How to Pig Squeal (Bree)

Melanthy

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posted on 18 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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The pig squeal was developed in the mid '90s by grindcore and metal bands like Cryptopsy. It is now becoming popularized by metalcore and deathcore bands like All Shall Perish, Job for a Cowboy, Annotations of an Autopsy, Despised Icon, Dr. Acula, Misericordiam, and Suicide Silence, The Acacia Strain, Whitechapel, Knights of the Abyss, Gutted With Broken Glass, and many underground bands such as Thrash Skyward, Gentlemen! and SatanSkidMarks, just to name a few. [If you can find their music, they pig squeal in many songs. You'll most likely find them on Myspace]. There are different ways to achieve the pig squeal, but this article will focus on the inward method. This method is much easier and easily learned.

Steps

Breathe in heavily to get the feeling of what is required to perform this technique. (If your lungs hurt while you're doing this, stop immediately and find a different way to breathe in heavily without hurting your lungs. stay on the safe side)

Try breathing in heavily again, adding a raspy quality to the inhale. The noise that comes out should sound something like the stereotypical asthma attack that you'd see on a TV show or even the ghost in The Ring. After being able to create this harsh breathing noise, form different "oh", "oo" and "ee" vowels using your lips, and mouth while breathing. Some can achieve a better tone by manipulating the sound with their tongue. This is done by moving the tongue into different positions within the mouth, most of which involve making contact with the roof of the mouth with the back of your tongue.

Achieve correct lip and tongue placement to achieve different tones, the last step is to learn to "pull" in forcefully enough (still with the raspy quality mentioned before) to add a high-pitched squeal to the noise. You pull in like when you're sucking on a straw. That's how it should feel, but a lot tighter. You may think that this means that a pig squeal is always high-pitched, but this is not so. If you change your mouth position, the pitch of the squeal will change accordingly. Forming the shape for an "E" or sometimes an "A" causes it to be higher in pitch, while forming an "O" will drop the pitch.

(The only steps that actually need to be performed are the third and fifth, but steps one and two help to further understand, and warm up to this vocal trick conceptually)

Try to pig squeal while breathing in it is almost impossible to do breathing out. Just try to make your throat "tighter", and then breathe in. Use your vocal cords and make a "raspy" noise. You can also try to say the words "Quee" or "Bree" or any word that ends with "ee". After weeks of training, you can say almost anything! Warning: This will hurt your throat the first few times you do it, don't try too hard in the beginning. The more you do this the louder it will get. Don't try to impress people with it at first because your vocal chords are still developing and you might just have a little girl squeal.

Try doing this without breathing out, if you'd like. It is possible, but unlike the inhale, it must be done with a mic and over music. when making a deep growl at your next band practice, make a hard "R" sound and you will be amazed at the high pitch yell that comes out.