to make statements sound like questions. Maybe that is her actual voice, or maybe she is only partly vocal fry.
The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
August 15, 2023, 12:45 PM
radioman
First thing I thought of when I saw this thread was Elizabeth Holmes and her fake deep voice as she tried to copy Steve Jobs with the black turtle neck shirts, his voice, etc.
