You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been asked this question:
Them- “Have you seen the documentary ‘Genghis Blues’? It’s about this blind American blues singer who learns to throat sing on his own and manages to get to Tuva for a throat singing competition.”
Me- “Uh…yeah…I was in it.”
For those of you who might not have heard of this one- It was made in ’95 for the International Symposium of Throat Singing in the Republic of Tuva, Russia. Paul Pena, the blind, black blues singer from San Francisco was famous for the song he wrote, Jet Airliner, recorded by the Steve Miller band. He’d discovered Tuvan singing via shortwave radio around 1990 or so. So he imitated it, and got quite good at the deep sound of ‘kargyra’.
I’d first met Huun Huur Tu, the Tuvan ensemble, back in 1993 at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. I jammed with them backstage and they invited me to the symposium then. Then the following year, while I was a tour member of Crash Test Dummies, I ran into them again in a TV studio in NYC. Again, I found myself jamming with them. It was in the cards that I was to go there, though it took several months of red tape. No computers, only aging Russian FAX machines.
Turned out I was the only female foreigner to perform (western overtone singing). They picked me to be one of the judges in the competition, along with several experts in various related occupations. It was a great honor, though I didn’t really feel so qualified to judge their own art form. They claimed that my style most resemble ‘sygyt’. The official competition involved around 100 teenage boys and a couple of girls. This took about 3 days to complete, so they interspersed the foreigners in the program (mostly for comic relief).
Paul was treated royally. The omni-presence of a somewhat eclectic film crew from California must have been quite amusing for them. As was the sound of American blues being interpreted through their ‘kargyra’. The film suggests that Paul won the kargyra category, but in actuality, it was more like an honorary prize. They nicknamed him ‘Earthquake’.
It was difficult to keep track of who was who in this fast paced contest. It was especially hectic when I had to leave my post and go up to perform, without any preparation. I leaped backstage, came up with a little acapella theme in about 10 minutes. Later on in Canada, I wrote the instrumental parts and recorded it on my first CD. It’s called ‘Tuva on Rye’.
The most rewarding part of the competition was seeing the grand prize winner ride off into the sunset on his new pony, dressed in his new national costume.
During the week, there were daily lectures by the likes of shamans, ethnomusicologists and scientific researchers. I enjoyed a presentation from a couple of young guys from Khakassia, with their ‘kai’ throat singing. It is like epics being channeled. The main singer just up and quit abruptly after a while, citing that spirit tapped him on the shoulder.
Oh, and getting back to that documentary- it was nominated for an Academy award. And if you watch it, you’ll see me near the end, on the stage wearing a white skirt, for about 8 seconds.
Here’s a photo gallery from the symposium.
Here’s an article written by ‘Living Treasure’ shaman Mongush Kenin-Lopsan for the Symposium. It’s about the origins of throat singing.
Here’s a video of Paul Pena performing during the documentary filming.
CommentThere are many female overtone singers out there now. Some of them are making great contributions to the art form.
Let’s start with the forerunners in central Asia, namely the Republic of Tuva.
Apparently, although it was ‘forbidden’ for women to throat sing throughout the ages, they did it in private, lulling their babies to sleep, or simply imitating what they heard the men doing all around them. The myth was that it would cause infertility or invoke curses.
Some of the girls that did it, believing there was nothing wrong with it, grew up to be well established as throat singing experts, touring the world. Luckily, common consensus these days has changed in this regard.
Sainkho Namtchylak is one of these, moving it into the avant garde arena.
Another example is the all female group Tuva Kyzy (daughters of Tuva).
Article #1: About modern throat singing and females, written by Oorzhak Khunashtaar-ool
Article #2: Perspectives on female throat singing
In the world of modern western overtone singing, there are now a few females making names for themselves. These women are proficient at the polyphonic style (pitches moving in counterpoint fashion).
Natascha Nikeprelevic has been a disciple and partner with the pioneer Michael Vetter, and is considered one of the best in her field. She also masterfully combines it with performance art.
Claudiha Gayatri Matussek (site in German)
Anna Maria Hefele is a young German woman who is quite accomplished at this style. Her and I are currently working on some collaborative pieces.
To listen to some more, here’s a recently released compilation of female overtone singers called Femineus.
Even though females, generally, are a bit more limited in the range of overtones they can comfortably isolate, those that stretch their ranges downwards have a lot more territory to work with. I, for example, used to be the soprano in a female trio, and after a few years, found myself in the position of being officially a tenor. I think the practice of overtone singing assisted me in lowering my range. I’m even singing some of the bass parts on occasion, albeit it’s not my best quality tone down there!
CommentI will be drawing your attention to some of my friends and colleagues in the field of overtone singing, who have done a lot of research on the topic over the years.
My guest blogger today is Mark van Tongeren, from the Netherlands, is an ethnomusicologist that I met in Tuva in ’95, at the International Symposium of Throat Singing. He is a doctoral candidate at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, and happens to be an accomplished overtone and throat singer of the Tuvan tradition. What I find exciting about his work is his approach to combining the scientific and artistic realms.
He has written an excellent academic book called ‘Overtone Singing’, which, from the title you can imagine- this is an all encompassing work about the topic as it occurs in very diverse ways across the globe. It covers the history, origins, various traditions of remote regions and prevailing perspectives of the world today.
Here is his blog, where I recommend in particular the post ‘Forum interview about Thresholds of Audibility’.
CommentWhen I launched HarmonicOvertones.com with my online overtone singing course, I never dreamed that my very first student would be such an adventurous spirit. Dreadlocked Juri Caniero is already a skilled throat singer in the Tuvan style. He even learned some of these techniques from an ethnomusicologist friend of mine, Mark van Tongeren in the Netherlands. After our initial Skype session, he moved to Mexico City.
He was interested in learning polyphonic singing. Not only singing two pitches simultaneously, but moving them around in counterpoint. This is something that is not really done in traditional Tuvan folk music. It normally is that a drone, or single pitch would be maintained for the bottom pitch. And it usually comes at the end of lyrical phrases.
We decided that we could combine these two techniques and create something brand new. Or at least ‘juxtapose’ them. We intend to co-create some music in this manner.
What came as a delightful surprise was how he is planning to present this to the world (initially, anyway). Presently he is living a nomadic life in a horse- drawn caravan touring around all the villages in Mexico. An old-fashioned traveling circus. This really stirs the imagination. I can already see it on the big screen, a la ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’.
For superb online training in Asian ‘khoomei’ throat singing, check the most revered Western teacher from the US, Steve Sklar. He is highly endorsed by the Tuvan masters.
Arjuna (US) also has a training program called ‘Harmonic Fuzion‘, which combines these traditions into a cohesive formula.
There have been pieces created which do combine western overtones and Asian style throat singing. For example, listen to Jerusalem Dream.
In this piece, you hear western overtone singing by Wolfgang Saus, and Mongolian throat singer Dangaa Khosbayar (Hosoo) about two thirds of the way through. Briefly, this throat singing breaks away from the norm by changing the fundamental at the beginning.
CommentNorthern Canadian Inuit and Tuvans both have throat singing traditions, although their forms have distinct differences. In some ways, you could say they are mirror images of each other in this regard.
For the Tuvans, it has traditionally involved men only from times immemorial. If women did it, they did it in secret, lulling their babies to sleep, even with the superstition that they would be invoking curses or infertility. Only recently have women been accepted to throat sing in Tuvan society.
For the Inuit, it has always been the women, in pairs, engaging in these throat singing games, to pass the time while the mates were off hunting. They face each other very closely, and make deep rhythmic grunting sounds into each others mouth cavities. It ends when one of them starts laughing. And in recent times, men have begun joining in with the women.
With both traditions having sounds from nature as original inspiration, these days, they have evolved into somewhat updated and popular forms for the rest of the world. The major contributors to this phenomenon are Tuva’s Huun- Huur-Tu, and Canada’s Tanya Tagaq.
I’ve experienced first hand some of the uncanny similarities between Canadian native elders and Tuvan shamans though. For some reason, unbeknown to me, I’ve been wholeheartedly accepted into their rituals, without even asking.
I’ll compare my (offered) spirit naming ceremony with the Ojibway elder in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with my shaman encounter in Tuva, Russia.
The Canadian elder wore an elaborate headdress, full of feathers and various animal bits, etc. His costume was colorful and beautifully embellished with native artwork. He was surrounded in the small room by large quantities of drums and animal paraphernalia on the walls.
He went into a ‘trance’ and sang and danced, chanting in a channeled kind of way. He hit a large frame drum. This went on for a few minutes, then he abruptly sat down and came back to normal consciousness, explaining what he had learned during his sojourn.
The scenario with the Tuvan shaman was IDENTICAL in all regards. Even their facial appearances were similar, with the same red pigmentation of skin. They could have been brothers.
It just so happens that Winnipeg is the exact longitudinal center of Canada, and Tuva is the exact center of Asia. You could probably dig a hole straight through the earth at one point and come up at the other. I think that’s pretty cool.
Tuvan shaman 1995
