Overtone Singing: Harmonic Dimensions of the Human Voice
by Mark Van Tongeren (Music 783.092 Ton)
It’s not often that you find a
music book that combines music history, ethnomusicology, performance practice
and technique suggestions, and inquiries about the spiritual nature of music,
but you can find all of those things in the unique book Overtone Singing: Harmonic Dimensions of the Human Voice
by Mark von Tongeren. There hasn’t been a lot written about the kinds of voice
techniques covered in this volume, but this exhaustive book takes a look at all
aspects of the practice, which is often referred to as “throat singing.”
Perhaps you’ve seen the old movie “Genghis Blues,” in which bluesman Paul Pena
travels to the Russian Republic of Tuva to compete in their annual
throat-singing competition. That’s one of the few times that Western culture
has been exposed to this unusual singing style, though there are pockets of
performers who use similar techniques around the world. Let’s talk a little
about the book, and then listen to some music using overtone singing
techniques.
At its core, throat singing or
overtone singing uses some non-western techniques to create ways to vocalize
multiple pitches at once. The lowest tone becomes a sort of droning fundamental
note, and using one of several techniques, a singer can then cause overtone
notes related to that fundamental pitch to become audible. If you’re not
familiar with overtones, imagine holding a trombone or trumpet for a moment,
and playing notes by changing your embouchure, or lip position, rather than
moving the slide or valves to change notes. This is how “Taps” works, played by
bugles at many funerals — all of those notes in that song are overtones. In the
case of overtone singing, you can hear those overtones and a lower fundamental
note simultaneously, and you can usually change the overtone notes while
sustaining the fundamental.
The introduction to Overtone Singing is a fairly personal one, which
is probably a necessity in this situation. After all, this is a fairly obscure
musical technique, practiced only by a few small societies — how did a
professor from the Netherlands come to write a book about it, become an
authority on it, and practice these voice techniques himself? Briefly put, the
author felt the need to personally explore the intricacies of timbre while
studying musicology, and found himself eventually imitating the sounds of other
cultures which led to directly studying Tuvan throat singing in the mid-1990s.
It’s interesting to consider the implications of this for western music
students, though — in the west, our music focuses heavily on melodic and
harmonic conceptions, and then rhythm secondarily, and perhaps timbre — the
sounds and qualities of particular instruments — a distant tertiary
consideration. If you start looking into timbre more directly, and considering
variants on it, including the sometimes insect-like sounds involved with throat
singing, doors to different kinds of musical approaches start opening up!
The first main part of the book
addresses technique, illustrating 7 elementary techniques that the author has
studied that all lead to the ability to sing overtones. There are detailed
drawings and descriptions of how it should feel, where breath is being
directed, tongue and jaw positions and more. Considering that one isn’t likely
to bump into a teacher of these techniques in our area, I’m curious if this
information is enough to learn how to do this, and I plan on trying this out
myself! But do heed the warnings discussed here, too: these techniques can be
pretty strenuous on your voice, so if you do try this out, go slow and listen
to your body.
Part 2 focuses on Eastern musical
traditions where throat singing is common. This part is broadly divided into
two sections: Tuvan practices, and everyone else. The people of Tuva have been
singing in this style for centuries (perhaps millennia — records of their
immediate neighbors to the south in Mongolia mention throat singing during the
Han Dynasty, 200 BC), and they’ve arguably developed the most complex
expression of the technique, and it’s more a part of everyday life even in
contemporary Tuva. Author van Tongeren discusses throat singing in Tuva
partially from a personal perspective, as he spent three months there in 1993
as part of his research. He includes biographies for several of the notable
throat singing teachers he worked with, highlights the role of this music in
the everyday lives of Tuvans from several social strata, and discusses some of
the contemporary ensembles carrying on the traditions in a more public-facing
manner.
Outside of Tuva, there are several
other cultures who have used similar techniques. The Mongolians, immediately
south of Tuva, have a similar tradition, as do Tuva’s neighbors to the west in
the Altai Republic. Other parts of the world mentioned include the Turkish
Bashkirs of the Ural Mountains, the chanting of Tibetan monks, some specialized
harmonizing traditions among the citizens of Sardinia, Italy, and the Xhosa
people of Cape Province in South Africa. I did find it interesting that the
Inuit peoples of Northern Canada and Alaska weren’t mentioned, as they have a
throat singing technique somewhat reminiscent of the Xhosa, but perhaps they
don’t focus enough on the overtones that can be produced to be included in the
author’s definition of overtone singing.
Part 3 of the book addresses the
contemporary use of overtone singing, mostly by Westerners who add aspects of
these sounds to contemporary classical music. 20th C. composers such as La
Monte Young and Karlheinz Stockhausen started incorporating overtone singing
into their works for compositional reasons, and this led to some vocalists
taking on throat singing techniques as part of their skill sets, such as
Demetrio Stratos and Joan La Barbara. For composers and performers in this
field, these sounds were (and are) generally treated as special sound effects
in the extended-technique category of performance practice, as opposed to the
more all-encompassing embrace of throat singing by the various cultures who
first started practicing it. Then there were Western artists who approached
these sounds from a more spiritual perspective, likening them to sacred
practices, such as Michael Vetter or David Hykes. In all of these cases, the
techniques are being used for perhaps different reasons than their original
inventors had in mind, and though the book doesn’t mention this, there have
been times in recent history where ownership of these techniques and their
resultant sounds have been called into question by indigenous groups who have
long practiced throat singing. In 2019, for example, the well-regarded vocal
group Roomfull of Teeth, along with Caroline Shaw, composer of “Partita for 8
Voices” which they were performing, were accused of cultural appropriation by
Inuit singer Tanya Tagaq, because some passages of the piece sounded like
traditional Inuit music. So if you choose to incorporate some of these
techniques into your own music, be sensitive to those issues, too.
The final part of the book, simply
called “Metaphysics,” explores the spiritual connections that many performers
and listeners experience with overtone singing techniques. I found this portion
of the book to be most impactful in describing specific connections to the
historical use of such techniques in many cultures, but some of it also treads
into New Age musical territory, asserting that such practices have healing or
therapeutic properties. One thing that’s worth considering is that throat
singing techniques are generally pretty draining on performers: they require
intense breathing control, sometimes even circular breathing techniques, and
the sounds produced can be loud and resonant, causing performers’ bodies to
vibrate with the sounds. These relatively extreme conditions can certainly lead
to performers having unusual experiences, especially if they’re performing for
extended periods. As to how effective these sounds are on listeners, there is
certainly historical precedent for using them with the intent to heal or calm
listeners. How effective they are, especially when presented as specific
“healing sounds” for particular ailments or organs, though, is probably up for
more research and debate.
All told, Overtone Singing is both a fantastic introduction
to the history and practice of throat singing techniques, and as thorough a
manual and ethnomusicological catalog of music made this way that’s been
published so far. If you’re curious about this music and want to know more,
you’ll definitely find interesting avenues for further study, practice, and
listening in this book.
(If you enjoy this, you may also
wish to try Genghis Blues by B.B. King or Throat Singing in Tuva by Michael Richardson.)
( publisher’s official Overtone
Singing web site )
Recommended
by Scott S.
Polley Music Library
Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
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