Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Re: International Throat Singing Festival

I attended the First International Throat Singing Festival this past weekend
in Montreal, and offer a report for those interested in overtone singing who
were unable to attend. Thanks to a serendipitous posting to the tuning list,
I followed a link to this festivals' site barely a week before the event,
looked at my calendar to see that it was my only free weekend without paid
gigs for two months, and immediately registered to attend the festival.

It was a really wonderful festival! The hosts organized a fabulous event.
There were three different workshops, each three hours in length and offered
twice during the three day weekend so you could create your own schedule. So
on Saturday morning I walked a number of blocks to Centre Pierre Peladeau
where I spent much of the next two days.

The first workshop I attended was Inuit throat singing with two native women
from Nunnavik, Sarah Arnaluk Beaulne and Lydia Etok. They talked for a while
about the history of throat singing and its place in Inuit culture so as to
give us all a contextual understanding of the tradition. They demonstrated
a number of beautiful pieces in traditional throat singing styles and then
proceeded to teach us some basic techniques. After we practiced for a while
they paired us up so we could try it, and they taught us a traditional song.
They finished out with a few more demonstrations and showed us some modern
"free-style" throat singing. It was a real treat, Sarah and Lydia were very
patient teachers, willing to freely share their knowledge and gifts. They
also laughed quite alot!, expressing the joys of making this music.

The technique is a bit hard to explain in email text, however the basic
technique is that you sing a vocal tone, then close the throat quickly,
creating a very low guttural sound. Then you sing another tone, then close
again. When done properly, this results in a rhythmic accompaniment to the
melody. They always sing in pairs, one woman sings a melody note while the
other woman makes the low guttural sound, then the reverse. The melodies are
created by interlocking parts, not unlike gamelan music. The two singers
hold each others' arms and sway back in forth, dancing in place, to set up
the rhthm of the song. WOW!

After a lunch break, I attended a workshop with two Tibetan monks, one of
whom is the chant-master from the Drepung Loseling monastery. He was
accompanied by a translator, as most of us probably didn't speak Tibetan.
The Tibetan style of teaching is very different from the teaching style of
the west, in a monastery, the chantmaster will simply demonstrate a tone,
and instruct the pupil to replicate it. If the student doesn't replicate
perfectly, the chant master will sound the tone again. Apparently, this can
go on for a really long time, years if need be, after all, if you're in the
monastery, you aren't going anywhere in a hurry.

The technique was explained that by closing the opening of the throat while
singing a note in your normal pitch range, this creates the low "undertone"
of the drone. The mouth is held in a tight O shape, with the lips extended
out a bit, this amplifies the harmonics. They showed us the technique, then
walked about while we practiced, checking each of us to make sure we were on
the right track. After a bit, I was able to get the low tone, albeit with a
rough edged, raw sound. After a while of practice, and a break, they taught
us the OM-MANI-PAPEP-HUNG chant, and we tried that for a while. Some people
attending seemed disappointed in their teaching style, however I just
accepted it as this is how they teach in the east, and set about to try to
learn it. I found it quite incredible just being in the room with the
Tibetan monks, I don't have words to express the sound and spiritual aura
that they created everytime they chanted.

The next morning, on Easter Sunday at 9 AM, I attended a workshop with Steve
Sklar, who teaches the Tuvan khoomei style. Steve is a wonderful, personable
and humorous teacher from Minnesota who has spent much effort deconstructing
the traditional techniques and is thus able to explain how to do them in a
very detailed way, well suited to analytical western minds. He talked for a
while to give us some background of how he learned khoomei, and showed a
short videotape featuring a few performers demonstrating their styles at a
throat singing competition in Tuva in 1995. He talked about the various
styles comprising khoomei, one confusing thing is that khoomei is both the
word for throat singing, and also one of the specific styles of throat
singing.

First he taught us the basic tone production of the khoomei style, by making
a guttural, croaking sound, then combining this with a vocal pitch in ones'
comfortable normal singing range, you create a harder edged vocal tone that
is rich in harmonics. Then you close your mouth to an O shape, thus enabling
one to sharpen the sound of just one overtone. Moving the extended length of
the full tongue inside the mouth brings out specific pitches in the overtone
series. Quite different than any overtone singing that I had done
previously, where I was doing vowel shapes to bring out different overtones.
In the khoomei style, you don't use the vowel shapes, except in the kargyraa
style, which he also demonstrated the basic technique. In kargyraa, the low
"undertone" is created in the exact same way as the Tibetan style, however
in Tuvan singing there is much more emphasis on producing the high
overtones. In kargyraa, vowel shapes u-o-ah-ay-ee are used in conjunction
with the low pitch to create melodies. Steve also demonstrated the sygyt
style, but this is pretty advanced, he suggested getting the hang of khoomei
for a while first before moving on to other styles. Needless to say, I am
breaking the rules and trying them all!, particularly the kargyraa style,
which is the one that I am the most enthused about being able to do. Steve
was a tireless instructor, he went almost an hour over the scheduled three
hour time!

I had not attended the concert of the Tibetan monks the night before, both
nights of that event were sold out, but when I went into the main hallway
after the morning workshop, they were getting ready for the ceremony of
consecrating the mandala out of different colored sands that they had been
working on all weekend. So I stayed for that ceremony, this is where they,
in the spirit of our human impermanence on the planet, undo the mandala,
sweeping all the sand into an urn, which is then cast off into a body of
water... This was accompanied by much chanting, and sounding of instruments.

Sunday night, after taking a hike in the parc de Mont-Royal for the
wonderful views of Montreal, I attended the final evening performance. It
started with a lecture by Brernard Dubreuil, who was also the organizer of
the entire festival. Although the hour long lecture was in French, and my
abilities in speaking or comprehending the language are limited to short
phrases and incomplete sentences with very questionable pronunciations,
Bernard is one of the best presenters I have heard, in any language. He
beautifully expressed the universal roots of throat singing, from a babys'
cry to a monkeys' screetch, to the chants of the Tibetan lamas. This was
followed by a performance by Steve Sklar demonstrating various styles of
khoomei. There was a wonderful moment while listening where I closed my eyes
and could see wonderful colorful auras.

After that, the evening was capped by a performance of the Globe-Glotters, a
Montreal based group of throat singers. They combine various styles of
throat singing along with didjeridu, jaws-harp, percussion and tenor banjo.
They are wonderful musicians with a very theatrical and humorous stage
presence. One of my particularly favorite combinations was to hear kargyraa
and didjeridu duets! Hmmm. I'll have to try this with my music partner.

Well, it was a truly wonderful event, and of course I ate plenty of
wonderful food while in Montreal. I unfortunately missed connection with a
Montreal based tuning list member, I hope we will meet in person next time I
visit. The only other negative part of the trip was that smoking cigarettes
is rampant in public places in Montreal, and it seems like absolutely
EVERYBODY smokes! (Oh well, reformed ex-smokers such as myself are the worst
kind, aren't we?). I certainly learned alot in the workshops, a few previous
misconceptions that I had about overtone singing were cleared up, and I met
lots of wonderful people. The Globe Glotters are willing to travel, perhaps
we could organize an event sometime in the New England area, and bring them
stateside.

Bye for now, I'm back to practicing my throat singing some more!

Seth

--
Seth Austen

http://www.sethausten.com
emails: seth@sethausten.com
klezmusic@earthlink.net

"Music is far, far older than our species. It is tens of millions of years
old, and the fact that animals as wildly divergent as whales, humans and
birds come out with similar laws for what they compose suggests to me that
there are a finite number of musical sounds that will entertain the
vertebrate brain."

Roger Payne, president of Ocean Alliance, quoted in NY Times

--- In tuning@y..., Seth Austen <klezmusic@e...> wrote:
> I attended the First International Throat Singing Festival this
past weekend
> in Montreal, and offer a report for those interested in overtone
singing who
> were unable to attend.

Seth,

Thanks so much for this wonderfully detailed accounting of being at
this festival! Greatly appreciated!

>
> The first workshop I attended was Inuit throat singing with two
native women
> from Nunnavik, Sarah Arnaluk Beaulne and Lydia Etok. WOW!

Wow indeed! This does sound mad cool!

>
> After a lunch break, I attended a workshop with two Tibetan monks,
one of
> whom is the chant-master from the Drepung Loseling monastery.

I had the wonderful blessing of getting to see them perform
traditional dance and chant a few years back, here in NC, and it was
one of the most beautiful and memorable things I've ever seen - these
are truly wonderful "peace people".

After a while of practice, and a break, they taught
> us the OM-MANI-PAPEP-HUNG chant, and we tried that for a while.

You couldn't have learned a more important chant!!!! This will clear
away the darkness if anything will.

I found it quite incredible just being in the room with the
> Tibetan monks, I don't have words to express the sound and
spiritual aura
> that they created everytime they chanted.

This was my impression as well. They just emanate peace - something
I'll never forget.

>
> The next morning, on Easter Sunday at 9 AM, I attended a workshop
with Steve
> Sklar, who teaches the Tuvan khoomei style.

I was amazed by all the sound clips they had on this site before the
festival. You were very lucky to be able to go to this Seth! Wish I
could have been right there with you!

Thanks again,

Jacky Ligon

Re: International Throat Singing Festival

🔗Seth Austen <klezmusic@earthlink.net>

🔗ligonj@northstate.net

🔗Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@anaphoria.com>