subfundamental singing a la Leonardo Fuks...

For those of you who were interested and may remember a thread a
while back regarding "subharmonic" singing, there is link I'd like to
invite you to follow and hear Leonardo Fuks sing a fundamental in
tenor range - then access a subfundamental an octave below (f/2),
then f/3, f/4, f/5 and then back up through that "undertone" series -
all done very clearly and within a 20-second sound clip at his site.

Haven't been here in a long time - just wandered in and looked at a
few posts - good to see your presence here David Beardsley :-)

Please follow the link at the bottom of the sound clips page at our
site (spectralvoices.com) to Leonardo's site - choose clip #8 at his
site for an awesome vocal demonstration...

Enjoy,

~Jim Cole
Spectral Spiral Music
http://www.spectralvoices.com

Jim-

Thanks for a very interesting link. The original thread you refer to was in
response to your claim to be singing "undertones", in the sense of partials
below a fundamental following the undertone series. At that time, we
determined that that was in fact not what was happening, but rather that you
were dropping the fundamental in register and still producing an overtone
series.

The example you mention (#8 on Fuks' site) is similar, in that at no time is
there an "undertone" series of partials being produced. In this case, he is
"underblowing" his larynx to drop the fundamental, and indeed the
underblowing is causing this to happen follwing a u-tonal series. Why this
should be the case is very interesting, but in a way it makes sense based on
the mechanism he describes. Nevertheless, the spectrum at any given time
would show a normal overtone series in the sound.

Perhaps this is why you call it "subfundamental" singing, as opposed to
"undertone" singing?(although this word is used on Fuks' site, apparently in
reference to the Tibetan singing. I don't know why?)

If "subfundamental" refers to the "underblowing" effect, than I suppose it
is accurate, as long as it is not implied that there is any kind of
"subharmonic" spectrum being produced.

Dante

-----Original Message-----
From: jimcole@spectralvoices.com [mailto:jimcole@spectralvoices.com]
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 12:04 AM
To: tuning@egroups.com
Subject: [tuning] subfundamental singing a la Leonardo Fuks...

For those of you who were interested and may remember a thread a
while back regarding "subharmonic" singing, there is link I'd like to
invite you to follow and hear Leonardo Fuks sing a fundamental in
tenor range - then access a subfundamental an octave below (f/2),
then f/3, f/4, f/5 and then back up through that "undertone" series -
all done very clearly and within a 20-second sound clip at his site.

Haven't been here in a long time - just wandered in and looked at a
few posts - good to see your presence here David Beardsley :-)

Please follow the link at the bottom of the sound clips page at our
site (spectralvoices.com) to Leonardo's site - choose clip #8 at his
site for an awesome vocal demonstration...

Enjoy,

~Jim Cole
Spectral Spiral Music
http://www.spectralvoices.com

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jimcole@spectralvoices.com wrote:
>
> For those of you who were interested and may remember a thread a
> while back regarding "subharmonic" singing, there is link I'd like to
> invite you to follow and hear Leonardo Fuks sing a fundamental in
> tenor range - then access a subfundamental an octave below (f/2),
> then f/3, f/4, f/5 and then back up through that "undertone" series -
> all done very clearly and within a 20-second sound clip at his site.

Wow. It almost sounds like electronics (althought I know it
wasn't done that way!)

> Haven't been here in a long time - just wandered in and looked at a
> few posts - good to see your presence here David Beardsley :-)

Hi! I'm always here. It's been a while since I've been to your site,
there's a lot of audio I haven't checked out yet.

--
* D a v i d B e a r d s l e y
* 49/32 R a d i o "all microtonal, all the time"
* http://www.virtulink.com/immp/lookhere.htm
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

--- In tuning@y..., "Rosati" <dante.interport@r...> wrote:
> Thanks for a very interesting link. The original thread you refer
to was in
> response to your claim to be singing "undertones", in the sense of
partials
> below a fundamental following the undertone series. At that time, we
> determined that that was in fact not what was happening, but rather
that you
> were dropping the fundamental in register and still producing an
overtone
> series.

Yes Dante, I regret that my choice of term "subharmonic" led to no
end of misunderstanding (firstly in my own thinking about sound) here
and in other forums. I realize still that my motivation for using
that terminology then was based on the fact that in my and many other
people's voices the notes accessed downward from an initiated
fundamental almost always appear at the intervals you heard in Fuks'
clip and moving the tones around (almost)always happens in that
particular structure. The term itself is not so important for me as
understanding why the subfundamentals seem so very dependant on the
initiated fundamental. Several folks have noted that the fundamental
is one source and the subfundamental is another source - I am
comfortable with the term "subfundamental" to refer to the tones
generated with these odd vocal stylings yet the relationship of f to
all the subf's that succeed it is curiously hard to grapple with
apparantly. Just when I thought for sure the subf's were always
generated in some way by the originating f I heard Geoffrey Brown
(who sings with us) fry into a tone a major 6th below his
fundamental - it was very clear! - two days later someone at the
throat singing list described and found evidence for (thru
spectrogram analysis) subfundamentals being generated from a harmonic
overtone of the fundamental (his examples were f2/3 and f5/7 - I have
not heard the clip)...!!!! Ex: Geoff's tone may well have been
subfundamental #5 of harmonic overtone 3 (f5/3) - this poster's
theory totally blew me away because I never considered harmonic
overtones as sources for subfundamentals. So imagine: a subfund.
from a harmonic from a fundamental - that generates its own series!
The web gets quickly thick!!!

> The example you mention (#8 on Fuks' site) is similar, in that at
no time is
> there an "undertone" series of partials being produced. In this
case, he is
> "underblowing" his larynx to drop the fundamental, and indeed the
> underblowing is causing this to happen follwing a u-tonal series.

Okay, I accept there is no "actual" undertone series of partials
being produced, yet the relationship of tones accessed stepwise is
indeed curious! what does "underblowing" actually mean - what
process is referred to and why does this follow a u-tonal series?
Bernard Dubreuil (at ts'ing list) found through his research with
Tran Quang Hai that the subfundamentals are generated from the false
folds (periods presumably every other, every third...etc. pulse from
the true folds) by some people and as an alternate periodicity on the
vocal folds in other people (I suppose this depends on the "style"
used too).

Why this
> should be the case is very interesting, but in a way it makes sense
based on
> the mechanism he describes. Nevertheless, the spectrum at any given
time
> would show a normal overtone series in the sound.

It doesn't according to the folks who are looking at the spectrograms
generated. There seems to be two or more series "trees" - I cannot
assert this though as I haven't seen the spectrograms in detail.
>
> Perhaps this is why you call it "subfundamental" singing, as
opposed to
> "undertone" singing?(although this word is used on Fuks' site,
apparently in
> reference to the Tibetan singing. I don't know why?)

Yes, each subfundamental generates its own harmonic overtone series.
I knew this long ago from listening experience, but only recently
(due to another poster's comments on the ts'ing list) embraced this
terminology.
>
> If "subfundamental" refers to the "underblowing" effect, than I
suppose it
> is accurate, as long as it is not implied that there is any kind of
> "subharmonic" spectrum being produced.

Whatever's going on, it's a much different process than most vocal
sound generation and the sound quality is much different than the
sound of a bass singer or profundo guy getting down there. At any
rate, it's fascinating stuff to ponder and wonderful vocal sounds to
experience.

Thanks for your post Dante!

~Jim
Spectral Spiral Music
http://www.spectralvoices.com

Jim Cole wrote,

>Just when I thought for sure the subf's were always
>generated in some way by the originating f I heard Geoffrey Brown
>(who sings with us) fry into a tone a major 6th below his
>fundamental - it was very clear! - two days later someone at the
>throat singing list described and found evidence for (thru
>spectrogram analysis) subfundamentals being generated from a harmonic
>overtone of the fundamental (his examples were f2/3 and f5/7 - I have
>not heard the clip)...!!!! Ex: Geoff's tone may well have been
>subfundamental #5 of harmonic overtone 3 (f5/3) - this poster's
>theory totally blew me away because I never considered harmonic
>overtones as sources for subfundamentals. So imagine: a subfund.
>from a harmonic from a fundamental - that generates its own series!
>The web gets quickly thick!!!

What you end up with is the so-called "tonality diamond" with 1/1 as the
fundamental. You can also think of it as the set of harmonics of the
subharmonics. Either way.

Anyhow, while you were away from this list, I think, we had more extensive
discussions on throat-singing, and I suggested that this is simply a case of
non-linear dynamics as illustrated in most texts on chaos. Someone (I think
it was Dave Keenan) performed a computer simulation of a non-linear
dynamical system and found that, even in the totally chaotic region of
parameter space, the resulting spectrum seemed to always consist of
frequencies of the form f*(m/n), where m and n are simple integers.

>Okay, I accept there is no "actual" undertone series of partials
>being produced, yet the relationship of tones accessed stepwise is
>indeed curious! what does "underblowing" actually mean - what
>process is referred to and why does this follow a u-tonal series?

Because the period is always a multiple of the period of the "normal"
fundamental:

>Bernard Dubreuil (at ts'ing list) found through his research with
>Tran Quang Hai that the subfundamentals are generated from the false
>folds (periods presumably every other, every third...etc. pulse from
>the true folds) by some people and as an alternate periodicity on the
>vocal folds in other people (I suppose this depends on the "style"
>used too).

Yes -- either way you have a fine explanation of this phenomenon, which
ultimately derives from the non-linear mechanics operating within the vocal
tract, and which gives rise to this period-multiplying behavior. John
Starrett may be able to add something -- he's an expert on non-linear
dynamics.