Tuvan Throat Singing

(* not that that's how the Tuvans do it, just to get an approximation)

TMFTML
http://intonation.blogspot.com

Not unless the monks were Tuvan.

Look, people, throat singing that produces two simultaneous tones is a major component of folk song in many many different cultures around the world. It's not just a Tuvan thing, you understand?

It involves using the throat to produce two or more notes at once, and there are substyles of throat singing, such as "kargyra" which is when the singer maintains one very low note at least an octave lower than the shifting overtone/note. There's also the "sygyt" style, which is the more high-pitched alien sounding style that people may be more familiar with.

Check out Ghengis Blues, y'all! American blind muso Paul Pena teaches himself to sing kargyra, goes to Tuva, sings in and wins a contest, hangs out with Kongar Ol' Ondar, hella Tuvan-throat singing goes down. Plus, it's got the best cinematography of just about any documentary ever.

I'd like to know about any other cultures where throat-singing comes from, if'n you'd like to spread the gospel...

Also, Tibetan Buddhist chanting is pretty similar.

These are just a few off the top of my head.

The Buddhist chanting I wouldn't say so much, just 'cause they're each making a single note with their voices, but all of them in unison produce those dramatic powerful overtones.

I also had forgotten about the Bushman singing and the Australian aborigine singing and especially the Malaysian monkey-chant shit.

It's funny, all these really wild styles of vocalization all come from cultural backgrounds that are extremely old. I bet there's something there that folks smarter than me could elaborate on HARDKORR.

The Canadian Inuit thing I heard had singing that resulted when the women sang facing each other, using their open mouths and throats to produce resonance. It was fucking cool.

The tuvan method seems similar to what brass players can do as far as playing one note and singing another (see the tuba player for Youngblood Brass Band who does this constantly).

it's sound veryand much more sensibly

Great in throat-singing, awesome with digeridoo playing, amazing with Roland Kirk doing it out of 3 saxes at once.

Isn't Klezmer a hybridization?

Would like to hear some Ethiopian Jewish music, now that I think of it.

1993 or 1994, on Jon Stewart's show?

I'd like to know about any other cultures where throat-singing comes from, if'n you'd like to spread the gospel...

xthoughtstreamsx, a DC-area death metal/free jazz band, included some very guttural vocals that reminded me of TTS.

In the meantime, a couple years ago I saw a Tuvan band that combines throat singing with Western-style pop. I can't remember the group's name right now, but I know I can find it in the world music Rough Guide at home.

And absolutely see Genghis Blues. Totally essential.

Christoff - there are some musics in Europe that are indigenous to some cultures, and while Klezmer is definitely "Jewish," it shows a lot more outside influence than, say, Norweigian folk.

Hykes is fantastic. He and his "harmonic choir" can do things like sing melodies while moving the overtones in parallel, hold the fundamental but shift the overtone, or hold the overtone and shift the fundamental. Hearing Solar Winds is great.

approx'ly at the same time i also saw the Scottish drummer-improviror Ken Hyder, who'd around that time taken up throat singing; don't know if he has continued

Yat-Kha, Huun Huur Tu absolutely worth checking; as regards recordings, caution when chancing upon various remixes of their stuff - some of those are total crap-ups

It sounds like subterranaean throat clearing.

Acid Mothers Temple also do some (Japanese) throat singing. AMT ROCK.

I've a few CDs of more traditional throat singing by Shu De (on real world) and Gennady Tumat (?) which are both good but a little goes a long way as they tend to sound fairly simialr.

The first time I ever remember noticing it was on KLF's Chill Out as well. But it sounded kinda familiar already.

I don't remember it being a big thing in DVMA (I'll leave the vicar to explain himself) - I thought "Young Gods Play The Music of Kurt Weill" was the shorthand for "look how esoteric I am".

http://www.emusic.com/cd/10587/10587526.html

Wednesday the 4th of August obviously.

Actually I always though nose flutes was the lazy journalese for wacky exotica. Or maybe its because for me Tuvan music is a perfectly enjoyable and normal part of my listening so I don't read it the way normal people do.

This thread reminds me of one of my big dislikes about the state of categorization of music...the umbrella-term "world music", which is supposed to encompass all these completely unique individual styles of music the world around, from the frenetic drumming of Brazilian traditional music to the soaring qawwali-style of music of Pakistan to the creepy freaky Malaysian monkey-chants and so on and such.

As though the term "world music" really means "all that crap that Americans are too lazy to learn about".

Yeah, there's a good story here, which you may have read in Tuva or Bust! Feynman and his friend Ralph Lieghton decided, more or less on a whim, to visit Tuva because of some Tuvan stamps that Feynman had. This was before throat singing was widely known, much less a stand-in term for a whole swath of "ethnic" musics. And it was also in the cold-war days, which made traveling to that part of the world much more difficult. The whole story is pretty entertaining, and Ralph Leighton's name shows up on many projects and recordings of Tuvan throat singing, including the Folkways release which was the earliest I knew.

For more on the Feynman / Tuva connection online:
Friends of Tuva
The Tuva Trader

>Would like to hear some Ethiopian Jewish music, now that I think of it.

stence, check out the Idan Raichel Project, you can hear a couple snips here http://www.israel-music.com/?product=1270

This is a huge hit in Israel this year and is an attempt to mix up the music of the Bete Israel (the Ethiopian jews) with dub, more trad. Ashkenazi based folk etc.

Tuvan throat singing, Yat-Kha are great. The tour with the film was supposed to be amazing, wish i could have seen it. (Albert from Yat-Kha ust appeared on Susheela Raman's new album which includes a cover of an Ethiopian song so all connected.)

I saw Saintkho a cpl of years ago never having heard anything abt Tuvan throat singing, not even knowing Tuva existed, and was blown away. She was spellbinding, a stunning voice and commanding stage presence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/arts/music/kongar-ol-ondar-a-bewitching-master-of-remarkable-sounds-dies-at-51.html
RIP Kongar. One of the best live performers ever.

^^^Very sad, I just learned about this via a "notable deaths of 2013" blurb. This man was a legend. RIP "loud boy".