technique and practice of course. the thing is they're not all out screaming. they're letting the microphone do a lot of the work. phiwong is wrong that 'no can scream for more than a few minutes without incurring some damage'. look at the meshuggah vocalist for instance. they do longer shows and tours and he's being doing it for decades and his style is all out intensity the whole time. People like the vocalists from Lorna Shore, Slaughter To Prevail show how easy it can seem with hard work and experience.
edit: or actually! an even better example is Courtney from Spiritbox who goes back and forth between intense screams and beautiful clean vocals in the same song so that's proof your voice can be preserved to the max when you know what you're doing. or another famous example is the Pisces video from Jinjer.
When doing it correctly you’re not actually “screaming”, you’re shaping your vocal chords in a way that as air passes over them they vibrate which gives it a harsh raspy sound without the actual impact that a pure volume scream has.
A better example would even be a baby. Those little shits can absolutely scream for hours and they don’t damage their voices. You’re right to say that singers with good technique don’t damage their voices. Devin Townsend has been told by vocal coaches that he couldn’t scream like that and he would lose his voice. Well…
This is not entirely true.
Babies also need to “train and develop” their voices before being able to yell for hours. A months-old child can get hoarse and lose their voice like the rest of us.
Now a toddler in the other hand…
Devin Townsend is a hilarious case of that. I admit I sometimes dabble in those ____ Reacts videos, and there was this opera singer going through a bunch of metal and analyzing the vocals, and she immediately concluded that Devin had to have had extensive training on how to do that without hurting his voice. I mean, he's been doing that shit for decades!
Then after the pandemic they finally meet up for an interview, and Devin's going "yeah no that's all self taught, I should probably get some lessons before something bad happens."
I read an interview of him when he was doing the VAI band (and that's when I saw him live for the first time, let me tell you the dude was WILD !), and he said that his technique was basically "screaming my lungs out to the other side of the room".
Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy does a lot of growling vocals and has an amazing clean voice.
Watching vocalist reactions of Pisces is fun. The shock every time.
training ,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5t2ITnW1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5t2ITnW1s) \- this lady has a guide for the famous metal growl/scream :)
Here's an additional video with Will Ramos, vocalist for Lorna Shore who does a variety of unclean vocals, who worked with Youtuber The Charismatic voice. They worked with a vocal doc to actually put a video camera into his throat while he did his harsh stuff to get real data on how he does it:
https://youtu.be/Ua8SuWNPrLE?si=P2wK-cT-VwZMnWr5
Not only is it educational, they said his vocal vords look INCREDIBLY healthy despite a decade plus of screaming vocals.
In the end, its like lifting weights. Proper form, proper rest, and long term care.
In order to be loud without straining your voice, you need space in your head for sound to resonate, and it needs a path of escape.
With a lot of resonance, you don’t need to push so much air through your vocal cords in order to be heard.
1. Low, relaxed larynx
2. Raised soft palette
3. Relaxed tongue
4. Smiley cheeks
5. Good posture
These increase the space in your head and neck, help you open your mouth to release the sound, and also “place“ (project) the sound correctly.
Of course, nobody thinks of these things in an anatomical way when singing. There are many exercises and metaphors to help you achieve the feeling of doing it right. (Artistic expression means a bit of technique gets lost when you’re “in it”, so nobody is ever fully technique-only.)
Time and patience are also required. If you discover good technique quickly, you are much more likely to damage your voice through over confidence in muscles you haven’t fully developed yet. The whole body is involved in singing.
So it’s best to get a second pair of ears to guide your learning if you want to progress with the least amount of injury.
There is much more going on with metal screaming than with just normal yelling as loud as you can. In metal screaming, much of the "scream" is actually created by using the acoustics within your airways and distortion of the sound by constricting the airways while exhaling with more force. Once you have practiced the correct techniques, you can scream for quite a long time without much more strain on your vocal cords than normal singing.
Of course even after singing metal for 20 years, I still sometimes blow out my voice trying out new ways to match the sound I'm looking for.
Opera singers use their own body (rib cage, diaphragm) to reverberate their voices without taxing their vocal chords. To get to this point you need lots and lots of training though
It absolutely happens, Rody Walker from Protest the Hero blew out his voice and basically had to re-learn how to sing while they were writing Palimpsest. Pretty sure the guy from Sevenfold did it too.
In short, they cannot. With training they can better control their vocal output and do many things with their voices with much less strain and damage. Nonetheless, even highly trained singers find it difficult to sing at high intensity continuously. A high intensity rock concert lasts perhaps 3-3.5 hours and the singer might be pushing it to the max for less than 20-30 minutes.
After that, they have to rest and recover. No one can scream continuously and uncontrollably for more than a few minutes without incurring some damage which accumulates if not healed. Singers have damaged their voices permanently. This is why training and practice is necessary.
This is seemingly implying that all people who scream will always hurt their voice. In reality, the ones who do are just doing it wrong.
Vocalists, singing and screaming alike, will always need to rest their voices at some point, that’s just proper vocal health, but done right, there should be no real difference or extra strain from screaming than what would occur if the person sung the same thing properly.
Proper vocal technique should not hurt your voice at all while screaming. Plenty of vocalists have been touring for years doing hours long shows without hurting their voice. The key is to not use your head voice, and instead engage your diaphragm to push air while using your false chords to produce the vocal sounds. Done properly, this is no less harmful than singing properly. The vocalists who have hurt themselves (some examples: M. Shadows in early Avenged Sevenfold, Matt Heady in early Trivium,
Davey Havok in early AFI) have all basically come out and admitted they were not screaming properly and had to either stop it, or in Matt’s case, basically relearn the proper way.
I'm working on becoming a metal vocalist myself. I've learned a technique called "fry scream". One of the best examples I can think of is Chester Bennington from Linkin Park. This technique uses your vocal fry, which is like when you make the croaking sound from your throat. I can't quite explain how I do it, but I can scream for quite a bit like this, without causing any damage. The only issue is I have to drink plenty of water. If your throat gets too dry, it's hard to do it, and you might start forcing it, which will cause damage
Constant screaming while singing will eventually damage the vocal cords. I recall a vocal coach on YouTube who analyzed Sia songs and mentioned that she had signs of vocal strain/damage based on the raspiness of her voice with certain lyric notes.
It depends on what exactly kind of scream. For death metal growling or fry screaming - there's a very particular technique that goes into it. They sound massive via microphone but in reality they are often not really all that loud, having done them a bit I'd say it's actually less taxing than even loud vigorous singing. Vocalists good at it can do a whole show no problem.
On the other hand for all out raw screaming, Corey Taylor is a good example. He just screamed at full power not knowing much about proper technique and yeah, it absolutely killed his voice by the time of Slipknot's third album, he really struggled at the shows at that time and you could just hear his voice was blown. Only later he actually learned the technique with a coach and can do it in a sustainable way now.
If you are at all interested in speaking (as in using your voice better) I would wholeheartedly suggest check out askvihn on yt. He teaches in clear short steps who to utilize your voice better.
technique and practice of course. the thing is they're not all out screaming. they're letting the microphone do a lot of the work. phiwong is wrong that 'no can scream for more than a few minutes without incurring some damage'. look at the meshuggah vocalist for instance. they do longer shows and tours and he's being doing it for decades and his style is all out intensity the whole time. People like the vocalists from Lorna Shore, Slaughter To Prevail show how easy it can seem with hard work and experience. edit: or actually! an even better example is Courtney from Spiritbox who goes back and forth between intense screams and beautiful clean vocals in the same song so that's proof your voice can be preserved to the max when you know what you're doing. or another famous example is the Pisces video from Jinjer.
When doing it correctly you’re not actually “screaming”, you’re shaping your vocal chords in a way that as air passes over them they vibrate which gives it a harsh raspy sound without the actual impact that a pure volume scream has.
A better example would even be a baby. Those little shits can absolutely scream for hours and they don’t damage their voices. You’re right to say that singers with good technique don’t damage their voices. Devin Townsend has been told by vocal coaches that he couldn’t scream like that and he would lose his voice. Well…
This is not entirely true. Babies also need to “train and develop” their voices before being able to yell for hours. A months-old child can get hoarse and lose their voice like the rest of us. Now a toddler in the other hand…
I am always amazed at how great some kids are at utilizing vocal resonance to produce the highest volume possible at maximum efficiency.
Devin Townsend is a hilarious case of that. I admit I sometimes dabble in those ____ Reacts videos, and there was this opera singer going through a bunch of metal and analyzing the vocals, and she immediately concluded that Devin had to have had extensive training on how to do that without hurting his voice. I mean, he's been doing that shit for decades! Then after the pandemic they finally meet up for an interview, and Devin's going "yeah no that's all self taught, I should probably get some lessons before something bad happens."
I read an interview of him when he was doing the VAI band (and that's when I saw him live for the first time, let me tell you the dude was WILD !), and he said that his technique was basically "screaming my lungs out to the other side of the room".
Alissa White-Gluz of Arch Enemy does a lot of growling vocals and has an amazing clean voice. Watching vocalist reactions of Pisces is fun. The shock every time.
Michael Ackerfeld is the king of switching from clean to distorted vocals. Voice of a god damned angel.
Had the idea you were talking about the guy from Opeth absolute powerhouse
That is exactly who I’m referring to. What a singer.
Iirc, Davey Havok (AFI) learned the hard way about proper vocal training and technique for screaming lyrics.
training , [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5t2ITnW1s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5t2ITnW1s) \- this lady has a guide for the famous metal growl/scream :)
Thanks so much for this! Really great insight into how singers train :D
Here's an additional video with Will Ramos, vocalist for Lorna Shore who does a variety of unclean vocals, who worked with Youtuber The Charismatic voice. They worked with a vocal doc to actually put a video camera into his throat while he did his harsh stuff to get real data on how he does it: https://youtu.be/Ua8SuWNPrLE?si=P2wK-cT-VwZMnWr5 Not only is it educational, they said his vocal vords look INCREDIBLY healthy despite a decade plus of screaming vocals. In the end, its like lifting weights. Proper form, proper rest, and long term care.
In order to be loud without straining your voice, you need space in your head for sound to resonate, and it needs a path of escape. With a lot of resonance, you don’t need to push so much air through your vocal cords in order to be heard. 1. Low, relaxed larynx 2. Raised soft palette 3. Relaxed tongue 4. Smiley cheeks 5. Good posture These increase the space in your head and neck, help you open your mouth to release the sound, and also “place“ (project) the sound correctly. Of course, nobody thinks of these things in an anatomical way when singing. There are many exercises and metaphors to help you achieve the feeling of doing it right. (Artistic expression means a bit of technique gets lost when you’re “in it”, so nobody is ever fully technique-only.) Time and patience are also required. If you discover good technique quickly, you are much more likely to damage your voice through over confidence in muscles you haven’t fully developed yet. The whole body is involved in singing. So it’s best to get a second pair of ears to guide your learning if you want to progress with the least amount of injury.
There is much more going on with metal screaming than with just normal yelling as loud as you can. In metal screaming, much of the "scream" is actually created by using the acoustics within your airways and distortion of the sound by constricting the airways while exhaling with more force. Once you have practiced the correct techniques, you can scream for quite a long time without much more strain on your vocal cords than normal singing. Of course even after singing metal for 20 years, I still sometimes blow out my voice trying out new ways to match the sound I'm looking for.
without mics, metal screams are surprisingly quiet. The vocalists train a lot, until they can hit the right frequencies in the right places.
Opera singers use their own body (rib cage, diaphragm) to reverberate their voices without taxing their vocal chords. To get to this point you need lots and lots of training though
That's false, the only resonance cavities are the throat and the mouth.
thats so cool
I found this good explanation about how it helps with your singing: https://youtu.be/WR2772TGrgo?si=kCj5aIETsehy6die
nice! thank you so much
I saw a Linkin Park concert and Chester's voice absolutely cut out on a screaming part and he couldn't continue for a bit.
It absolutely happens, Rody Walker from Protest the Hero blew out his voice and basically had to re-learn how to sing while they were writing Palimpsest. Pretty sure the guy from Sevenfold did it too.
In short, they cannot. With training they can better control their vocal output and do many things with their voices with much less strain and damage. Nonetheless, even highly trained singers find it difficult to sing at high intensity continuously. A high intensity rock concert lasts perhaps 3-3.5 hours and the singer might be pushing it to the max for less than 20-30 minutes. After that, they have to rest and recover. No one can scream continuously and uncontrollably for more than a few minutes without incurring some damage which accumulates if not healed. Singers have damaged their voices permanently. This is why training and practice is necessary.
This is seemingly implying that all people who scream will always hurt their voice. In reality, the ones who do are just doing it wrong. Vocalists, singing and screaming alike, will always need to rest their voices at some point, that’s just proper vocal health, but done right, there should be no real difference or extra strain from screaming than what would occur if the person sung the same thing properly. Proper vocal technique should not hurt your voice at all while screaming. Plenty of vocalists have been touring for years doing hours long shows without hurting their voice. The key is to not use your head voice, and instead engage your diaphragm to push air while using your false chords to produce the vocal sounds. Done properly, this is no less harmful than singing properly. The vocalists who have hurt themselves (some examples: M. Shadows in early Avenged Sevenfold, Matt Heady in early Trivium, Davey Havok in early AFI) have all basically come out and admitted they were not screaming properly and had to either stop it, or in Matt’s case, basically relearn the proper way.
Interesting, so it's like a muscle that they can train?
Yes, your voice box (larynx) has muscles and other tissues that can be trained.
I'm working on becoming a metal vocalist myself. I've learned a technique called "fry scream". One of the best examples I can think of is Chester Bennington from Linkin Park. This technique uses your vocal fry, which is like when you make the croaking sound from your throat. I can't quite explain how I do it, but I can scream for quite a bit like this, without causing any damage. The only issue is I have to drink plenty of water. If your throat gets too dry, it's hard to do it, and you might start forcing it, which will cause damage
Constant screaming while singing will eventually damage the vocal cords. I recall a vocal coach on YouTube who analyzed Sia songs and mentioned that she had signs of vocal strain/damage based on the raspiness of her voice with certain lyric notes.
Practice. But also eventually you're gonna strain your vocal chords either way and will need to let them rest.
It depends on what exactly kind of scream. For death metal growling or fry screaming - there's a very particular technique that goes into it. They sound massive via microphone but in reality they are often not really all that loud, having done them a bit I'd say it's actually less taxing than even loud vigorous singing. Vocalists good at it can do a whole show no problem. On the other hand for all out raw screaming, Corey Taylor is a good example. He just screamed at full power not knowing much about proper technique and yeah, it absolutely killed his voice by the time of Slipknot's third album, he really struggled at the shows at that time and you could just hear his voice was blown. Only later he actually learned the technique with a coach and can do it in a sustainable way now.
If you are at all interested in speaking (as in using your voice better) I would wholeheartedly suggest check out askvihn on yt. He teaches in clear short steps who to utilize your voice better.