We'll look at research into how death metal singers create their otherworldly vocals, as well as the therapeutic applications researchers are exploring.
DANIEL ESTRIN, HOST:
Here's a viral moment from last year's Miss World pageant in Chile.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IGNACIA FERNANDEZ: (singing) [inaudible] .
ESTRIN: Wow. Ignacia Fernandez surprised audiences by abandoning traditional musical forms and performing – yes, you can hear it – death metal. Her singing helped her win the Miss World Chile crown, and researchers analyzing death metal say it can also help people with voice disorders. NPR's D. Parvaz has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “INTO HELL FIRE”)
LORNA SHORE: (Singing) Hold on to the feelings.
D. PARVAZ, BYLINE: That's Lorna Shore's Will Ramos growling during “To The Hellfire.” For his fans, these vocals are very attractive. They are primal, urgent, existential. But for researchers who study how death metal artists sing this way, these vocals are a miracle with potentially therapeutic applications.
ELIZABETH JAROFF: Want to make fake pig squealing cords?
WILL RAMOS: (vocals).
PARVAZ: It's classically trained opera singer and vocal coach Elizabeth Jaroff who instructs Ramos to make one of his many catalog sounds – yes, a pig squeal – while Amanda Stark places a camera down his throat. Stark is a doctoral researcher and clinical speech-language pathologist at the University of Utah. She helps people who experience problems such as vocal spasms improve their speech. A few years ago, Jaroff was enrolled in an intensive summer program at the university when she met Stark and gave her presentation.
ZHAROV: I really wanted to put a camera down a person's throat while he makes screams or grunts, gurgles, distortions and harmonies. I really wanted to see what it looked like.
PARVAZ: She had already featured Will Ramos on her YouTube channel, The Charismatic Voice, and he didn't know how he made those sounds. So he agreed to participate. What Stark and Zharov saw in their research using cameras and MRIs was remarkable. But essentially, when we use our voices to create sounds, they come from two main sources: our vocal cords, or cords, which are located inside the larynx, at the top of the windpipe. We use them to create vibrations. This is the main part. Then there is the vocal tract, which includes the throat, mouth and nose. But these metal singers do things differently.
AMANDA STARK: The actual vibration of the vocal cords is not the central element of this style of singing, but rather it is a variety of different tissues and muscles that vibrate over the source or over these actual vocal cords.
PARVAZ: Stark said sometimes she couldn't even see Ramos' vocal cords on camera. Like when he made one of his goblin noises.
RAMOS: (Vocally).
PARVAZ: Zharov and Stark saw that Will Ramos was relying on shaping his vocal tract rather than on his vocal cords, twisting the entire larynx and pulling it to one side.
ZHAROV: If you did it with your hand and turned the throat tube upside down, you probably wouldn't be able to swallow, much less speak, right? The fact that Will's machine spins so unusually just amazed me.
PARVAZ: And they don't just look at male voices.
ALISSA WHITE-GLOOZ: (vocals).
PARVAZ: This is Alyssa White-Gluz, former vocalist of the Swedish death metal band Arch Enemy. It allows you to record your voice, raw and unfiltered, offering a glimpse into how a man with smaller lungs and body size than most male vocalists can create these monstrous sounds. According to vocal coach Elizabeth Jaroff, one of the things White-Gluz does so well is her dynamic transition between clean vocals and distortion. Listen to this switch here on Arch Enemy's “Folie a Deux”.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOLIE A DEUX”)
CAPITAL ENEMY: (singing) Embalm me with your poison.
(Singing) And here I lie, locked in an ice cage, with only one key.
PARVAZ: That growl is a real challenge, as researcher Amanda Stark noted when I asked if she could make a goblin scream.
STARK: No, I can't play a goblin. I'm still working on my fake Batman cord. I'm struggling. So I try to do like (vocals). I just can't do it as easily as these artists.
PARVAZ: Jaroff says the goal for female death metal singers is to learn how to make those deep, brutal sounds. And White-Gluz shows that this is possible.
WHITE-EYE: (vocalizing).
PARVAZ: What this all means is that we don't necessarily focus on the voice that we have. These singers are disciplined and train their voices, and as much as it sounds, Stark and Zharov saw that these singers were not damaging their throats. These findings could be used to treat those with speech problems, perhaps by teaching them to use different parts of the throat, as these singers do.
STARK: Any of these tissues over the vocal cords. How can we introduce some of these different vibrations into a person who may have a paralyzed vocal cord? Or does this apply to a patient who has had a laryngectomy or had their entire voice box removed?
PARVAZ: Amanda Stark also says there's a lot to be learned from how these death metal singers create the airflow, pressure and lung capacity needed to create those sounds. But until then…
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOLIE A DEUX”)
CAPITAL ENEMY: (singing) And yet I lie here, locked in a cage of ice, with only one key.
PARVAZ: …Stark and Zharov continue to look into the throats of these primitive singers.
(Imitating a death metal voice) D. Parvaz. NPR News.
I sound like Cookie Monster (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “FOLIE A DEUX”)
ARCH ENEMY: (singing) You'll always be deep inside. This is where you will lie. Come spend eternity here with me.
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