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Polyphonic Overtone Singing Explained Visually With Spectrograms
New submitter Tucano writes The overtone singer Anna-Maria Hefele can sing two notes at the same time. In her latest video, spectrograms and frequency filters are used to explain how she can produce two melody lines at the same time, and how she uses her mouth to filter the frequencies of her voice. When the voice produces a sound, many harmonics (or overtones) sound at the same time, and we normally hear this as a single tone. In overtone singing, the mouth filters out all harmonics but one, and the one that remains is amplified to become louder. This is then perceived as a separate tone, next to the fundamental. In her video, Anna-Maria shows techniques that become increasingly advanced. She shows the overtone scale (steady fundamental, moving overtone), the undertone scale (steady overtone, moving fundamental), parallel movement and opposing movement of overtone and fundamental, and even complex compositions with two separate melody lines.
That was very interesting, but I was hoping she'd also include some information about how she manipulates the resonance chamber physically to do the filtering.
If you're not familiar with Tuvan throat singing, check out the documentary Genghis Blues that follows blind blues musician Paul Pena on his trip to Tuva to compete in their throat singing competition.
From his bio:
Paul first heard a fragment of harmonic singing on a shortwave Radio Moscow broadcast on December 29, 1984 and he was so struck by it, he spent almost eight years trying to track down its source. In 1991 he was finally able to locate a recording of Tuvan music and taught himself the vocal techniques known as 'Khoomei, Sygyt, and Kargyraa'. In addition, he learned a good bit of the Tuvan language using English-Russian and Russian-Tuvan dictionaries and an obsolete 'Opticon' scanning device which translates text into sensations. In 1993, Paul attended a concert sponsored by the Friends of Tuva organization and met Kongar-ol Ondar after the performance. Paul gave Kongar-ol an impromptu demonstration--and astonished him with his talent and mastery of traditional Tuvan singing. The two men formed a strong friendship along with their musical collaboration.
In 1995, Kongar-ol invited Paul to sing at the second international Khoomei Symposium and contest, held in Tuva's capital city, Kyzyl. Ralph Leighton and the "Friends of Tuva" sponsored his trip.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
A few years ago I became interested in Kyrgyz folk music through the Smithsonian Folkways disc Tengir-Too . Like all Central Asian nomadic peoples, the Kyrgyz have cultivated the jew's harp, or kobuz. This instrument has only one vibrating element, and though it can produce only a single tone, the performer can create a variety of sounds through changing the contours of his mouth and lips. It's a humble instrument but so endless. During a trip to Kyrgyz, I bought a kobuz of my own, and though I'll probably never master it enough produce the virtuosic songs of the musicians on that disc, I'll certainly never get bored.
With the advent of technology, anyone can sing or play any instrument like a pro. Outside of a live performance, does it really matter?
It depends on what you mean by "play". I can "play" an MP3, and there is a fairly small step between that and programming a sequence into a synthesiser. Another step forward and I could sing with autotune or play an instrument that avoids discords. Then I could sing or play a conventional instrument. Having "instant music" doesn't make this pointless
With the advent of technology, anyone can sing or play any instrument like a pro.
In the same way that automatic garbage collection lets anyone program like a pro, yes.
This has been around for a long time (think 1000s of years). I suspect this particular video became popular due to her attractiveness and plunging neckline. That's not to say she isn't amazingly talented though. She most certainly is!
I think if you sat down with one of these software packages for a few minutes you'd quickly realize that having a top notch performance is the key to a quality end-product. Think of it this way. If you're photographing a model would you rather spend a half-hour having makeup applied (maybe it takes longer, I don't know) or would you rather spend many hours airbrushing and PSing the shit out of the final image before you can even start working on stylizing it for print and doing the 'normal' PSing? Same goes for music. You can create vocals and instrumental music out of thin air with software, but it takes a TON of work to get them to not sound like crap, let alone good.
I've been doing this since I was about 10yrs old. Clearly this woman is far far superior at it than I've ever been. At best, I can hold the fundamental and move the overtone around in a slide sort of way. The way she's doing stepping is amazing. When I started doing this, it was more of a magic trick to me. I'd say "Listen! I can have 2 voices at once!" I had no idea what I was really doing.
For those wondering how to do it. Imagine humming with your mouth open. You have to close off your mouth in the same way you do when you drink through a straw and then hum like that. The fundamental feels very nasally to the singer. It makes your sinuses vibrate.
To get the overtone, I put the tip of my tong, right behind my front teeth on the roof of my mouth like when I make an "L" sound. Then change the shape of your tong like when you say "La" or "Lu" or "Lo" but never remove your tong from the roof of your mouth. The shape of your tong for each of those phonics gives you different tones. That's of course, how I do it. And I'm totally untrained so take it with a grain of salt.
Why did people paint after the advent of cameras? The camera produces a far superior image!