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
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