Hi Aliki! I'm a greek metalhead who has been making music for almost 20 years years now. I've unfortunately left my metal voice hugely underdeveloped (I'm a play-all-instruments myself type), never learning proper technique and leaving it to luck. This resulted in never being happy about my voice, relying in layering and overprocessing, which in turn contributed in avoiding to play shows, as I knew I couldn't reproduce the studio result. I've discovered your channel and your style of teaching is so communicative, elaborate and fun that it inspired me to do a "full course" for the first time. I'm already having success in consistently activating my false cords (which usually just happens randomly and briefly). I just wanted to say thanks for putting this information out there for free, it's really a huge service to other musicians. Best of luck to your musical and teaching endeavors!
omg you are so clear with your explanations! I've always wondered why, when I'd do false chord, I would run out of air sooo fast too the point of becoming light headed. I was just doing a breath distortion and not enough false cord distortion. had no idea there was really two different things I had to add or subract to get the noise I was after. Thank you!
I love that you can actually demonstrate how to do an effective metal growl and vocal so many teachers talk about how to do it but they don't want to actually show you or give you live examples Bravo you are an excellent teacher I will be watching all of your videos to learn as much as I possibly can
This is what I exactly needed I was trying to do the breath distortion all the time and wondered why am i not getting a full tone, now I know what i gotta do thanks a lot you are the best ❤️
Pretty interesting actually! When I started out growling back in 2007 I was definitely doing the "breath distortion" and since then I've definitely gone into the false cord distortion, but back then there where barley any information out there so there where only trial and error that could teach me further. If this video would've existed I believe I would have gotten to my current sound way faster, cheers!
Same here! I also started out doing a breath distortion and I even had lessons etc and everyone was telling me I was doing false cord when I wasn't. I made this video because I wish it had existed back then.
So I discovered your channel awhile back and really liked it! Your false fold tutorials were the first ones that actually clicked for me, like I knew all sorts of info about false cord distortion except how to actually DO it. I got impatient, however, and didn't practice more than a few times after the first vid. Instead I jumped to other tutorials about doing the grunty sigh technique, and honestly was doing pretty well with the breath distortion lol. But it was using too much air and I wanted to have more control, so I came back and have been following your false fold tutorials and actually practicing the exercises and I'm slowly getting the hang of it! That's saying a lot because I have ADHD and I simultaneously don't want to practice and I also want to practice all the time so I can get good ASAP. But my throat gets scratchy if I DO practice more than a few minutes every day, so I'm taking it slow (just around my false folds, my true folds feel fine when speaking and swallowing and singing and such). Before even the breath distortion stuff I recently learned how to do subharmonics so that's been a good substitute to practice with when I'm done with false fold stuff for the day lol! Anyways, just wanted to say thank you for all of your videos and hard work! You are incredibly skilled at explaining things in a way that makes sense to my brain and you have a depth of knowledge about the subject that is quite beautiful. You also just seem like a really nice person which is always a plus. ☺️
Awww thank you! In the end, it will all circle around and you'll get into a breath + false vocal fold combo distortion and then you'll have that cool sound but way more control over it and you'll lose less air :D
I just discovered your channel as well. I watched A LOT of TH-cam vids on screaming but your videos are on a whole different level, they’re super informative, more technical and just what I’ve been looking for. I was already getting familiarized with fry and breath/death “scream” (though I will definitely revise that from your vids) but what I’ve been having trouble with still is the cartilage activation for false cords, maybe In the near future I book some lessons with you! Keep up the good work
Omg I didn’t know!!! This changed the game for me. Thank you so much! Van’t wait for upcoming vids. I have been doing this wtong for some time and want to learn how to do it properly :))
Any tips on unlearning breath distortion? Thanks to you and your truly awesome beginner series I've realized my mistakes(And finally learned how fry actually works!), but I got so used to it I'm doing it even when sighing.
Great video! The derpy voice is probably the best way to get into the transition from kargyrra to a false chord growl. I am quite concerned about adding falsetto (in head register) as our vocal folds are pretty delicate and singing higher means more tension even if you are opening them up for falsetto. I use pure breath distortion if I want to go very deep as. A little bit of false chord as well but at a tone I cannot reach in depth. So probably it is D2
In my experience singers who use chest voice have more vocal fold tension during their distortions than singers who sing in falsetto underneath their false folds. That being said, the tension on the vocal folds in relation to length isn't a problem. It's the amount of compression between the vocal folds towards the midline that is of concern :)
@@AlikiKatriou it's hard for me to sing in falsetto range breathy. I kinda sound like a castrate when I sing in falsetto is the problem :D that's why I can decompress easier in chest voice
Hey! Interesting approach, glad i found your stuff. Really looking forward to future videos, I hope you will explain how to go from that mongolian tone (which i can do) to a higher scream, the false chord over falsetto thing. I've been trying to learn false chords screaming, specifically looking after something like Tomas Lindberg/At The Gates, Disfear. So i had this teacher, he had me going from a very light headvoice register vocal fry to a false chord sound, the goal was to get no vocal chord sound in it whatsoever, and i got stuck for about a year, because i could not do the super light whispery high false chord sound with no voice in it heheh
It is extremely difficult to do something that is borderline not physiologically possible. I have yet to hear any distortion that had no vocal fold in it/no voice. It is so unlikely to happen. If he was getting you into vocal fry he was probably going for a combo fry + false fold distortion - commonly confused as being an 'unvoiced sound'. High false fold stuff is coming up! What song would you say has your target sound? (e.g. from At The Gates)
@@AlikiKatriou Hey, thank you so much for answering. Well, here's how it was approached - you do the very light false chord sound and you do the staccato thing, and there should be no raven/pterodaktil voicy sound in it, so it is just pure dry raspy grain, that in staccato would cut off and go right back into that grain so to speak, to get that was the goal. First we developed a very light relaxed lower head register vocal fry, that i could even move back into the chest register and back with no break or nothing. Then when we had that i was supposed to start on a vocal fry and move my throat into what they called the frog position, it was called that because when you sang a note in this position it would sound a bit nasally but also very focused, a little cartoonish if you overdid it. And by doing so while keeping everything relaxed with no pusing at all, the vocal chords were supposed to disengage completely and false chords would start to vibrate, that's how it was explained. All i could get was false chord sound mixed with voice, a lot of the time the voice would fall back into the chest register too. I hope i am not taking up too much of your time, just thought i would tell all that stuff so that you know it exists, i know for a fact there is quite a few people who got stuck on that same thing.
@@AlikiKatriou if we talk about target sound, the closest would be Live The Storm album by Disfear. Look up Disfear - Get It Off. In At The Gates he sounds close to that on the last couple of albums. But on the old ones, like Slaugher Of The Soul, it is a higher pitched sound, which is very cool, but a little further away from my ideal heheh.
@@warrrmayhem haha, I understand the target sound and how they were trying to approach/achieve it. It completely makes sense that your chest register came back in as there is a muscular connection between your chest register and your false vocal folds so it was just your physiology working properly rather than a mistake on your part :)
@@warrrmayhem Right... so you're actually looking for a high false fold sound that has a relatively loud true vocal fold coordination underneath! Wooo, the struggle is real. I'll see what I can do but, as a rule, it's safer to find more black metal-esque high false fold screams first ^.^
Aliki, first of all: thank you! Your channel is great (I'm really learning) and your bands / songs are amazing! I have a question: how do you make that distortion in the song "Angela"? Those extremely high pitched ones? Thank you again!
Hi, thank you so much for checking out Eight Lives Down ^^ The distortion in Angela is a high false vocal fold distortion :) My base pitch on my true vocal folds is A5
Greetings Aliki! I am a metalhead. I would love to learn the False Cord Scream, and you have proven to be amazing, and also a teacher on the subject. I would love to schedule some classes in the future with you, but I need your input on whether or not I should do it. I damaged myself trying to learn the fry scream 2 months ago b/c I honestly cheaped out and didnt look for someone like you for guidance. I thankfully didnt have any nodules just reddened and thinned vocal folds. I am currently suffering from a Psychogenic Dysphonia from the pain I suffered (I have been 2 months without speaking) from that and well I can only say one word without being scared by the vibrations, and even other people's speaking vibrations or vocal fry (weird I know). The question is should I try coming to you for lessons once I regain my ability to speak back? Should I consider just limiting myself to speaking after the incident? I would appreciate your input.... sorry for the long message ... but I admire you a lot and value your input...and if I were to try it again I would look for the safety of your guidance.. Thanks for your time.
Oooo, that's an interesting case! I have so many questions and thoughts on what you're saying. In an attempt to be concise I will say the following... First of all: there is no reason to limit yourself vocally once recovered. ENTs & voice therapists will often state that the biggest mistake patients make after suffering vocal issues, is being too careful of their voice and not utilizing it properly. I would definitely take lessons so you aren't going through the process alone and you're, hopefully, in safe hands, whether that means lessons with me or any other qualified teacher. Lessons are always about exploring, trial and error & testing different approaches so that's what we'd be looking at, making sure that the lesson is at a pace that's comfortable for you. Worst case scenario, if any problem cropped up, I would refer you to specialists I know personally and we might need to collaborate between our work. I see no reason that you should be unable to "scream" to your heart's content. :)
Awesome, man. Thanks so much for posting this, takes some balls. I bet many people will read this and relate, or at least learn something from it. All the best wishes for you - speed recovery!
Shit I really like my vocals at the moment but have always just pushed loads of air out using my diaphraghm assuming i was doing it right cause it didnt hurt (although i did get hoarse). I always thought this was false choard but i feel like I am doing breath instead. Might have to get lessons with you somtime to improve!
I’ve been trying to learn a very specific high scream. I’m not sure if it’s false chord or this breathe distortion. Is there a safe way to get the tones used by Alex Koehler (Chelsea Grin - The Foolish One), Rheese Peters (A Night In Texas - I, Godless), Steffen Winopal (War From A Harlot’s Mouth - Keeping It Up), or Brendan Van Wryn (Thy Art is Murder - Infinite Death)? This is my favorite tone in all of distortion and I’ve been pursuing it for years with little success.
Honestly, you could get pretty similar results from false fold or vocal fry distortions. It isn't breath distortion... if anything, there is very little breath being used during it... Most live clips I found had very messy sound >
thank you!! i manage to find my false chord when i did the 'using less air' thing. but most of the time when i did it, i can only hear the breath distortion. does that mean i need to do this 'using less air' thing frequently?
que lastima que no se nada de ingles se ven muy interesantes tus videos . existiria la posibilidad de que pudieras subtitularlos al español ? muchas gracias
Check out Alex Terrible from Slaughter to Prevail. He's got sooo deep voice. In the song called Demolisher it's especially cool. He tried to explain how does he do that in his online course but he failed. I'd like to see your opinion on his technique if it's possible to check it with just listening to him.
Alex Terrible is one of the very few guys who actually does his false fold distortions on a low fundamental pitch and he seems to have a preference for D3 as a pitch in general... Other than that, in theory, stay on a D3, lower your larynx, bring in your false folds, allow breath to escape to get into a metal tone rather than Mongolian throat singing, pull your tongue slightly back and lift the tip. From than on, most likely things that are happening are: soft palate is probably slightly lowered, jaw is tensed maybe even pushed a bit forward (this will depend a LOT of the relative anatomy of your skull) and the mouth tends to be rounded with the lips squared out. Tada - magic XD And, as always, trial and error XD
Like always, very happy to see you ! You're, as usualy realy impressive x). As a metalhead, I did try a couple of time of singing with breath distostion, and, it didn't going well x). But where does come from this hurts ? I can't understand that when I did try myself =x
Do you mean pain during breath distortion? Breath distortions must be done by the vocal folds purposefully leaking air, not large amounts of air being sent to the vocal folds. I would guess you sent a lot of air to the vocal folds and that increased the amount of tension within your larynx significantly causing a sensation of pain.
Aliki i REALLY want to see more vids from about about getting that metal false cords tone... But I see only fry videos coming out :( I mean, fry is awesome too but I hoped to finish with false cords because I did all the tutorials on false cords that you created. And I absolutely loved them. But I'm still sounding like a tibetian monk, or (if I activate breath distortion) as a huge zombie. But not as a metal singer. I do need a tutorial from you on how to combine both!!! Please!!!
I have more false fold videos coming up, keep making your Mongolian sounds as they are much more important than metal sounds when it comes to false fold skill :)
Sounds like you should maybe go and book a lesson! :) Learning from short TH-cam tutorials will only get you that far, no matter how great the teacher... Just a thought! :)
You're the only one teaching this that te lls people not to push air. Is that true for vocal fry stuff too? Or is that just for breath and false chord distortion?
Especially for vocal fry it's more important not to push air - pushing air makes it harder to actually get a distortion if you know what you're doing :)
@@AlikiKatriou Thank you. You're the first youtube voice teacher that isn't telling us to put a bunch of tension into the lower breath support muscles like your pooping. I was doing this and it felt like I was hurting my larynx and throat. Thank you for knowing what you're doing.
@@coltonruscheinsky7863 For most people the abdominal muscles have a reflexive connection to the larynx. If you squeeze them, your larynx tightens. The whole idea of 'working' the lower breath support muscles is a misunderstanding of classical breathing techniques and tends to produce negative results for most vocalists :)
Sure. That being said, pitchless screams don't really exist/are so rare... But I know what you're asking about. You need false fold technique in place and some extra stuff too!! A tutorial on that would be quite complex but it is doable ^^
@@mustafatarek6037 No, not at all. Mouth shape is a pseudo-high. If you want an actual high false cord, you'll need to change the pitch on your true vocal folds. So it depends on who you're listening to and if they're actually going high. Here's a 'cheat' for you to figure out which one you want. Listen to the singer and hum a basic clean pitch that you guess they're on. Just keep doing that and if you hear that "high" really soar above your pitch, then they're probably singing higher. If you don't hear the high or you miss it, they're probably just doing a mouth movement.
Aliki Katriou I listen to for example rotting Christ and Mayhem , so I just wantEd to work on highs with my mids and lows that I feel like I need more time to get improve on myself ! That all what I have time 🖤 thank you!
I feel like I have a thousand questions, because you've probably hit where my problems are. I've been practicing the Mongolian throat voice these last two weeks, and I can really hit it with some reliability--which is cool!--but I still feel like I need to use too much air to get it. How uh, how exactly do you pull back the air? I feel like this is stemming from some fundamental problems with my diaphragmatic support. Love your approach to this, even though I've been at the "sigh until it works" method for the past almost two years. I don't hate my tone or my abilities (other than I can't hold a note for very long), but I'm also not so stupid as to think I'm doing 100% right or 100% safe.
I wouldn't spend much time on "support" or worrying about it. Rather than putting effort into "pulling back the air" just start your phrase or sound with less air to begin with: inhale normally, exhale a bit of the air and then phonate to see if getting rid of that "extra" makes a difference.
@@AlikiKatriou I'll see what I can do. I'm finding a lot of the shaking is in my nasal cavity; pinching my noses makes it harder to do, so I'm still not quite there. My throat doesn't feel great, but not awful either. Sort of like muscle soreness. I'm still worried I'm getting the right sound but the wrong way. Curious what your lesson format is like, and if you have people send in clips/ask questions prior to the beginning or if it's just sort of fluid.
@@dualwieldsoftware My lesson format depends on the student and their goals and can change at the drop of a hat. Whatever the student prefers, some send in recordings, some never do :)
I'm not sure which answer you're looking for. Here are some options: If we're talking less air for false fold, the false fold themselves make the sound deeper. If we're talking general tendencies and "depth" in metal sounds, very often the larynx is in a lower position. If we're talking about more air making the sound lower, I would explore the edges of that. As in, how much air do you really need to make things sound deep? Find the minimum and use that. Lazy lazy lazy, slow and steady wins the race.
@@AlikiKatriou what happens after that? I think i've been able to get the folds that you're talking about with less air. how do i progress from that juncture onto a full blown metal false chord scream?
@@wraithfinder_ It kind of depends on what your aesthetic & sub-genre wishes are... The whole tutorials for false folds are working on building up full blown metal screams. I just uploaded the first intermediate one now...
I can only sound like mongolian throat tone, but I cannot evolve from that ='( I have not idea how to change it. Is there like just one exercise, that I can do to start screaming. I just want to scream!!!!!
In theory yes but nothing in life is a one-size-fits-all so if you're looking to find 1 exercise online I'm afraid trial and error is the only way. Also, what kind of tone are you aiming for? As in, if you had to give a specific song as an example or (at least) narrow it down by sub-genre, what would you be sounding like?
@@noiZtheartist Anatomically speaking, fry is happening on the true vocal folds and false cord distortion is happening with movement on the true vocal folds + false vocal folds.
Not really :) It's a bit abnormal to do, like professional dancing or sports or sitting in an office chair but, with some care, it won't mess you up :)
Hmm, interesting perspective! It might just be that your mic sounds different today, but what you describe as breath distortion still sounds quite different to the sound I had in mind XD I mean I think what I was doing still counts as a breath distortion, but maybe I was vibrating something else? Had one guy saying arytenoid cartilage based on my Killswitch cover on my channel, but it's so hard to find not-confusing examples of what that really sounds like. I dunno, what I see as my "normal" "false cord" growl is much more airy I think, and pulling back on the breath only causes the sound to die instead of going Mongolian. I thiiiink my newer sound does layer over something more like your false cord tho? I dunno if you can see this but the first example I put in the comments is my airy vs new false cord sorta sound: facebook.com/DestroyerMarikoGray/posts/10219708613840389?comment_id=10219710943418627 (lol sorry about the I-just-woke-up shenanigans in the main video ahahahermmm...) I feel weird when you call the throat singing noise a distortion though haha, when you do it, it actually sounds almost like a clean tone to me! I'm starting to get a lot better at it though, making that cleaner noise without pushing it too far :D yay! Now I'm trying to get my head around how to do that AND let a little air through my vocal folds like you said... weeooo what a fun rabbit hole to explore with my family unable to escape the strange noises during lockdown hahahahaha XD Thanks again for another interesting video! Your approach is so different, looking forward to the next steps, and more kitty action too (≈>ܫ
Hi hi hi, about calling the Mongolian sound 'distortion'... I know what you mean when you say it sounds clean and that is because during the Mongolian throat singing tone the false folds vibrate at exactly half the speed of the true vocal folds, so it is regular vibrations of both and this is more harmonious. Still, it qualifies as distortion as the sound signal is being altered and it gives a misleading impression of what is happening anatomically. Apart from the vocal fry at the beginning, everything else you're doing is varying degrees of a combo distortion: false cord + breath. I'm not quite sure why anyone would think of or hear any arytenoid cartilage movement on the Killswitch cover but I'll be the first to admit that I'm in eternal arguments with the arytenoid crowd. I'm pro the concept of an ary-epiglottic distortion but I am not sure I understand exactly how the arytenoid people perceive the relevant anatomy and what they are basing their theories on because I can't find any papers or research for arytenoid, whereas there are attempts for ary-epiglottic distortion. Either way, I'd throw the arytenoid idea out the window in your case. It was probably suggested because a lot of guys can't pitch their false fold distortions and if they hear something high they often think it isn't false folds. And, yes, your first example in the comments contains more false vocal fold adduction ^.^ So that's working well I'd say :D
Oh awesome, thanks so much for checking that out!! Gives me a better idea of how to relate what I'm doing to what you're talking about :D Good to know I'm on the right track then, I had no idea what this new sound was til you started this channel. Hmm, so I'm guessing the second video in the comments where I chuck the sound over my cleans is also adding false cord! And yeah now I can see when I take air away from that one, it does turn into a cleaner sounding Mongolian tone! Sweet, it's all starting to make sense! ^_^ And yeah I think I agree with your take on the arytenoid thing. The guy directed me to some "CVT" stuff and the throat camera videos were interesting, but they weren't at all making the sounds I was interested in. It was also hard to see what the true folds were doing at the same time coz what I assume is the arytenoid going off just gets in the way of being able to see anything else. His own demonstration of false cord also sounded more like fry-but-slightly-different to me so it was just heaps confusing all around lol. I do wish there was more standardisation amongst vocal coaches haha, like you were saying before about how female falsetto exists as shown in science but so many still say it doesn't! x_x Weeeeeeeeeeeee **SPLAT**
@@DestroyerMariko Yeah, CVT is the only place I have ever found any mention of the arytenoid rattle and I haven't been able to confirm with any other research so I remain suspicious...
hahaha, my hypothesis with Lemmy is actually just lift the larynx and very lightly squeeze everything. Fastest way to find it is: look up & sing. That should raise the larynx a lot and you might get lucky and tighten the same way he does.
Heh, to be accurate, we probably need to imitate the way people incorrectly imitate Trump's voice. If you listen to Trump directly, he's less breathy than people think he is XD In principle though, yes, you're right :)
Your channel is a miracle
yaaaaay!!
Hi Aliki! I'm a greek metalhead who has been making music for almost 20 years years now. I've unfortunately left my metal voice hugely underdeveloped (I'm a play-all-instruments myself type), never learning proper technique and leaving it to luck. This resulted in never being happy about my voice, relying in layering and overprocessing, which in turn contributed in avoiding to play shows, as I knew I couldn't reproduce the studio result. I've discovered your channel and your style of teaching is so communicative, elaborate and fun that it inspired me to do a "full course" for the first time. I'm already having success in consistently activating my false cords (which usually just happens randomly and briefly). I just wanted to say thanks for putting this information out there for free, it's really a huge service to other musicians. Best of luck to your musical and teaching endeavors!
Yaaaay!! 'Ετσι, μπράβο, να μαθαίνουμε καινούρια πράγματα! Glad to hear that it's useful :D
omg you are so clear with your explanations! I've always wondered why, when I'd do false chord, I would run out of air sooo fast too the point of becoming light headed. I was just doing a breath distortion and not enough false cord distortion. had no idea there was really two different things I had to add or subract to get the noise I was after. Thank you!
Anytime :) I started the same way as you ^^
I just discovered your channel and I love everything about you, your voice, your lessons, your personality! Thank you for your videos!
Yaay!! Thank you ^.^
I love that you can actually demonstrate how to do an effective metal growl and vocal so many teachers talk about how to do it but they don't want to actually show you or give you live examples Bravo you are an excellent teacher I will be watching all of your videos to learn as much as I possibly can
Aww thank you! I do tend to focus a bit more on the instruction rather than the demonstration, but I try to have basic demonstrations in there too.
This is what I exactly needed I was trying to do the breath distortion all the time and wondered why am i not getting a full tone, now I know what i gotta do thanks a lot you are the best ❤️
Pretty interesting actually! When I started out growling back in 2007 I was definitely doing the "breath distortion" and since then I've definitely gone into the false cord distortion, but back then there where barley any information out there so there where only trial and error that could teach me further. If this video would've existed I believe I would have gotten to my current sound way faster, cheers!
Same here! I also started out doing a breath distortion and I even had lessons etc and everyone was telling me I was doing false cord when I wasn't. I made this video because I wish it had existed back then.
Thank you so much for your videos. I love your personality, your kitty and of course, how much I learn in each of your videos.
Yaaaay ^^ Thank you ^^
So I discovered your channel awhile back and really liked it! Your false fold tutorials were the first ones that actually clicked for me, like I knew all sorts of info about false cord distortion except how to actually DO it. I got impatient, however, and didn't practice more than a few times after the first vid. Instead I jumped to other tutorials about doing the grunty sigh technique, and honestly was doing pretty well with the breath distortion lol. But it was using too much air and I wanted to have more control, so I came back and have been following your false fold tutorials and actually practicing the exercises and I'm slowly getting the hang of it! That's saying a lot because I have ADHD and I simultaneously don't want to practice and I also want to practice all the time so I can get good ASAP. But my throat gets scratchy if I DO practice more than a few minutes every day, so I'm taking it slow (just around my false folds, my true folds feel fine when speaking and swallowing and singing and such). Before even the breath distortion stuff I recently learned how to do subharmonics so that's been a good substitute to practice with when I'm done with false fold stuff for the day lol!
Anyways, just wanted to say thank you for all of your videos and hard work! You are incredibly skilled at explaining things in a way that makes sense to my brain and you have a depth of knowledge about the subject that is quite beautiful. You also just seem like a really nice person which is always a plus. ☺️
Awww thank you! In the end, it will all circle around and you'll get into a breath + false vocal fold combo distortion and then you'll have that cool sound but way more control over it and you'll lose less air :D
I just discovered your channel as well. I watched A LOT of TH-cam vids on screaming but your videos are on a whole different level, they’re super informative, more technical and just what I’ve been looking for. I was already getting familiarized with fry and breath/death “scream” (though I will definitely revise that from your vids) but what I’ve been having trouble with still is the cartilage activation for false cords, maybe In the near future I book some lessons with you! Keep up the good work
Thank you - I will do; always reading and trying to stay up to date!
I dont like metal but omg i like this girl
You are galactically amazing! Thank you
Ooooo thank you!
Omg I didn’t know!!! This changed the game for me. Thank you so much! Van’t wait for upcoming vids. I have been doing this wtong for some time and want to learn how to do it properly :))
Glad it helped ^.^
Any tips on unlearning breath distortion? Thanks to you and your truly awesome beginner series I've realized my mistakes(And finally learned how fry actually works!), but I got so used to it I'm doing it even when sighing.
Found this really insightful and interesting. Thanks.
:D
So glad I saw this, thanks for the link on FB. Love your growls and false chord. It sounds awesome!
Thanks for checking it out :D
Great video!
The derpy voice is probably the best way to get into the transition from kargyrra to a false chord growl. I am quite concerned about adding falsetto (in head register) as our vocal folds are pretty delicate and singing higher means more tension even if you are opening them up for falsetto.
I use pure breath distortion if I want to go very deep as. A little bit of false chord as well but at a tone I cannot reach in depth. So probably it is D2
In my experience singers who use chest voice have more vocal fold tension during their distortions than singers who sing in falsetto underneath their false folds. That being said, the tension on the vocal folds in relation to length isn't a problem. It's the amount of compression between the vocal folds towards the midline that is of concern :)
@@AlikiKatriou it's hard for me to sing in falsetto range breathy. I kinda sound like a castrate when I sing in falsetto is the problem :D that's why I can decompress easier in chest voice
Fuck! I'm stuck with the mongolian throat singing. I'm gonna sell my guitar and buy a dombra or something
XD Doesn't sound like a bad life XD
Hey! Interesting approach, glad i found your stuff. Really looking forward to future videos, I hope you will explain how to go from that mongolian tone (which i can do) to a higher scream, the false chord over falsetto thing. I've been trying to learn false chords screaming, specifically looking after something like Tomas Lindberg/At The Gates, Disfear. So i had this teacher, he had me going from a very light headvoice register vocal fry to a false chord sound, the goal was to get no vocal chord sound in it whatsoever, and i got stuck for about a year, because i could not do the super light whispery high false chord sound with no voice in it heheh
It is extremely difficult to do something that is borderline not physiologically possible. I have yet to hear any distortion that had no vocal fold in it/no voice. It is so unlikely to happen. If he was getting you into vocal fry he was probably going for a combo fry + false fold distortion - commonly confused as being an 'unvoiced sound'.
High false fold stuff is coming up! What song would you say has your target sound? (e.g. from At The Gates)
@@AlikiKatriou Hey, thank you so much for answering. Well, here's how it was approached - you do the very light false chord sound and you do the staccato thing, and there should be no raven/pterodaktil voicy sound in it, so it is just pure dry raspy grain, that in staccato would cut off and go right back into that grain so to speak, to get that was the goal. First we developed a very light relaxed lower head register vocal fry, that i could even move back into the chest register and back with no break or nothing. Then when we had that i was supposed to start on a vocal fry and move my throat into what they called the frog position, it was called that because when you sang a note in this position it would sound a bit nasally but also very focused, a little cartoonish if you overdid it. And by doing so while keeping everything relaxed with no pusing at all, the vocal chords were supposed to disengage completely and false chords would start to vibrate, that's how it was explained. All i could get was false chord sound mixed with voice, a lot of the time the voice would fall back into the chest register too. I hope i am not taking up too much of your time, just thought i would tell all that stuff so that you know it exists, i know for a fact there is quite a few people who got stuck on that same thing.
@@AlikiKatriou if we talk about target sound, the closest would be Live The Storm album by Disfear. Look up Disfear - Get It Off. In At The Gates he sounds close to that on the last couple of albums. But on the old ones, like Slaugher Of The Soul, it is a higher pitched sound, which is very cool, but a little further away from my ideal heheh.
@@warrrmayhem haha, I understand the target sound and how they were trying to approach/achieve it. It completely makes sense that your chest register came back in as there is a muscular connection between your chest register and your false vocal folds so it was just your physiology working properly rather than a mistake on your part :)
@@warrrmayhem Right... so you're actually looking for a high false fold sound that has a relatively loud true vocal fold coordination underneath! Wooo, the struggle is real. I'll see what I can do but, as a rule, it's safer to find more black metal-esque high false fold screams first ^.^
Hi Aliki when you are editing the videos can you boost the volume a little bit, your videos are amazing btw
Thank you :) Will give it a go.
Aliki, first of all: thank you! Your channel is great (I'm really learning) and your bands / songs are amazing!
I have a question: how do you make that distortion in the song "Angela"? Those extremely high pitched ones?
Thank you again!
Hi, thank you so much for checking out Eight Lives Down ^^ The distortion in Angela is a high false vocal fold distortion :) My base pitch on my true vocal folds is A5
I'm not a singer, but I really love your videos....since I'm a Death Metal guy, I really like to see the things behind Death Metal voice's :-)
I originally got into this stuff because it was so interesting to me XD
Great video again!
Greetings Aliki! I am a metalhead. I would love to learn the False Cord Scream, and you have proven to be amazing, and also a teacher on the subject. I would love to schedule some classes in the future with you, but I need your input on whether or not I should do it. I damaged myself trying to learn the fry scream 2 months ago b/c I honestly cheaped out and didnt look for someone like you for guidance. I thankfully didnt have any nodules just reddened and thinned vocal folds. I am currently suffering from a Psychogenic Dysphonia from the pain I suffered (I have been 2 months without speaking) from that and well I can only say one word without being scared by the vibrations, and even other people's speaking vibrations or vocal fry (weird I know). The question is should I try coming to you for lessons once I regain my ability to speak back? Should I consider just limiting myself to speaking after the incident? I would appreciate your input.... sorry for the long message ... but I admire you a lot and value your input...and if I were to try it again I would look for the safety of your guidance.. Thanks for your time.
Oooo, that's an interesting case! I have so many questions and thoughts on what you're saying. In an attempt to be concise I will say the following... First of all: there is no reason to limit yourself vocally once recovered. ENTs & voice therapists will often state that the biggest mistake patients make after suffering vocal issues, is being too careful of their voice and not utilizing it properly. I would definitely take lessons so you aren't going through the process alone and you're, hopefully, in safe hands, whether that means lessons with me or any other qualified teacher. Lessons are always about exploring, trial and error & testing different approaches so that's what we'd be looking at, making sure that the lesson is at a pace that's comfortable for you. Worst case scenario, if any problem cropped up, I would refer you to specialists I know personally and we might need to collaborate between our work. I see no reason that you should be unable to "scream" to your heart's content. :)
@@AlikiKatriou Thanks for your response! I appreciate it! I'll definitely be looking forward for lessons. Keep it up! You are amazing
Awesome, man. Thanks so much for posting this, takes some balls. I bet many people will read this and relate, or at least learn something from it. All the best wishes for you - speed recovery!
Shit I really like my vocals at the moment but have always just pushed loads of air out using my diaphraghm assuming i was doing it right cause it didnt hurt (although i did get hoarse). I always thought this was false choard but i feel like I am doing breath instead. Might have to get lessons with you somtime to improve!
Yup, you're not alone - loads of people do this and/or start like that. In an ideal universe, we wouldn't want you getting hoarse :)
Thanks for your videos!
^^
I’ve been trying to learn a very specific high scream. I’m not sure if it’s false chord or this breathe distortion. Is there a safe way to get the tones used by Alex Koehler (Chelsea Grin - The Foolish One), Rheese Peters (A Night In Texas - I, Godless), Steffen Winopal (War From A Harlot’s Mouth - Keeping It Up), or Brendan Van Wryn (Thy Art is Murder - Infinite Death)?
This is my favorite tone in all of distortion and I’ve been pursuing it for years with little success.
Honestly, you could get pretty similar results from false fold or vocal fry distortions. It isn't breath distortion... if anything, there is very little breath being used during it... Most live clips I found had very messy sound >
You are the best.
^^
Does the Rowan has a daughter? Excellent content by the way.
Love Opeth!
:D
thank you!! i manage to find my false chord when i did the 'using less air' thing. but most of the time when i did it, i can only hear the breath distortion. does that mean i need to do this 'using less air' thing frequently?
Probably to begin with.
que lastima que no se nada de ingles se ven muy interesantes tus videos . existiria la posibilidad de que pudieras subtitularlos al español ? muchas gracias
Unfortunately, my Spanish is 0 so I wouldn't be able to do it... :/
Uh yeah it's really helpful thank you ❤️,
Check out Alex Terrible from Slaughter to Prevail. He's got sooo deep voice. In the song called Demolisher it's especially cool. He tried to explain how does he do that in his online course but he failed. I'd like to see your opinion on his technique if it's possible to check it with just listening to him.
Alex Terrible is one of the very few guys who actually does his false fold distortions on a low fundamental pitch and he seems to have a preference for D3 as a pitch in general... Other than that, in theory, stay on a D3, lower your larynx, bring in your false folds, allow breath to escape to get into a metal tone rather than Mongolian throat singing, pull your tongue slightly back and lift the tip. From than on, most likely things that are happening are: soft palate is probably slightly lowered, jaw is tensed maybe even pushed a bit forward (this will depend a LOT of the relative anatomy of your skull) and the mouth tends to be rounded with the lips squared out. Tada - magic XD
And, as always, trial and error XD
Thank you!
thank you :)
@@AlikiKatriou Thats very nice from you to do such good lesson vids free!
Like always, very happy to see you ! You're, as usualy realy impressive x). As a metalhead, I did try a couple of time of singing with breath distostion, and, it didn't going well x). But where does come from this hurts ? I can't understand that when I did try myself =x
Do you mean pain during breath distortion? Breath distortions must be done by the vocal folds purposefully leaking air, not large amounts of air being sent to the vocal folds. I would guess you sent a lot of air to the vocal folds and that increased the amount of tension within your larynx significantly causing a sensation of pain.
would Brian Garris of knocked loose be an example of breath distortion?
he'd be a good example of breath + false folds, so it's mostly breath but the false vocal folds are active
Aliki i REALLY want to see more vids from about about getting that metal false cords tone... But I see only fry videos coming out :( I mean, fry is awesome too but I hoped to finish with false cords because I did all the tutorials on false cords that you created. And I absolutely loved them. But I'm still sounding like a tibetian monk, or (if I activate breath distortion) as a huge zombie. But not as a metal singer. I do need a tutorial from you on how to combine both!!! Please!!!
I have more false fold videos coming up, keep making your Mongolian sounds as they are much more important than metal sounds when it comes to false fold skill :)
Sounds like you should maybe go and book a lesson! :) Learning from short TH-cam tutorials will only get you that far, no matter how great the teacher... Just a thought! :)
Nice video
You're the only one teaching this that te lls people not to push air. Is that true for vocal fry stuff too? Or is that just for breath and false chord distortion?
Especially for vocal fry it's more important not to push air - pushing air makes it harder to actually get a distortion if you know what you're doing :)
@@AlikiKatriou Thank you. You're the first youtube voice teacher that isn't telling us to put a bunch of tension into the lower breath support muscles like your pooping. I was doing this and it felt like I was hurting my larynx and throat. Thank you for knowing what you're doing.
@@coltonruscheinsky7863 For most people the abdominal muscles have a reflexive connection to the larynx. If you squeeze them, your larynx tightens. The whole idea of 'working' the lower breath support muscles is a misunderstanding of classical breathing techniques and tends to produce negative results for most vocalists :)
Great!
I'd love to hear about tonal distortion over a singing voice instead of a pitchless scream. Especially in high mix voice.
Sure. That being said, pitchless screams don't really exist/are so rare... But I know what you're asking about. You need false fold technique in place and some extra stuff too!! A tutorial on that would be quite complex but it is doable ^^
@@AlikiKatriou *PLEASE DO IT*
Okay, I got that vibration wiz less air and it sounds more interesting than before, thank u 🖤but I feel like I have more questions 😄
Hehe, I would be surprised if you didn't have more questions :D
Let me know the questions, maybe I'll make a video addressing them :)
High false cord screams , it’s about only opening my mouth?
@@mustafatarek6037 No, not at all. Mouth shape is a pseudo-high. If you want an actual high false cord, you'll need to change the pitch on your true vocal folds. So it depends on who you're listening to and if they're actually going high.
Here's a 'cheat' for you to figure out which one you want. Listen to the singer and hum a basic clean pitch that you guess they're on. Just keep doing that and if you hear that "high" really soar above your pitch, then they're probably singing higher. If you don't hear the high or you miss it, they're probably just doing a mouth movement.
Aliki Katriou I listen to for example rotting Christ and Mayhem , so I just wantEd to work on highs with my mids and lows that I feel like I need more time to get improve on myself ! That all what I have time 🖤 thank you!
@@mustafatarek6037 Rotting Christ and Mayhem tend to be pretty low; kind of typical mids... Do you have any specific song/high false fold in mind?
I feel like I have a thousand questions, because you've probably hit where my problems are. I've been practicing the Mongolian throat voice these last two weeks, and I can really hit it with some reliability--which is cool!--but I still feel like I need to use too much air to get it. How uh, how exactly do you pull back the air? I feel like this is stemming from some fundamental problems with my diaphragmatic support.
Love your approach to this, even though I've been at the "sigh until it works" method for the past almost two years. I don't hate my tone or my abilities (other than I can't hold a note for very long), but I'm also not so stupid as to think I'm doing 100% right or 100% safe.
I wouldn't spend much time on "support" or worrying about it. Rather than putting effort into "pulling back the air" just start your phrase or sound with less air to begin with: inhale normally, exhale a bit of the air and then phonate to see if getting rid of that "extra" makes a difference.
@@AlikiKatriou I'll see what I can do. I'm finding a lot of the shaking is in my nasal cavity; pinching my noses makes it harder to do, so I'm still not quite there. My throat doesn't feel great, but not awful either. Sort of like muscle soreness. I'm still worried I'm getting the right sound but the wrong way.
Curious what your lesson format is like, and if you have people send in clips/ask questions prior to the beginning or if it's just sort of fluid.
@@dualwieldsoftware My lesson format depends on the student and their goals and can change at the drop of a hat. Whatever the student prefers, some send in recordings, some never do :)
ughh I want to practice but I'm sick at the moment :((( I think the dopey sound is what I'm missing to turn my throat singing into a growl
Yup, probably. In order to get a growl, your true vocal folds need to be brought together more loosely :)
I guess I don’t understand how you get that deep throat singing noise while pulling back the air?
I'm not sure which answer you're looking for. Here are some options:
If we're talking less air for false fold, the false fold themselves make the sound deeper.
If we're talking general tendencies and "depth" in metal sounds, very often the larynx is in a lower position.
If we're talking about more air making the sound lower, I would explore the edges of that. As in, how much air do you really need to make things sound deep? Find the minimum and use that. Lazy lazy lazy, slow and steady wins the race.
@@AlikiKatriou what happens after that? I think i've been able to get the folds that you're talking about with less air. how do i progress from that juncture onto a full blown metal false chord scream?
@@wraithfinder_ It kind of depends on what your aesthetic & sub-genre wishes are... The whole tutorials for false folds are working on building up full blown metal screams. I just uploaded the first intermediate one now...
@@AlikiKatriou
that's fair, i will watch!
6:02
Mong : 2:50
What if I get stuck in my false vocal cords 🤔
In which sense?
I can only sound like mongolian throat tone, but I cannot evolve from that ='( I have not idea how to change it. Is there like just one exercise, that I can do to start screaming.
I just want to scream!!!!!
In theory yes but nothing in life is a one-size-fits-all so if you're looking to find 1 exercise online I'm afraid trial and error is the only way. Also, what kind of tone are you aiming for? As in, if you had to give a specific song as an example or (at least) narrow it down by sub-genre, what would you be sounding like?
The kitten wanna learn screaming
Ok this is handy because I thought these were both called False cord distortion but they definitely feel different so I was confused...
I think the internet and world calls them both false cord distortion, but mechanically they really aren't the same thing... :)
@@AlikiKatriou So then what exactly is the difference between false cord and fry distortion?
@@noiZtheartist Anatomically speaking, fry is happening on the true vocal folds and false cord distortion is happening with movement on the true vocal folds + false vocal folds.
@@AlikiKatriou Ok Thanks!!!
Surely that must hurt your voice even with good technique??
Not really :) It's a bit abnormal to do, like professional dancing or sports or sitting in an office chair but, with some care, it won't mess you up :)
eisai ellinida ??!! great !
ωωω ναι XD
Hmm, interesting perspective! It might just be that your mic sounds different today, but what you describe as breath distortion still sounds quite different to the sound I had in mind XD I mean I think what I was doing still counts as a breath distortion, but maybe I was vibrating something else? Had one guy saying arytenoid cartilage based on my Killswitch cover on my channel, but it's so hard to find not-confusing examples of what that really sounds like. I dunno, what I see as my "normal" "false cord" growl is much more airy I think, and pulling back on the breath only causes the sound to die instead of going Mongolian. I thiiiink my newer sound does layer over something more like your false cord tho? I dunno if you can see this but the first example I put in the comments is my airy vs new false cord sorta sound: facebook.com/DestroyerMarikoGray/posts/10219708613840389?comment_id=10219710943418627 (lol sorry about the I-just-woke-up shenanigans in the main video ahahahermmm...)
I feel weird when you call the throat singing noise a distortion though haha, when you do it, it actually sounds almost like a clean tone to me! I'm starting to get a lot better at it though, making that cleaner noise without pushing it too far :D yay! Now I'm trying to get my head around how to do that AND let a little air through my vocal folds like you said... weeooo what a fun rabbit hole to explore with my family unable to escape the strange noises during lockdown hahahahaha XD
Thanks again for another interesting video! Your approach is so different, looking forward to the next steps, and more kitty action too (≈>ܫ
Hi hi hi, about calling the Mongolian sound 'distortion'... I know what you mean when you say it sounds clean and that is because during the Mongolian throat singing tone the false folds vibrate at exactly half the speed of the true vocal folds, so it is regular vibrations of both and this is more harmonious. Still, it qualifies as distortion as the sound signal is being altered and it gives a misleading impression of what is happening anatomically.
Apart from the vocal fry at the beginning, everything else you're doing is varying degrees of a combo distortion: false cord + breath. I'm not quite sure why anyone would think of or hear any arytenoid cartilage movement on the Killswitch cover but I'll be the first to admit that I'm in eternal arguments with the arytenoid crowd. I'm pro the concept of an ary-epiglottic distortion but I am not sure I understand exactly how the arytenoid people perceive the relevant anatomy and what they are basing their theories on because I can't find any papers or research for arytenoid, whereas there are attempts for ary-epiglottic distortion. Either way, I'd throw the arytenoid idea out the window in your case. It was probably suggested because a lot of guys can't pitch their false fold distortions and if they hear something high they often think it isn't false folds.
And, yes, your first example in the comments contains more false vocal fold adduction ^.^ So that's working well I'd say :D
Oh awesome, thanks so much for checking that out!! Gives me a better idea of how to relate what I'm doing to what you're talking about :D Good to know I'm on the right track then, I had no idea what this new sound was til you started this channel. Hmm, so I'm guessing the second video in the comments where I chuck the sound over my cleans is also adding false cord! And yeah now I can see when I take air away from that one, it does turn into a cleaner sounding Mongolian tone! Sweet, it's all starting to make sense! ^_^
And yeah I think I agree with your take on the arytenoid thing. The guy directed me to some "CVT" stuff and the throat camera videos were interesting, but they weren't at all making the sounds I was interested in. It was also hard to see what the true folds were doing at the same time coz what I assume is the arytenoid going off just gets in the way of being able to see anything else. His own demonstration of false cord also sounded more like fry-but-slightly-different to me so it was just heaps confusing all around lol. I do wish there was more standardisation amongst vocal coaches haha, like you were saying before about how female falsetto exists as shown in science but so many still say it doesn't! x_x
Weeeeeeeeeeeee **SPLAT**
@@DestroyerMariko Yeah, CVT is the only place I have ever found any mention of the arytenoid rattle and I haven't been able to confirm with any other research so I remain suspicious...
Thanks so much for your insight!
Ooh ooh, one more question then I'll shh and stop asking so many things. LEMMY .... how?!?!?! Smoke 30 a day??
hahaha, my hypothesis with Lemmy is actually just lift the larynx and very lightly squeeze everything. Fastest way to find it is: look up & sing. That should raise the larynx a lot and you might get lucky and tighten the same way he does.
So when trying to let more air pass through, we just need to imitate Donald Trump's way of speaking
Heh, to be accurate, we probably need to imitate the way people incorrectly imitate Trump's voice. If you listen to Trump directly, he's less breathy than people think he is XD In principle though, yes, you're right :)
You are so damn cute 🥺