For me, the outstanding part of this week’s discussion was the brief explanation of throat singing and the importance of pitch to the perception of speech generally. I suppose that it’s obvious to some that the vowel sounds of sung speech (singing) carry the pitch but it’s one of those things that I have never before considered and was therefore able to greet the knowledge with a “hey, wow” kinda attitude. Throat singing is an amazingly technical vocal style – check out this website which has a good explanation of some of the styles from different parts of the world and how they’re accomplished, as well as demonstration videos and links to similar sites (assuming you can be bothered of course).
Khoomei types
There is also a reference here to one Arthur Miles, obscure country-singin’ cowboy and a recording he made which features throat singing in a country and western context (dating from the 1920’s) – waaaay cool. So, have I been sitting here mouthing away at different droney vowel sounds in order gain a first-hand understanding of the relationship between changing harmonic series, tone colour and vowel sounds...? You’ll never know.
Listen to some throat singing
References
Stephen Whittington, Lecture, Loudness and Intensity, 29/05/087
http://khoomei.com/types.htm
viewed 03/06/08
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