Harry Styles made a triumphant return with “Aperture,” the lead single from his fourth studio album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally.
The track blends shimmering electronic production with a gospel choir, and Styles uses a wide range of vocal techniques throughout the performance to create its smooth, emotional, and dynamic sound.
Whether you’re a fan looking to cover this song or a singer wanting to expand your toolkit, let’s break down exactly what’s happening in his voice and how you can start applying these techniques yourself.
Thyroid Tilt and Creating a Sung, Smooth Tone
One of the most prominent features of Harry’s vocal approach in “Aperture” is his use of thyroid tilt. The thyroid cartilage — commonly known as the Adam’s apple — tilts forward to produce a richer, more melodic sung quality.
Everyone has this cartilage, and learning to engage it is one of the foundations of a polished singing voice. In the opening section of the song, Harry pairs this thyroid tilt with a slightly lowered larynx, which gives the sound an almost jazzy, velvety smoothness.
It’s a subtle combination, but it’s what makes those first few lines feel so effortlessly cool and inviting.
Vocal Distortion and the Crackle Effect Using False Vocal Folds
As the song progresses, you can hear a bit of crackle or distortion creep into Harry’s voice. This gritty texture is created by engaging the false vocal folds — a set of folds located just above the true vocal folds in the throat. By gently tightening the area above the larynx, the false folds partially cover the true folds, producing that raw, slightly roughened sound.
If you want to experiment with this technique, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Start very lightly — the distortion should feel effortless, not forced.
- If you feel any scratching, catching, or the urge to cough, stop immediately and reassess your approach.
- Think of it as adding a thin layer of texture on top of your natural tone, not pushing or straining.
This is a technique that requires careful, guided practice, so working with a vocal coach is highly recommended before you attempt it on your own.
Breathy Singing and Microphone Technique
Throughout parts of “Aperture,” Harry introduces a significant amount of breath into his tone. You’ll notice during the performance that the microphone is held very close to his mouth, which tells us that his actual volume is quite low.
This is an important lesson for singers: breathy singing is not about pushing more air out. When the vocal folds are open, the air naturally escapes. The breathiness comes from the openness of the folds, not from extra effort.
Interestingly, adding a touch of constriction — using those false vocal folds we mentioned — can actually help create more tonal presence within a breathy sound. It’s a balancing act between air and tone that gives the voice a compelling, intimate quality.
Lowered Larynx Position and Quick Vocal Adjustments
Harry frequently lowers his larynx during “Aperture” to create a deeper, warmer resonance. This is especially noticeable when he transitions from higher, breathier phrases to lower, more grounded ones. At certain moments, he even drops his chin slightly, which physically helps push the larynx down for a quick adjustment.
It’s worth noting that lowering the larynx by pushing the chin down isn’t a long-term vocal strategy — it’s more of a quick fix during a live performance.
The key takeaway here is that a lowered larynx, especially in a male voice, doesn’t respond well to a lot of breath being forced through it. When Harry moves from a constricted, breathy high note down to a lower passage, the quick chin drop helps him reset cleanly and avoid tension.
Vocal Fold Contact and Chest Voice
Toward the end of the song, Harry shifts into a sound with much better vocal fold contact — meaning the folds are coming together more fully, producing a cleaner, stronger tone with very little air leaking through.
This is more of a chest voice quality with a slightly lowered larynx, and it gives the final sections a sense of weight and emotional resolution compared to the airier verses earlier on.
Building a Flexible Voice: Switching Between Vocal Textures
One of the most impressive aspects of Harry Styles’ singing in “Aperture” is his vocal flexibility — his ability to move fluidly between breathy tones, clean singing, distortion, and chest voice, sometimes within the span of a single phrase. This kind of agility doesn’t happen by accident. It requires deliberate practice, working on each texture individually and then training yourself to transition smoothly between them.
Key elements of building a flexible voice include:
- Practicing each vocal quality (breathy, clean, distorted, chest-dominant) in isolation first.
- Working on transitions between textures at slow tempos before speeding up.
- Developing a personalized training plan with a coach who can guide you step by step.
- Recording yourself and listening back to identify where transitions feel rough or uncontrolled.
Gospel Choir Elements: Twang and Lowered Larynx for Volume
“Aperture” features a gospel choir that adds a powerful, communal energy to the performance. Gospel singing often relies on a combination of a lowered larynx position and twang — a bright, resonant quality created by narrowing the epiglottic funnel above the vocal folds.
Twang is excellent for boosting volume and projection without straining, but it does come with a trade-off: it can remove some of the darker, richer tones that gospel music often calls for. Balancing twang with a lowered larynx is what gives gospel its distinctive blend of power and warmth.
Performance Tips: Managing Breath and Song Arrangement
During the live performance of “Aperture,” Harry occasionally leaves out a word or two at the end of phrases. This is a very common and practical technique for lead singers.
When a song has multiple layers of backing vocals — often recorded by the lead singer themselves in the studio — it becomes physically impossible to sing every single word live.
Dropping a word here and there allows the singer to conserve breath and maintain vocal quality throughout the performance without the audience noticing.
For singers looking to perform this song themselves, here are some arrangement tips:
- Consider singing the first verse and then moving into one or two rounds of the chorus rather than repeating it extensively.
- Change up the melody or feel slightly in repeated sections to keep the performance engaging.
- Don’t be afraid to shorten the song — a concise, dynamic performance is always more compelling than one that drags on.
- Use the repetitive chorus sections as an opportunity to build intensity or strip things back, rather than delivering them identically each time.
If you want to learn more about how you can learn to implement these singing techniques into your own voice, let’s sit down for a chat and discuss if the vocal academy is the right fit for you. You can join us here.