Science Friday - How Death Metal Singers Make Their Extreme Vocalizations

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti is not just about raw talent. The best singers in the world have to work on their technique—like how to control their breath and develop the stamina to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers aren’t the only vocalists who have figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact.Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit that unique guttural register. And those iconic screams are not as easy to master as they might seem.Vocal scientists at the University of Utah are now bringing death metal singers into the lab to try to understand how they make their extreme vocalizations. What they’re finding is not only insightful for metalheads, but might also help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries.In a conversation from April, Host Flora Lichtman talks with speech pathologist Amanda Stark, and Mark Garrett, vocal coach and lead singer of the band Kardashev.Read the whole story at sciencefriday.com.Guests: Dr. Amanda Stark is a speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah.Mark Garett is a vocal coach and the lead singer of Kardashev. He’s based in Phoenix, Arizona.Transcript available at sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

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of death metal screams. Hey, I, but go. That's a standard false chord scream. Keep going. Being able to belt out a tune like Adele or Pavarotti, we know it's not just about raw talent. We know that the best singers in the world work on their technique, how to control their breath and develop the stamina

to hit note after note for a two-hour concert. But pop stars and opera singers, they're not the only vocalists who figured out how to harness their voices for maximum impact. Death metal vocalists also train their voices to hit a unique guttural register, and that scream is not as easy to master as you might think. Vocal scientists at the University of Utah wanted to understand how death metal singers make their iconic screams. And what they found is not only insightful for metalheads,

it might help improve treatment for people with some types of vocal injuries. Joining me now to talk more about this research are my guests, Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Mark Garrett, lead singer of the band Kardashev and a vocal coach based in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome to you both to Science Friday. Thank you for having us. Yeah, thanks so much. Amanda, how did you get interested in studying death metal singing? Yeah, so these extreme metal vocalists use a completely different, pattern of vocalizing than we see in other styles of music. They tend to have a lot more activation of the supergotic structures, so the things that are happening, tissues, muscles, etc., above the true vocal folds. And so when we think of a singer, they use mostly this kind of pitch of their voice in their singing that is mostly just true vocal folds. Extreme metal vocalists use everything under the sun, including the true focal folds, but they don't oscillate them in quite the same way that we see in a clean style of singing. And part of this work is if we can really hone into the

structures that are being used for each of these screens, anatomical structures, tissues within the throat, then we can help better define these things for coaches, for the artists themselves, as well as the scientific community. What does it look like when you bring one of these performers into the lab. Yes. Let's give you the visual. First, we do a camera in the back of the throat. So we have a little camera that goes into the nose and then it hangs out in the back of their throat. And we can watch as they do different vocalization. And so once we kind of understand their profile, we call it their phenotyping, what their screams are, how they classify their screams, how they describe their screams. Then we do the camera where we look visually at the throat. And then we

While they're screaming? While they're screaming. And then in, In some situations, they have electrodes in their muscles of their throats and the camera in their nose. And then I think the really kind of fun part for a lot of these artists was laying in the MRI scanner and being able to then come back out of the scanner to see the interaction between all of these structures of the vocal tract. That's so fascinating. Okay, I want to do an experiment. So one of the things you were doing was sort of like creating a taxonomy of death metal screams. So Amanda, will you give me some of the names and Mark for each one? I know I'm putting you on the spot. Will you try to, will you demonstrate it for us? Sure.

Yeah, we could actually just do some of yours. Mark, I think it'd be kind of cool for everyone. There are some overlaps in screams. I think a lot of people have used a term like a false chord scream. Do you want to try that one? Yeah, sure. False court scream is a really great starting point. It's loose, it's open compared to other screams.

It's very relaxed. and it really builds on sounds we know how to make, you know what I mean, to create something new. And that sound is very similar to A-I-Ber-D-O-E. That's a standard false-cord scream. Keep going. I can't get it. Please.

I need like 10 more. You know what? With all these screams, I'll say, you're listening to Science Friday. How about that? Oh, my God, yes. So here we go. False chord scream.

You're listening to Silence Friday. Okay, so that's false chord. Give me another variety of scream. So this is a lower tone. This is the tone that I thought was driven mostly by my erytonoids, but seems from what we can see so far to have a lot of aritinoid and epiglottal activation. It's very low, and it's like a... Ereepid sort of sound.

So that would be something like, You're a little bit to sorts of it. This is delighting me to know. Oh, you should see, you know, it was so fun because these guys, not only, like, you can't appreciate how intense and volume that these screams really are. We had like sound booths and multiple walls and we had some of our colleagues in other room spaces that came over and they're like, you guys are really loud. And I just kind of laugh to myself as I'm like, you know, approximately four inches from their face with this camera. And as their mouths are wide open and their tongues are rolling in their mouth. and then they have this ability to use multiple tissues,

multiple muscles within their throat to coordinate their sounds. Do you actually, would you want to do your kermit? Yeah, so a lot of these sounds, and this is one of the most useful things I think I took away from being part of this research is a lot of the way that we teach these sounds, not just me, but the other vocal coaches out here who teach extreme vocalization, is we'll start with a cartoon voice that helps us get into sort of this as Amanda told me,

anticipatory posture, to create the sound. And so for me, I'll do like a high hole, Kermit the frog here, and then I'll throw a little distortion on it. High hole. And then from there,

I just lean into the sound. And it really all just comes back to Kermit the frog. Yeah. And then I have probably one of the more wild screams I do that would give you the low, mid, high gamut. But this one is like that cawing crow

and it actually requires me to have a beard because I have to pull on my whiskers to make my mouth resonant enough, but I can do that one again. I'll say you're listening to Science Friday. Sounds kind of like this. Let me find it real quick. There it is.

You're listening to Science Friday. There you go. That's an amazing sound to make. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, and it builds on a lot of, it builds, you know, this is one thing that I think I also really enjoyed. And Amanda, I'm sure you can speak to this

quite a bit, is the whole source filter model of looking at it. Because if I take away all the things I'm doing, pulling on my cheeks, curling up my tongue, which is a common technique in the metal vocal world called a tunnel throat, the sound behind that is actually quite simple. It's just, but when I add those filters, it changes the sound drastically without having to do a lot of extra work in my actual laryngeal muscles, which is a lot of fun. I mean, I think what's really hitting me, hearing you perform these different sounds, they are so intricate. I mean, Amanda, when you looked at what's going on in the vocal cords, were you surprised? What were the sort of big take-home points? I think, naively, I believed, when I was just listening or hearing a song or watching stage performances, I think I didn't appreciate how sophisticated, again, how synchronized all of these things are and how decisions are being made by these artists, by these performers. to be able to manipulate their filter, that vocal tracks shape so beautifully. Do these screams damage the vocal structures?

I'm always hesitant to, like, globally say yes or no. For the people that we've looked at so far, and from the literature, we know that the answer is really no. Is there a benefit to understanding how this works? I mean, is there an application? I mean, it's obviously cool, but is there also an application? Oh, it's huge. from how we are going to approach rehab and treating different voice disorders to swallowing Parkinson's disease, esophageal problems, and swallowing, it really is going to be that extensive

to be able to educate clinicians, E&Ts, GI, doctors, neurologists, you name it, about these vocal mechanisms and how these sounds, how this complexity of these sounds impacts the human body. Mark, you're a vocal coach. Could you teach me a scream? Flora, you could absolutely learn to do metal vocals. Now, can you learn how to do a perfect scream in the next minute or so? Probably not, but I can show you a good way to get started. Yeah, I'm in. I'm in. Let's try. Perfect. So we're going to start you off with a basic false chord mid because a false chord mid builds on sounds that we have to make to survive. And one of those sounds is clearing our throat. So what I want you to do in as natural a way

as possible. Don't try to simulate the sound, but just let's say you're watching TV and you absent mindedly clear your throat like that. Nice. Do you feel, I hear a little bit of rumble. Can you tell me where roughly you feel that rumble? I feel it kind of closer to the top, the back, it's the back of my throat, but it's sort of closer to the back of my tongue than I would have thought. Okay. So would you say it's on the back, above the back, or below the back of the tongue? I think it's right on top of the back. Okay, well, you want to know something. You're off to an amazing start.

What you would do at this point is you would want to take that throat clear and you would want to think about holding it in the front of your face, as if that sound could be held right behind your lips like you're reading a piece of candy, and that would create a sound sort of like this. Yeah, that's pretty close. That's pretty close. Yeah. And then you could open up to it.

a so we take that throat clear. You can think of it as like a game show buzzer back from like the 60s and 70s. Eat, eat, eat, eat. You can give that a try if you'd like. Yo, wow. Okay, let's get.

Am I getting there? Yeah, so now what I want you to do is I want you to take this and I want you to gently bark it. You don't have to push too hard, but you're going to hold on to this sound of Cargria the sound of throat singing, you're going to go, low, low. It's the game show buzzer noise,

with a little bit of a bark at the end. Lo, low, low, low. Laura, are you a metal vocalist and you're just not telling me? You could be doing false chord very soon. If I had you as a student, I'd be like, oh, this is too easy. This is too easy. Please stop. It's embarrassing me, and I don't believe you.

And after, you know, so many horrible choir experiences as a kid, this is really like turning my whole life around. You found your space. You found your space. You can feature on the next Cartaghov album. How about that? Oh, my God. That would be such a joy. That would be such a joy. This was so much fun. Thank you both for taking the time to come on the show and teach us about this. Oh, Flora. Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to be able to talk with you about our work. Yeah, I appreciate you having me here. It was an absolute blast. And as I always say, many thanks, much love. I'm out. Dr. Amanda Stark, speech pathologist and vocology researcher at the University of Utah based in Salt Lake City, and Mark Garrett, lead singer of the band Cardishave and a vocal coach based in Phoenix, Arizona.

This episode was produced by Shoshana Bucksbaum. Check out some of our other favorites from 2025 at Science Friday.com slash 2025. Thank you for listening. I'm Flora Lichtman.