Well, here it is mid-summer, and like a lot of you, thoughts turn to good times in the sunshine. Not so much studying singing, although if some of you are doing so, then bravo!
As for me, I will be away from the computer and internet for most of August. This means my time for blogging is almost non-existent, but I’m getting this one out there before the onslaught of travel/ teaching adventures.
What’s on my mind currently is how I integrate the teaching of ‘normal’ singing with overtone singing. This is what I’ll be doing for 10 days at Atlantykron, a wilderness island summer academy of learning in Romania.
Although my main focus will be on overtones and vocal freedom/ improvisation, there are several major cross-over points to deal with. There are too many to mention in a blog post, but here are a few, covered briefly.
* Care of the voice:
As with all singing, we need to properly warm up, be well hydrated. Overtone singing is no different in this regard. Though I often feel that overtone singing can be less ‘taxing’ than normal singing, we still need to prepare so that we don’t choke on the overtones! This involves getting a nice open throat, relaxing all the muscles surrounding the larynx….I like to focus on the lower end of our range, transforming a non-pitched sound down there into an extended sung pitch.
* Resonant chambers:
Of course, we are dealing with many of the same resonant chambers for both normal and overtone singing. The main difference is in how they are manipulated in the production of overtones, usually in more extreme ways. We need to know how they work in normal circumstances before we can start ‘bending’ the rules.
* Vocal Projection:
As with conventional styles of singing, we need to know how to be heard above the din, or without amplification at times. Similar concepts apply in overtone singing, but the main concern here is projection of the overtones so they are nice and clear, heard distinctly against the fundamental. Often we hear about ‘placement’ of the voice from vocal teachers, explained as concepts we are to imagine. This is to some degree what I teach also, but along with ‘directional’ ideas, I emphasize the use of certain consonants to graft onto the sound.
*The healing power of the voice:
I always say that all singing is healing or therapeutic, actually automatically. So whether one is singing normally or with overtones, they are ‘massaging’ themselves internally. This is further enhanced by the experience of having the vowels resonate in particular areas of the body, whether thought of as organs or chakra centers.
*Dynamics and vibrato:
These elements are essential to emotional delivery of the voice, in order to captivate your audience (and yourself!). Conventional systems of teaching these things certainly apply to overtone singing, so they are taught with further examination of having control over the dynamics/ vibrato of 2 separate pitches, i.e. having the overtone louder than the fundamental. I use the term ‘control’ loosely here, as I believe one has more freedom when one releases the idea of ‘control’ and lets natural, intuitive expression take over.
*Ear training/ Interval recognition:
Training the ear is essential in any kind of singing, not only to make the correct movements in melody, but to fine tune the ear for precision of frequency. The harmonic series, although it does not adhere exactly to piano tuning, for example, still trains us to focus intently to the tones inside our heads when we sing overtones. We learn to adjust our resonant chambers (and especially the tongue) to find the exact overtones we wish to emphasize. This has enormous benefits for any other kind of singing.
***
I hope you’re having a wonderful summer, and don’t forget to use those precious vocal cords at the campfire singalong.
CommentThere are some overtone or throat singing styles existing in ancient cultures I’d like to point out here. And although you can find oodles of info on each of these, I seek only to introduce you to some you may never have been aware of. (So how would you know what to google if you’ve never heard of something?)
Like other indigenous musical forms, some of these have even become endangered. The younger people of these societies are simply more drawn to popular western music and see the old traditions as being backward. The elders are in some desperate campaign to save them. Let’s hope they are successful.
The Xhosa women of South Africa have their own unique style.
Website
Audio
Dani singing- Papua New Guinea
Audio
Throat singing women of Bogaz Havasi (Turkoman technique)
Video
This style reminds me of the electronically enhanced singing of pop stars like Cher, with the quick and precise switching between tones, almost like yodeling. But it’s done naturally by these women, of course. I’ve heard something similar by Lioudmilla Khandi, whose singing you can listen to here. Her voice enters at 0:55.
Bunun male choir in Taiwan- harmonically rich, gradually ascending in pitch, called Posibutbut. It seems to be connected to a ritual.
Video
Sardinian singing of male quartets
I had the pleasure of jamming with one of the most well known of these groups at the polyphonic singing festival in Albania in /08.
Tenores di Bitti official site
Bashkortostan throat singing
Audio
Hope you enjoy all these links. I’ll bring you more later!
CommentToday’s blog is a report on my bizarre experience of being invited to the Polyphonic Singing Festival in Albania in 2008. I was the furthest away of all foreigners (British Columbia, Canada). The others were a small older group from Greece and Tenores di Bitti from Sardinia.
All the other singers were Albanian choirs, representing several variations of the national singing form- UNESCO proclaimed “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity”, otherwise known as Shqiptar-Iso-polyphony. You can learn more from this video.
What was fairly strange for these folks was the presence of a solo singer. How could a single person be singing polyphonically? As soon as they heard my overtone singing, there were audible bursts of ‘Aha!’ Now they understood that I was splitting my voice into 2 separate controlled pitches, moving in counterpoint.
Strangeness…well it abounded, firstly due to the location of this festival. It took place on a high hilltop, in a 3rd century BC amphitheater setting (the ancient ruins of Bylis). Most of the seating had eroded away.
Another odd element of my participation was due to there being no electricity. They would have been perfectly fine with all the rest of the singers, but my act required electricity/ amplification for my computer, keyboard and mic. They had to go and find the necessary equipment, a sound engineer and a generator (very noisy) to haul up there. I don’t think that they generally have a lot of experience with audio gear. Many of the Albanian choirs, deciding to take advantage of this new-found technology, had certain members almost screeching into the mics, creating a lot of distortion in the inadequate outdoor speaker system.
I was supposed to perform on the first evening. I’d asked for an 88 key electric keyboard that had a reasonable piano sound, as the 49 key one I brought with me was just for the looping and various effects. They found something, though it was less than 88 keys, with very complex looking controls. I had no time to figure out how to get a piano sound out of it.
So there I was, waiting to set up and get some kind of sound check with an engineer who spoke no English. It was worrisome that time was getting on, and the crowd was already large. The master of ceremonies proceeded to announce my name to start my performance when none of the set up had even begun. Panic setting in, I explained from the wings that it was impossible to go on.
The next day, I was able to communicate just enough with the engineer to make the sound work, in time for the afternoon concert. This was reasonably successful, and ensured that later that evening, things would go smoothly for the finale.
The most rewarding part of this whole journey was getting to hang with (and jam with) the Tenores di Bitti from Sardinia. They are a quartet of men performing a one thousand year old tradition of vocals which include rich overtones sung together rhythmically in immaculate precision. You can learn more about it at their official site.
You can watch a video mash-up of me performing in the Albania festival here.
Remember the grand entrance of Shirley MacLaine at the Academy Awards, when she descended from the rafters in a space ship? She is well known for her firm spiritual beliefs in reincarnation. Her books are very courageous, if controversial collections of paranormal personal experiences and observations that leave much of the public rolling their eyes. Being fully aware of this reaction, she poked fun at herself. And ‘endeared’ so many more to her in the process.
So, here it is 2011. I’ve always been fond of aliens. And from my experience as an overtone singer over the past two decades, I’ve felt like one myself. Overtone singing has yet to enter the mainstream. Even the awareness of such a thing existing has moved at a snail’s pace. My hat goes off to the Mongolian throat singing national treasure Hosoo, who was brave enough to go on a German ‘who’s got talent’ competition. In his debut performance, the looks on the faces of the audience were priceless: dumbfounded, eyebrows furled, jaws dropping and general confusion. His presence in such a popular phenomenon as these talent shows was testament to his confidence and vision to present throat singing to the world at large. We in the overtone singing community applaud Hosoo for his bravery.
Hosoo (also known as Khosbayar, with his instrumental partner Zolzayar) did go on to the semi-finals, performing Amazing Grace and a pop tune (by one of the judges). That certainly was an effective way to cinch their admiration. Watch it here.
I can relate somewhat, given an experience from my past while I was living in Tokyo. This was around 1991. I had a small group of overtone singers that got together every once and a while to jam on a rooftop. Prime time TV news got wind of this and decided to do a spot on us. For a whole day they filmed us, carted us around the city to various locations, including a park and a ‘science salon’. Here they hooked us up with electrodes to analyze our brain waves while we sang overtones as opposed to simply relaxing. When the feature aired, we saw that they had added a few elements of their own, presumably because they knew their audience. As the cameras were approaching the doorway of the house where the singing could be heard coming from, they superimposed some typical Japanese sci-fi B movie animated graphics and ‘doo, doo, doo, doo’ menacing music. A bit later, they alternately compared the singing of one of the men with a Japanese transvestite singing comedian. All in good fun. I appreciated the whole fiasco for what it was. Remember, this was way back in 1991. It’s amazing they paid any attention whatsoever to a few overtone singers.
Speaking of aliens, I created a little video with this theme in mind- The Adventures of Samson: Alien Overtone Singer.
CommentThe development of a notation system for overtone music has not reached unanimous agreement as to standardization. Since the earliest composers of western overtone music started immortalizing it on paper, most of them have more or less invented their own way of conveying it.
In the late 60′s, early 70′s, both Folke Rabe and Karlheinz Stockhausen had elaborate scores that more resembled hieroglyphics to describe ‘events’.
Stockhausen did not rely on numbers of harmonics, and instead used a system of vowels according to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Coming up to the present day, with a few more polyphonic overtone composers on the scene, it is beginning to take some shape that skilled overtone singers can follow.
The way I write has the following components:
*The overtone part, whichever range (SATB), has two staves, with the lower representing the fundamental pitches
*The upper stave represents the pitch of the overtone
*The overtone pitches have diamond shaped heads
*The numbers beneath the fundamentals represent the numbers of the overtones in the harmonic series
*The upper stave notes (pitches) are usually written one or two octaves below the actual sounding pitch. This is for convenience of sight reading, and our ears tend to perceive them as being lower anyway.
*The upper stave uses the treble clef with a small 8 above it to indicate the pitches sound an octave higher.
*In some cases, the treble clef with the number 15 above it indicate the pitches sound 2 octaves higher.
The number system used for the overtones has generally come to agreement that the 2nd harmonic is the octave above the fundamental, the 3rd is the fifth above that, the 4th is in the 2nd octave, etc.
Tuvan throat singing, as it appeared in their folk music, was never formally written down. It was not until the latter half of the past century that attempts were made to transcribe it by outside music scholars. Understandably, it was quite a difficult and obtuse representation that included numerous odd time signature changes. I’m sure that the original singers of these ‘pieces’ of music never once considered these elements.
Here’s some transcribed scores of a few of the Tuvan styles and sub- styles, with titles in Russian.
part 1
part 2
Other modern composers you can check out are:
Christian Bollmann (Germany)
Stuart Hinds (USA)
Baird Hersey (USA)
Sarah Hopkins (Australia)
And especially exciting for all you modern overtone singers (and aspiring ones) is a collection of 8 free scores of my music for overtone choir. I hope you will learn your parts (either regular or overtone parts), and join the virtual choir.
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