I heard that some people from around church were watching a DVD of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones (which is a totally awesome group…if you haven’t heard them, you should check them out) and I got to thinking about the time I watched that DVD and they had a tuvan throat singer on it. If you don’t know anything about throat singing, check out this website which is some white guy who went to Asia and studied how to be good at this kind of singing. He has some samples on there, and you may need a little intro before listening to them, because this isn’t your moms normal old music. This type of singing is something I learned about back in Music 133, and it involves a single person producing at least two and sometimes more pitches by utilizing the shapes their mouths, throats and vocal cords can make to produce harmonics. On some of the samples on the guys site it may sound like there is a really loud high pitched ringing…that is the high harmonic that most of our voices produce when singing, but somehow these guys learn how to make the shape of their mouths and throats amplify this sound. I don’t like the ones where the guy produces two really low growling notes, and if you look at his page titled “overtone singing” the one labeled “kargyraa” is like that and I don’t think it is very good. But to listen to the other ones you need to know that there is a rather loud low tone held by the singer and if you listen carefully (carefully for a couple and it is quite obvious for the others) you can hear a melody over the top of the low note. The best example in my opinion was the “two cavities” one and the “sygyt” one. The “two cavity” one sounds like a scale being sang over the low note, he goes up and down the scale, the “sygyt” one is some kind of a song. The “one cavity one isn’t as clear, but the first few notes have a solid overtone over the low note, it isn’t as high or loud as the first two. Be warned some of these files have a really high pitched overtone and it could hurt your ears when you check it out, especially if you are sensitive to really high pitches. The two I mentioned from that site are pretty safe. If you are having trouble hearing the higher pitches on those two try closing your eyes and listening…it always seems to sharpen my hearing when I close my eyes.
Anyway, this isn’t something that I expect everyone to be interested in, but it fascinates me, so I thought I would share. Also, if you hear me making weird noises, it is because I’m trying to learn how to do this kind of thing….if it drives you nuts…sorry, but deal, because I think it is cool.
Oh, and before I wrap this up, here is an article on the science behind how this stuff works.
I hope someone out there thinks this is as cool as I do…if you do, call me and maybe we can try to learn how to do this together.
And that concludes another segment of “Ben’s quest to learn how to do a little of everything”
Next week, I’ll attempt to learn to drive a combine. (It can’t be that hard…right?)
Dirk says
It’s spring right now. All the combines have been put away till next fall, so learning to drive one would be hard since there aren’t any around.
BigCat says
Damn…maybe a planter then.
Dirk says
You can’t drive a planter. It’s an implement. You can drive a tracter pulling a planter, though.
BigCat says
Can I drive the tractor and practice my tuvan throat singing, or is it difficult to drive straight down the rows, and I’ll have to concentrate on just driving?
Dirk says
That depends on how straight you want the rows. 😉