The Fredösphere

Overtone singing.  Throat singing.  What the heck do they mean?

Throat singing comes from diverse remote cultures, namely the Inuits, Xhosas, Sardinians, and especially the Tuvans (on the Mongolian border) who give the technique the very cool name of "Höömeï" (Dig those umlauts!) which is sometimes boringly rendered "Khoomei."  Typically, it consists of a low drone produced by the vocal chords in the normal way; then, the throat and mouth are manipulated to emphasize one or more overtones.  When done well, the volume of the overtones is startling, and melodies can by sung ("played" seems like the more correct verb here) with changing overtone pitches even while the drone stays constant.

Okay, what's the downside?  Singing a low drone for a long time can wear out the voice.  Beyond that, a technique that relies on overtones results in music that is fairly limited in pitch choice and range, just like it is when brass players use period instruments without valves.

Still, the effect is unearthly, not to say spooky.  It's been compared to a theremin; to me, it brings to mind a ring modulator, a classic filter from the early days of synthesized music, which has been used millions of times in movies to make voices sound robotic or demonic.  (E.g., the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica.)  Listen to the second track of this album.  If you dare.

I've never heard a throat singing performance, but I'm familiar with Tan Dun's use of it in his Water Passion.  The singers in that recording don't seem to be phenomenal practitioners of the art; heck, I can do what they're doing with little practice.  I suppose I have an advantage as a survivor of many voice teachers who obsessed over singing with a lowered larynx.  The idea was that a high larynx signals throat tension; what they didn't understand is that artificially holding the larynx down can generate even worse tension.  It also constricts the throat, creating a thin sound that can be misdiagnosed as a low, lazy soft palette.  Thus, the singer can get yelled at for "not working hard enough" even while he's tying the muscles in his neck into knots.

Yes, I'm bitter.

The Connection interviewed throat singer Yat Kha.  The Next Big Thing had a very nice piece on a throat singing seminar/jam session/happening in New York.  (It turns out throat singing is something of a cliché in NPR circles.)  You should also follow this thread in the Choraltalk email list archive, where they discuss throat singing and the related phenomenon of overtone singing.  Chanticleer, not wanting to leave any throat unturned, uses overtone singing techniques on its latest album.