Tibetan Overtone Chant (Throat-Singing)
Tibetan Overtone Chant is used by Tibetan Buddhist monks in order to spiritually unite with a deity. The sound created is polyphonically two or more notes originating from one voice at the same time. These voices are typically extremely deep and thus historically, women have been discouraged from this style of chant due to the vocal thickness needed to protect the throat from damage. There are many different forms of throat-singing and the allusiveness of the Tibetan monks has made it very difficult to understand each style's techniques and history. This investigation will focus on the overtone chant of the Gyoto monks alone.
Musical Links
1. Medium
2. Technical Versatility
3. Free-flowing Rhythm
2. Technical Versatility
3. Free-flowing Rhythm
Traditional Austrian Yodel
The basic yodel requires sudden alterations of vocal register from a low-pitched chest voice to high falsetto tones sung on vowel sounds: AH, OH, OO for chest notes and AY or EE for the falsetto. Consonants are used as levers to launch the dramatic leap from low to high, giving it its unique ear-penetrating and distance-spanning power. Bart Plantega
Traditional Austrian yodeling began with the early domestication of animals. Herders and shepherds needed an effective way to communicate with each other as well as with their livestock in the Austrian mountains. The traditional mountain call Almschrei is one such yodeling method. This style of communication emphasizes the strength of the human voice and its epiglottal stop. The epiglottal stop is an area in the human vocal range between the "chest voice" and the "head voice" or falsetto. This creates a distinctive break in the voice's output and is the focus of traditional Austrian yodel. However, with this core principal come many differing variations of sound using different vowels, consonants, and vocal shifts. This investigation will focus on the Almschrei style of yodeling from Austria.