Vocal fry is a creaky, crackling sound at the bottom of the speaking voice. The creak appears when pitch and breath run low and the vocal folds pulse in slow, separate bursts instead of a smooth vibration. Vocal fry usually lands on the last words of a sentence. Occasional fry is normal; constant fry is the pattern employers in hiring studies rate as less trustworthy and less hirable.
What is vocal fry?
Vocal fry is the lowest register of the speaking voice, heard as a low, creaky, popping sound. The vocal folds press together, go slack and pulse slowly and unevenly. Vocal fry is also called glottal fry, fry register or pulse register.
A vocal register is a range of the voice produced by one pattern of vocal-fold vibration. Vocal fry sits at the bottom, far below the normal speaking pitch. Modal voice, the everyday speaking register, sits in the middle. Falsetto sits higher up. Hollien and Michel classified vocal fry as a register of its own in their 1968 paper, Vocal Fry as a Phonational Register.
The mechanics explain the sound. In vocal fry, the vocal folds are pressed together and slack, so the vocal folds vibrate irregularly instead of in an even cycle (Wikipedia, Creaky voice). The listener hears separate pops rather than one continuous tone.
This guide covers vocal fry in the speaking voice at work. Vocal fry in singing is a separate topic and is not covered here.
What does vocal fry sound like?
Vocal fry sounds like a low creak or rattle on the last word of a sentence. A speaker says "I'll send the report by Friday" in a clear voice, then "Friday" crackles, drops in loudness and fades. The rest of the sentence sounds completely normal.
The example above is sample wording, not a client recording. A well-known recorded example is This American Life episode 545, If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS. Act Two, "Freedom Fries," discusses listener complaints about vocal fry on the show. Host Ira Glass asks during the segment, "Have you noticed that I do it, too?"
What causes vocal fry?
Vocal fry happens when pitch sinks to the floor of the speaking range and breath support fades, so the vocal folds pulse instead of vibrating smoothly. Long phrases without a fresh breath, low vocal effort and copying conversation partners make vocal fry more likely.
Three factors appear in the research:
Sentence position. Fry clusters at the ends of sentences. Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh and Slavin (2012) found that about two-thirds of 34 young women used vocal fry, most often at the end of a sentence. A 2014 study of 34 young men by the same team found the same sentence-final position.
Low vocal effort. Irons and Alexander reported in a 2016 conference abstract that fry "may be intimately tied to decreased vocal effort."
Conversation partners. Speakers use more fry when talking with someone who uses it (Borrie and Delfino, 2017). The next section covers this effect.
The long-phrase factor is the speech-pathology view of the mechanics, not the finding of a single study. A long sentence spends the breath. The pitch drifts down as the sentence ends, and the last words arrive with little air behind them. Fry fills that gap.
Why do people use vocal fry?
For many speakers, vocal fry is a habit. In American English, fry clusters on the last words of a sentence, where pitch and breath naturally fall. Vocal fry also spreads in conversation: speakers produce more fry when they talk with a partner who uses it.
Borrie and Delfino (2017) paired 20 young women with conversation partners. The women used significantly more vocal fry with a high-fry partner, and closer matching tracked with higher communicative efficiency and enjoyment. At work, vocal fry can be a team pattern as well as a personal one.
Pitch also carries a social signal. Cate Madill, a speech pathology lecturer at the University of Sydney, wrote in 2015: "A lower pitch is perceived almost universally as the speaker (male or female) having more authority and/ or greater status." In the coaching view, deliberately lowering the voice has a cost: pushing your habitual pitch lower can slide the voice toward the floor of the range, where vocal fry begins.
Is vocal fry bad for your voice?
Occasional vocal fry is a normal register and has not been linked to any specific, well-defined vocal-fold disease. Constant vocal fry is different. Speech pathologist Cate Madill warns that frequent fry can strain the vocal folds, and constant fry can signal a voice disorder.
Titze, Guzman and van Mersbergen, writing for the National Center for Voice and Speech (NCVS) in July 2026, state that vocal fry "has not been associated with any specific, well-defined vocal pathology."
Madill (2015) draws the line at frequency. Frequent fry can strain the vocal folds, and fry present most of the time is "a commonly occurring symptom of a voice disorder." University of Utah Health's The Scope (2016) adds that vocal fry "also can cause vocal fatigue."
Does vocal fry damage your vocal cords? The sources in this guide do not link occasional fry to vocal-fold damage. Frequent, habitual fry is the concern. The warning signs that call for a medical check are covered in the last section of this guide.
Is vocal fry the same as glottal fry, creaky voice or uptalk?
Vocal fry, glottal fry, creaky voice and pulse register all name a low, creaky voice quality; linguists usually say creaky voice. Uptalk is a different habit: a rising pitch at the end of a statement that makes it sound like a question.
Uptalk and vocal fry are criticized together, yet the two habits move pitch in opposite directions. Susan Miller, a vocal coach and speech pathologist, told Time in 2014: "it's the up-talk, the uncertainty, more than fry." A falling pitch at the end of a statement is the goal. Vocal fry is the fall continuing into a creak. Uptalk and other inflection patterns are a separate topic.
Is vocal fry more common in women than men?
Vocal fry is not a women-only habit. One study found young men used less fry in read sentences than women, while another found more fry in men's spontaneous speech. A 2020 systematic review found no confirmed evidence that vocal fry is rising among young women.
Four studies correct the stereotype:
Read sentences. Abdelli-Beruh, Wolk and Slavin (2014) studied 34 young men. Vocal fry prevalence was "significantly lower" than in a matched group of young women.
Spontaneous speech. Irons and Alexander (2016 conference abstract) reported: "Surprisingly, we found more vocal fry… for men than women."
Age. Oliveira and colleagues (2016) recorded 40 American women. Every participant, young or middle-aged, had at least one fry episode, and the two age groups did not differ significantly.
Trend. Dallaston and Docherty (2020) found only 10 qualifying studies, all small, and concluded that a recent rise among young American women has not been empirically confirmed.
The sections above describe the voice itself. The sections below cover what vocal fry changes at work and what to do about it.
Does vocal fry affect how you are judged at work?
Vocal fry lowers ratings in hiring studies. In a 2014 study of 800 US adults, voices with vocal fry were judged less competent, trustworthy and hirable. In a later study, 60 real employers were less likely to hire young women who used continuous vocal fry.
Three studies give a fuller picture:
- Anderson, Klofstad, Mayew and Venkatachalam (2014, PLOS ONE). Seven women and seven men recorded "Thank you for considering me for this opportunity" in a normal voice and in vocal fry. The listeners were 800 US adults. Voices with fry were rated less competent, educated, trustworthy, attractive and hirable. The effect was stronger for female voices. Female listeners were slightly more negative than male listeners, a small effect. Trust carried the most weight in the hiring choice. The study has two limits: the speakers produced fry on request, so the voices may sound unnatural, and listeners heard a single sentence.
- Pointer, van Mersbergen and Nanjundeswaran (2025, Journal of Voice). The raters were 60 employers who hire in the US Southeast. Samples with glottal fry were rated less trustworthy, competent and educated, and employers were less likely to hire with continuous fry.
- Parker and Borrie (2018, Journal of Voice). A group of 463 listeners judged young women's speech. Fry interacted with pitch and speaking rate. It helped ratings in some combinations, such as high pitch with a fast rate, and hurt ratings in others, such as low pitch with a fast rate.
Bethany Brookshire wrote in Science News in 2014 that most job candidates are not judged on a single sentence over the phone: "Most voices come with a face, a resume and a well-written cover letter." The voice is one signal among many.
Does vocal fry make speech harder to understand?
Voice scientists argue that vocal fry makes speech harder to follow, though the evidence is still theoretical. The National Center for Voice and Speech says fry pulses too slowly to carry fast speech sounds well and leaves little room for changes in loudness.
Titze, Guzman and van Mersbergen describe vocal fry as "not so much a vocal health issue as an intelligibility and cognitive burden issue." The NCVS authors also call intelligibility and listening effort "areas needing much research," so the argument is a theory, not a test result.
Cantor-Cutiva, Bottalico and Hunter (2018) recorded 40 college students in nine simulated room conditions. The students produced less vocal fry in a noisy room. The paper was written for clinicians who elicit fry in therapy and did not test projecting the voice.
The coaching advice that follows is practical, not a research finding: keep sentence endings fully voiced on conference calls and in large meetings, where the voice has to carry.
Should you stop using vocal fry at work?
Aim for control, not elimination. Vocal fry is a normal register, and speech-language pathologists even use fry as a deliberate exercise in voice therapy. The workplace goal is choice: keep sentence endings clear when credibility matters, and use fry on purpose rather than by habit.
Van Doren and Bellavance (2025), in an ASHA review of the history of vocal fry, report that clinicians use fry "as a therapeutic task in the setting of voice rehabilitation."
The fairness question is real. The 2025 employer study tested only young women's voices, and the 2014 study found the effect stronger for female voices. Critics call the judgment bias. A 2018 Dictionary.com article argues that vocal fry studies show "female language bashing" at play.
The speech-language pathologist's stance holds both facts. The listener's bias is real, and so is the speaker's right to decide what to change. Coaching offers options, not shame: a speaker can keep vocal fry in casual conversation and keep sentence endings clear in an interview or a board update.
How can you tell if you have vocal fry?
Record yourself explaining a work topic for two minutes, then listen only to the last word of each sentence. A crackle, rattle or sudden drop in loudness on those words signals vocal fry. Count the episodes and note whether they follow long sentences.
Proctor, Scherer and Perrine (2024) analyzed 174 fry samples from five women reading the same passage and found that vocal fry follows measurable patterns. Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh and Slavin (2012) heard vocal fry at the end of sentences most often.
1. Record a two-minute explanation of a real work topic, such as a project update.
2. Mark every sentence ending that creaks, rattles or drops in loudness.
3. Note where each episode falls: the end of a long sentence, after a question, or at the end of a turn.
4. Repeat the same task weekly and compare the count.
A recording still misses what a trained ear catches. A communication analysis of vocal quality and projection lets you share up to 15 minutes of recorded speech and get key moments timestamped.
How do you reduce vocal fry when talking?
Breathe before each sentence and finish the sentence while you still have air. Keep phrases short, start each one in the middle of your pitch range, and let the pitch fall at the end without dropping into a creak. Retest with the same recording weekly.
Six steps, practiced in this order:
1. Breathe at every full stop and before each new point. A fresh breath gives the end of the sentence air to carry the sound. Breath support, including breathing from the diaphragm, is a skill of its own.
2. Split long sentences in two, so the last word still has air behind it.
3. Start each phrase in the middle of your pitch range. Dr. Katherine Kendall of University of Utah Health advises raising pitch "so it's not just loudness but also pitch change."
4. Keep the last word as loud and clear as the first. Let the pitch fall at the end of a statement, and keep the volume up. The goal is a fall in pitch, not a fall in volume.
5. Project to the back of the room. This step is coaching practice, not a research finding.
6. Retest with the two-minute recording from the self-check above and compare the count.
Practice on low-stakes speech first: a voicemail, a team update or a short call with a colleague. Move the new sentence endings into high-stakes meetings once the low-stakes versions feel normal. The weekly count shows whether vocal fry at the end of sentences is dropping.
Speak Like a Professional's free speech and voice mechanics webinar shows how to speak clearly and protect your voice in 30 minutes.
When is vocal fry a sign of a voice problem?
As a coaching rule, get vocal fry checked when it is constant, comes with hoarseness or effort, or does not change with practice. ENT guidelines advise a laryngoscopy when hoarseness fails to improve within four weeks, or sooner if a serious cause is suspected.
The clinical practice guideline on hoarseness (Stachler et al., 2018) places laryngoscopy, a camera exam of the larynx, before voice therapy. Research also links heavy creak to a specific disorder: an automated creak measure helped identify adductor laryngeal dystonia in conversational speech (Dragicevic et al., 2026).
An ENT doctor rules out a voice disorder; a speech-language pathologist then trains the habit. Preventing vocal strain at work is a related skill for voices that tire by the end of the day.
Speak Like a Professional coaches the habit. Speak Like a Professional does not diagnose or treat voice disorders. Sydney Parriott, MA, CCC-SLP, MBA, is a licensed corporate speech-language pathologist. Voice quality sits in Delivery, Pillar 5 of The Resonant Communication Method™, and our coaching for vocal authority and delivery works on voice quality and breath under pressure in real workplace speech.
Vocal Fry FAQs
Can vocal fry be corrected, and how fast?
Yes. Speaking about voice changes in general, Dr. Katherine Kendall of University of Utah Health said in 2016 that "oftentimes these things can be fixed in a single session of therapy." Speech pathologist Susan Miller told Time in 2014 that speech habits such as upspeak "can be modified, and rather quickly." Practice weekly on real work speech.
Is vocal fry natural?
Yes. Vocal fry is a normal register. In a 2016 study, every one of 40 American women, young and middle-aged, used vocal fry at least once. The term entered clinical literature in 1958, and research in the 1960s separated vocal fry from a harsh, disordered voice (Van Doren and Bellavance, 2025).
Does vocal fry make you sound less intelligent?
Vocal fry sounds less intelligent to some listeners and not to others. College-age Americans in a 2010 study heard female creaky voice as "hesitant, nonaggressive, and informal but also educated, urban-oriented, and upwardly mobile" (Yuasa). Listeners in the 2014 hiring study rated vocal fry voices less educated.
Why do some people find vocal fry annoying?
Some listeners say vocal fry distracts them. Listener comments read on This American Life included "difficult to pay attention" and "detracts from the credibility of the journalist." Linguist Penny Eckert told Science News in 2014 that hiring-study listeners reacted not to "more creak" but to "more strange-sounding speech" from speakers unused to fry.
Sources
Hollien and Michel (1968). Vocal Fry as a Phonational Register. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 11(3), 600–604. doi.org/10.1044/jshr.1103.600
Wolk, Abdelli-Beruh, and Slavin (2012). Habitual Use of Vocal Fry in Young Adult Female Speakers. Journal of Voice, 26(3), e111–e116. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2011.04.007
Abdelli-Beruh, Wolk, and Slavin (2014). Prevalence of Vocal Fry in Young Adult Male American English Speakers. Journal of Voice, 28(2), 185–190. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2013.08.011
Irons and Alexander (2016). Vocal fry in realistic speech: Acoustic characteristics and perceptions of vocal fry in spontaneously produced and read speech. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 140(4_Supplement), 3397 (conference abstract). doi.org/10.1121/1.4970891
Oliveira, Davidson, Holczer, Kaplan, and Paretzky (2016). A Comparison of the Use of Glottal Fry in the Spontaneous Speech of Young and Middle-Aged American Women. Journal of Voice, 30(6), 684–687. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2015.08.015
Borrie and Delfino (2017). Conversational Entrainment of Vocal Fry in Young Adult Female American English Speakers. Journal of Voice, 31(4), 513.e25–513.e32. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2016.12.005
Parker and Borrie (2018). Judgments of Intelligence and Likability of Young Adult Female Speakers of American English: The Influence of Vocal Fry and the Surrounding Acoustic-Prosodic Context. Journal of Voice, 32(5), 538–545. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2017.08.002
Cantor-Cutiva, Bottalico, and Hunter (2018). Factors associated with vocal fry among college students. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 43(2), 73–79. doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2017.1362468
Stachler et al. (2018). Clinical Practice Guideline: Hoarseness (Dysphonia) (Update). Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, 158(1_suppl), S1–S42. doi.org/10.1177/0194599817751030
Dallaston and Docherty (2020). The quantitative prevalence of creaky voice (vocal fry) in varieties of English: A systematic review of the literature. PLOS ONE, 15(3), e0229960. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229960
Yuasa (2010). Creaky Voice: A New Feminine Voice Quality for Young Urban-Oriented Upwardly Mobile American Women? American Speech, 85(3), 315–337. doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2010-018
Anderson, Klofstad, Mayew, and Venkatachalam (2014). Vocal Fry May Undermine the Success of Young Women in the Labor Market. PLOS ONE, 9(5), e97506. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097506
Pointer, van Mersbergen, and Nanjundeswaran (2025; online 2022). Listeners' Attitudes Towards Young Women With Glottal Fry. Journal of Voice, 39(2), 371–378. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.09.007
Proctor, Scherer, and Perrine (2024). Vocal Fry Patterns While Reading. Journal of Voice, 38(4), 889–902. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2022.01.013
Van Doren and Bellavance (2025). A Brief History of Vocal Fry: Terminology, Definitions, and Sentiment. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 10(3), 745–755. doi.org/10.1044/2025_PERSP-24-00229
Dragicevic et al. (2026; online 2025). Automated Creak Identifies Laryngeal Dystonia During Conversational Speech. The Laryngoscope, 136(5), 2270–2277. doi.org/10.1002/lary.70332
Titze, Guzman, and van Mersbergen (2026). Why Vocal Fry is not Recommended for Speech. NCVS Insights, 4(7). ncvs.org/why-vocal-fry-is-not-recommended-for-speech/
Madill (2015). Keep an eye on vocal fry. University of Sydney. sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2015/11/06/keep-an-eye-on-vocal-fry.html
University of Utah Health (2016). Is the Cure for Vocal Fry as Simple as Telling Someone to Speak Up? The Scope. healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/all/2016/02/cure-vocal-fry-simple-telling-someone-speak
Brookshire (2014). There's more to acing interviews than holding the vocal fry. Science News. sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/theres-more-acing-interviews-holding-vocal-fry
Rhodan (2014). 3 Speech Habits That Are Worse Than Vocal Fry in Job Interviews. Time. time.com/2820087/3-speech-habits-that-are-worse-than-vocal-fry-in-job-interviews
Dictionary.com (2018). What's Vocal Fry Really All About? dictionary.com/articles/vocal-fry
This American Life. Episode 545: If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, SAY IT IN ALL CAPS (transcript). thisamericanlife.org/545/transcript
Vocal fry register. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fry_register
Creaky voice. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creaky_voice