Music and the Imagination: Overtone Singing

Did you know that it’s possible for the human voice to produce two notes at the same time?  It’s based on the physics of sound.  Practically speaking for musicians, this means that every note actually consists of multiple pitches.  We consciously hear the main pitch, the lowest or fundamental note.  The other pitches, called harmonics or overtones, quietly sound above the fundamental in an orderly series.

If the fundamental note changes the pitches above change, but the interval spacing remains the same for all notes.  Most of the time we don’t consciously hear these overtones, but they add richness and depth to sound.  Sometimes I’ll hear a kind of ghostly shimmer ringing above a well-tuned chord or as a pitch fades up into the high ceiling of our rehearsal room, but it’s in the background, a faint whisper of another world of sound.

But not completely in the background, for there are tribal groups that have discovered how to manipulate the overtones as they sing: Tuvans, Mongols, Tibetans, Pakistani/Afghani, to some extent Sami and Inuit, practice some form of overtone singing.  I first heard Tuvan throat singers years ago at a choral conference, and it was amazing!  As part of their singing they produced guttural drone notes with their voices, above which high whistling notes floated ethereally up and down as if disconnected to the earth.  They had discovered how to sing a fundamental note and cause various overtones to pop out by manipulating their tongues and mouths.  These men were producing two notes simultaneously!

Here is a web site by a Tuvan ensemble that demonstrates the various styles of throat, or overtone, singing.

http://www.alashensemble.com/about_tts.htm

Western composers have begun experimenting with overtone singing in some of their compositions.  Master Chorus Eastside is singing one such number in our Sound Imaginarium concert on March 10, and it does indeed excite the imagination.  It sounds other-worldly, mysterious, primal.

It’s challenging for Westerners to reproduce the sound.  It takes courage to step out of the comfortable and tackle something new, and it takes imagination on the part of you, the listener, to let go and let your mind roam free as you listen.  But what images it shapes in the mind!

And I’ll let you in on a secret; it’s really fun! 

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic Director and Conductor

Master Chorus Eastside