Stuart Hinds, the master of polyphonic overtone singing, has recorded a beautiful interpretation of Johannes Brahms’ Lullaby and Goodnight. You can download a simpler version of it here in sheet music and practice it yourself.
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.
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
Lena Giovanazzi
Daniel Büche
“Ode to Joy”, overtone singing by Wolfgang Saus inside an MRI.
This spectacular dynamic MRI video shows how the tongue moves during overtone singing. The melody of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” is created by double resonances which are shaped by the tongue in the mouth and throat. Overtone singing is based on the combination of the second and third resonance frequencies of the vocal tract on a single frequency to increase the volume of a single overtone from the vocal sound.
The second resonance frequency is controlled by the base of the tongue along with the epiglottis. The third resonance frequency is regulated by the space under the tongue, which is larger than it appears in the video, because it also spreads to the side of the tongue frenulum, which covers the space in the image. Overtone singing requires constant fine tuning of the two resonance chambers.
It is not easy to sing in the very loud magnetic resonance tomograph and even record the sound. The noise level is so high that I had to wear hearing protection and couldn’t hear my own overtones. I had to sing by feeling. That the right melody came out is spectacular in itself. It shows that it is possible to develop a body feeling for the exact pitch of the resonances that also works without acoustic control through the ear.
The team in Freiburg has developed highly specialized equipment for recording and filtering. Of course the sound is not HiFi.
MRT footage with kind permission and a big thank you to:
University Hospital Freiburg
Clinic for Radiology – Medical Physics & Institute for Music Medicine
https://fim.mh-freiburg.de/
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Richter
Prof. Dr. Dr. Jürgen Hennig
Prof. Dr. Matthias Echternach
(c) 2015
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.
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.
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.
Carmina Slovenica is an exceptional girl choir from Slovenia, or, as they themselves call their performances: Vocal Theater. With overwhelming choreographic charisma the teenagers present here an incredible diversity of vocal techniques and choral traditions from Estonian ancient spells in setting of Veljo Tormis up to overtone singing from Sarah Hopkins. Toxic Psalms of Karmina Šilec was premiered in 2013 in Berlin. Absolutely thrilling.
In addition to the above-featured performance TOXIC PSALMS Carmina Slovenica sing and dance / play extremely different programs, including overtone singing. Presumably, the ensemble is better known for its spectacular performance of Karl Jenkins’ Adiemus (no overtone singing):
The Italian jazz musician Albert Hera, who refers to himself as “Sound Teller”, is a specialist in experimental voice and choir improvisation in the style of circle singing. I really like this little video sample, that allready gained more than 10,000 views on Facebook (June 2015). He demonstrates a vocal range from gigantic 5 octaves in the few seconds, from A1 till G#6, higher than the top tone of the Queen of the night by Mozart, using undertone singing, overtone singing and whistle register, in addition to this a funny musical arrangement.
Source: Facebook – Albert Hera
Fu Acune is the name of a new duo by Natasha Nikeprelevic and F.X. Randomiz. Electronic club music combined with vocal art. On the track mhmmhm Natasha Nikeprelevic uses her crystal clear overtone singing.
https://www.facebook.com/fuacune
Dean Frenkel is one of my favorite overtone singers. His clear, sparkling cleanly homophonic overtones bring out the special effect of the natural intervals in harmony with classical instruments particularly impressively. In “Iridium” he sings the 5th harmonic, the natural major third, to the minor third in the instrumental part, which I like very much in this piece.
In my overtone singing Masterclasses (year groups) I teach my students to avoid this conflict and to skip the 5th and 10th harmonic in a minor setting, or to replace them with polyphonic fundamental tone changes. Because almost all, even professional overtone singers improvise on the overtone series simply uncontrolled up and down, without even realizing that the natural major third is in conflict with a minor accompaniment, which I mostly do not like. Especially if the keynote becomes unclean, which usually happens.
I don’t know whether Dean Frenkel sings this interval in the composition consciously and deliberately, but I suspect so. Because of the fact that he sings his keynote so clean, the special effect of the 86-cent hovering of an equal-tempered minor third to the natural major third unfolds to a pleasure for me.
The film by cinematographer Murray Fredericks, producer Michael Angus and editor Lindi Harrison belongs to the SALT project, saltdoco.com, and shows in fast motion the miraculous change of Lake Eyre in Australia, which is rarely filled.
The music is from Dean Frenkel’s former group Aajinta – Dean Frenkel, Jason Day, Michelle John.
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