stimmig – 10 Vocal Excursions – Documentary

15. July 2016/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

A documentary film about the diversity of human voice expression by Lena Giovanazzi and Daniel Büche: yodelling, overtone singing, buccal voice, laughter yoga, the sound repertoire of contemporary classical music, oesophagus voice, beatbox and animal sounds.

Cast

Christian Zehnder
Arjopa
Wolfgang Saus
Angela Mecking
Peter Krause
Michael Edward Edgerton
Angela Wingerath
Laryngeal Loss Choir León
Uwe Westphal
4xSample
PerformanceChoir for Experimental Singing Berlin

Crew

Lena Giovanazzi
Daniel Büche

Festivals and Awards

Open Eyes Filmfest Marburg 2012, 1st place Audience Award
36th Weiterstadt Film Festival, 2012
Festival Internacional de Cine de Puebla, Mexico, 2012
Kinofest Lünen, 23rd festival for German films
Soundtrack Cologne, Festival See the Sound, November 2012
Blue November MicroFilmFest, Seattle, November 2012, “Best Illumination” and “Best Vision”
Flensburger Kurzfilmtage, November 2012, Main Award Documentary Film
Filofest 2012, International Student Film and Video Festival Ljubljana, Slovenia
Bamberger Kurzfilmtage, February 2013
Contrast, the Bayreuth Film Festival, February 2013
Landshut Short Film Festival, March 2013
Emmental Short Film Festival, 18-20 October 2013

Harmonics in The Golden Compass Film Score

11. May 2016/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

The Golden Compass (2007)

Imdb

Direction: Chris Weitz

Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Right at the beginning you hear flageolet glissandi of an electric cello (using chorus pedal) blending with overtone singing by Michael Ormiston and give mystical soundscapes, in which individual instruments are difficult to detect. Alexandre Desplat in an interview with mftm: “I love to blend sounds together so you can’t really tell what instrument it is.”

In the film, this sound symbolizes the freedom from the system control (Magisterium), which is represented by the main character Lyra together with the golden compass, which predicts the future and reveals the truth. A very striking association, because harmonics shift the perception into the right brain hemisphere, and thus beyond the control from outside. This is the film adaptation of the first volume of the phantasy trilogy “His Dark Materials” by Philip Pullman.

Perhaps for this reason the film was panned by critics (for alleged “anti-religion”), which meant that the other volumes of the trilogy were not filmed. I like this movie very much, I saw it several time and recommend it.

Shamanic Biphonation with Animal Sounds

18. February 2016/0 Comments/in Oddities, Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

Olga Podluzhnaya presents from 1:11 biphonation, a unique two-part singing technique. Actually, biphonation is a vocal disorder. It is assumed that the left and right vocal cords vibrate at different frequencies . But here it is an artistic intention and certainly not pathological.

I did a sound analysis of my favorite part at 1:30 to 1:36. There you can see unusual things: the two tones produced at the same time have a gap of 324 cents between the major and minor thirds. This interval does not occur in the overtone series. So it’s really two separate sounds. But they have far too many overtones. The expected overtones are laid over the spectrogram as a diagram. And these can also be seen in the spectrum. But there are still more overtones in between, which cannot come from the two fundamental tones. I don’t have an explanation. Anybody have an idea?

Cosmos – Sunrise – A Cappella from Latvia

15. January 2016/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

The Latvian a cappella group Cosmos (2002 – 2009,2015…) is characterized by extraordinary sounds and own arrangements, including overtone singing, as here in “Sunrise” (Saullēkts). Their shows are also remarkable. More on their YouTube-channel.

Female Bass, Male Soprano

28. November 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

This duo from Tuva ensures disbelief, when suddenly the woman sings a deep bass and the guy singing three octaves above. And what a bass! She uses the Tuvan undertone singin technique Kargyraa. It produces these deep tones with both the vestibular folds and the vocal cords. The man sings the famous Sygyt, the whistle throat singing style of the nomadic peoples around the Altai Mountains.

Almost overtone singing… a genius beatboxer

26. September 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

Gene Shinozaki voice-performes his own composition Home in YouTube Space New York. The new generation of beatboxers starts using the formats purposefully – the art of western overtone singinger of the 2nd generation.

Overtones Over the Rainbow

11. September 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

The duo The Lady & The Cat with the overtone virtuoso Anna-Maria Hefele and the jazz guitar player Jan Henning bring here an interesting arrangement of the classic Over the Rainbow (The Wizard of Oz) by Harold Arlen (text E. Y. Harburg). Stuart Hinds’ polyphonic overtone arrangement from 2005 served as the basis for Hefele’s adapted version for female voice. I follow with excitement the development of my former student.

In memory of a dear friend

22. August 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

Stuart Hinds wrote this solo piece for our common dear friend, Honza (Jan) Šima, who unexpectedly passed away at a young age in the last year. Although the piece is very emotional, it is not intended as an expression of mourning. It will rather give room for memories and contemplation.

Jan was an enthusiastic and very good polyphonic overtone singer. He was a member of the European Overtonechoir and the Overtone Choir Spektrum, where we first met back in 2003.

https://youtu.be/2lHuSaqVy40

Epic overtones of Kalmykia | Okna Tsahan Zam

2. August 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

Throat singing from Kalmykia is limited according to Sven Grawunder on a single talented singer, Okna Tsahan Zam, who adapted the Tuvan khoomej for Epic songe of the Kalmyks. For that reason it is a particularly worth listening piece of music of the small Turkic people on the Caspian Sea.

http://dai.ly/x2z8c2l

Whole concert: Violons Barbares on the Paléo Festival Nyon 2015

28. July 2015/0 Comments/in Worth Listening/by Wolfgang Saus

The full concert of the group Violons Barbares with the Mongolian singer and Morin Khuur player Dandarvaanchig Enkhjargal (Epi) at Paléo Festival Nyon on 24/07/2015.