Overtone singing

Overtone singing—also known as overtone chanting, harmonic singing or throat singing—is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the resonances (or formants) created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out of the lips to produce a melody.

The harmonics (fundamental and overtones) of a sound wave made by the human voice can be selectively amplified by changing the shape of the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx and pharynx. This resonant tuning allows singers to create apparently more than one pitch at the same time (the fundamental and a selected overtone), while actually generating only a single fundamental frequency with their vocal folds.

It is thought that the art of overtone singing originated from south western Mongolia in today's Khovd Province and Govi Altai region. Nowadays, overtone singing is found throughout the country and Mongolia is often considered the most active place of overtone singing in the world. The most commonly practiced style, Khöömii (written in Cyrillic as Хөөмий), can be divided up into the following categories:

Mongolians also sing many other styles such as "karkhiraa" (literally "growling") and "isgeree".

Many of these styles are also practiced around neighboring regions such as Tuva and Altai.

Tuvan overtone singing is practiced by the Tuva people of southern Siberia, Russia. The history of Tuvan overtone singing reaches very far back. There is a wide range of vocalizations, including Sygyt, Kargyraa (which also uses a second sound source), Khoomei, Chylandyk, Dumchuktaar, and Ezengileer. Most of these styles are closely related to the styles and variations in neighboring Mongolia.

Tuva’s neighbouring Russian regions, the Altai Republic to the west, and Khakassia to the northwest, have developed forms of throat singing called "kai", or "khai". In Altai, this is used mostly for epic poetry performance, to the accompaniment of topshur. Altai narrators ("kai-chi") perform in kargyraa, khöömei and sygyt styles, which are similar to Tuvan. They also have their own style, a very high harmonics, emerging from kargyraa. Variations of kai are called karkyra, sybysky, homei and sygyt. The first well-known kai-chi was Kalkin.

...
Wikipedia