19.
Vowels and Formants III: Formants for fun and profit
(with
samples of exotic music)
Note:
This page has more information than can be comfortably handled in one sitting,
so be selective about which links you follow up on.
Harmonica
My
father Erwin used to play a mean (sense
5d) harmonica. When I was young, he'd sometimes entertain me by making his
harmonica "talk", imitating the famous talking harmonica piece, "I
Found My Mama", by Mattie O'Neil & Salty Holmes (Grand Ol' Opry Stars
of the '50's), which we used to listen to on an old 78 RPM record. Here it is
on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KXv6XMPDM0
By now you should know how this was done: formants.
You form the sounds of what you want to say in your mouth, then blow and draw
notes on the harmonica. The quality of the notes will be affected by the shape
of your vocal tract (mostly by F2, the formant space closest to the front of
the mouth), so a harmonica can seem to be "talking". It's not very
understandable as speech unless you know what to expect (it is after all missing
the back and other formants), but it is certainly amusing to listen to. Here's
another sample of a "talking (and laughing) harmonica" used in a Pepsi
commercial (source
page).
You can also listen to various harmonica effects in this MP3 file of pieces
by "Mr. Harmonica" Lonnie Glosson, especially in the "train"
piece. By manipulating the configurations of his vocal tract, the player changes
the quality of the harmonica's notes to imitate a train passing.
rm_files/PopTufTrain.mp3
Jew's harp
There are many other instruments in the world,
especially folk instruments, that make use of formants to produce their special
sound. One of the most famous is the Jew's harp. It's also been called the "jaw's
harp" or "jaw harp", apparently for reasons of political correctness.
But it seems it had nothing to do with 'Jews' or 'jaws' at all in the first
place; Webster's says it comes from the Dutch Jeugdtromp 'youth/child's
trumpet', though it's now called mondharp 'mouth harp' in Dutch. Here
are pictures and short descriptions of the Jew's harp; the second page gives
the word for Jew's harp in several languages:
http://dictionary.onmusic.org/terms/1826-jews_harp
http://www.jewsharpguild.org/history.html
Go to the following page and click on 'Hroong
Jew's harp' (125, 134) from Vietnam for a more exotic kind of Jew's harp music.
Also try the 'Dav dav bamboo tuning fork' (131), an instrument using the same
principle to produce its twangy sound.
http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=2657
Here are sound samples of many different kinds of Jew's
harps, including the 'morsing' and 'morchang' of Rajasthan, India:
http://mouthmusic.com/trumps.htm
Many
other countries and cultures, e.g. Norway
(sample
2) and Japan
(source page) have Jew's
harp traditions. Here's another sample of Vietnamese Jew's harp, the Tran
Quang Hai, accompanied by zither; two Finnish recordings, called Maanitus
(Persuasion), and
Metsäpelto d, with violin accompaniment; another Norwegian recording,
called Jesus
Thou Sweet Companion; here are photos of Jew's harps from Oceania;
and a lovely Medieval piece on the Jew's harp (gimbarde) and medieval fiddle
(vièle) called Cantiga
de Santa Maria 361 (local
file) by the Ensemble Perceval (source
page).
Mouthbow
Buffy
Sainte-Marie, a Native American protest singer popular in the 60s and 70s,
uses the mouthbow in several of her songs. The mouthbow has a sound similar
to that of the Jew's harp, and it works in the same way. Here
are instructions on how to make your own mouthbow. Here
are instructions on how to play it. Go to the following page on the Amazon site
and choose the songs "Cripple Creek" and "Ground Hog" to
hear Buffy accompany her singing on the mouthbow.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000000EB3/102-7267148-0659337
Demonstration of how the mouth bow is played:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkWMC2zS1fU
Buffy Sainte-Marie performs
"Cripple Creek" with mouthbow on Sesame Street:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXkM11kp_tg
"Groundhog":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5Hq0BoJ9hA
A CD of mouthbow music by salmon fisherman and
folk musician John Palmes from Juneau, Alaska, has since come out, in 2005 -
in fact inspired by Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Ground Hog"; here is an
NPR report on Mouth Bow: Small Voices:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4534703
Demonstration of how to play a "Ghost Catcher" (a mouthbow from Siberia):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eSG5RUs6zA
Mouthbow "gongo"
in concert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogzyam_yT_k
African mouth bow of Botswana:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TS0n81EG2Xw
Jimmy Driftwood: Run, Johnny,
Run, with an Appalachian "pickin' bow":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drRzgkI6Qm8
Pickin' Pete on his picking bow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjoZLJf6xtI
A
performance on the "Great Island Mouthbow" in Taiwan (2009) by Colin
Offord:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ThuYZmw11c
If Jew's harp and mouthbow music is your kind
of thing, try some of these MP3 and .wav files. A Google search will direct
you to additional interesting sites.
http://www.mouthmusic.com/audio/MP3index.htm
http://www.oddtones.com/MP3indx.htm
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jmnasim
http://www.jewsharpguild.org/Audio/useraudio/Andrew_ButlerDec2006a.htm
http://www.noteworthyjohn.com/mouthbow.htm
Nose flute
You
may want to play around with this inexpensive formant instrument: the nose flute,
available in US music stores for about 99¢. You breathe into it with your
nose, and it shunts the air through a narrow passageway into your mouth, which
you form into notes as though whistling, and you hear a clean-sounding whistle!
Here's a snippet from "New
Progression for Nose Flute".
http://mouthmusic.com/humanato.htm
Didgeridoo
A relatively high-profile native instrument that
uses formants is the Australian didgeridoo (you may see many other spellings
of this word). It is a long, stout tube (the far end rests on the ground in
front of the player) into which the performer blows, while manipulating formants
to alter the sound. Some modern rock groups have incorporated the didgeridoo
into their compositions. There are quite a few Web sites devoted to the didgeridoo.
The first page is a YouTube video demonstration of how it's played; the second
offers tutorials in didgeridoo techniques!
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC9w4KWEgJE
2. http://www.didgeridoostore.com/didgeridoo_howtoplay.htm
3. http://www.timelessproductions.com/didgeridoo-tutorial/part-1/
Here is a fascinating series of videos on didgeridoo,
including how it produces its particular sound:
http://www.ehow.com/video_2372094_a-didgeridoo-work.html
Tuvan throat singing
(Khoomei)
Formants
are exploited not only in talking and in instrumental music, but also in singing.
Of course we are hearing formants whenever a vowel sound is sung. But some national
groups have developed a method of singing a melody line (the fundamental frequency)
while at the same time producing a different melody at a higher
pitch with formants. The most famous of these are probably the Tuvans
of Tuva, Siberia in the former Soviet Union. They have performed on tour worldwide,
so you may have heard of them. Their CDs are not too hard to find in music stores.
Here's a sample performance featured on David Letterman's Late Show in 1999:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVyyhHFKI8E
Here are some spectrograms of overtone singing:
http://tranquanghaisworld.blogspot.com/2008/01/khoomei-sound-samples-and-spectograms.html
This article from the September 1999 issue of
Scientific American,
entitled "The Throat Singers of Tuva", will tell you all about khoomei,
or Tuvan throat singing (there is also a Mongolian version of this singing style
called xöömii). It used to be available for free, but now requires
a subscription. Here are the links in any case, if you can access them:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00080AA2-BA32-1C73-9B81809EC588EF21
Here's an article in the Daily Mail Online about
formant singer Anne-Maria Hefele, with a link to a video demonstration:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2786237/Hitting-high-notes-low-ones-Listen-woman-sing-two-notes-once.html
Enkh
Jargal at Musique du Monde at France Huun-Huur-Tu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwANedEkqaY
Here
is a tutorial on YouTube on how to do formant singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a940YFaRI50
And here's "Amazing Grace" sung with
formant singing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFWYSW4vfcA
This site has lots of information on Tuvan singing
and culture:
http://khoomei.com/
Xhosa and Californian
overtone singing
The Tuvans aren't the only ones who have developed
this style of singing. The first URL below links to a page on Wikipedia that
lists many of these traditions and styles, e.g. Xhosa;
the second links to audio samples of the Xhosa and other traditions of overtone
singing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_singing
http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/throat_singing.aspx
UMNGQOKOLO - Thembu Xhosa - OVERTONE SINGING filmed 1985-1998 in South Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYj-55T6Uzs
Umngqokolo - Ngqoko Village
- South Africa 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnVUGgys4EY
It
may be hard to believe, but there is even a Californian style of throat
singing! This page has some zip files of throat singing by blind singer Paul
Pena that you can download:
http://www.genghisblues.com/cd/index.html
Here are two more audio files of Californian throat
singing, "Midnight"
and "Ballad".
The Scientific American article mentions
that singer Arthur Miles used overtone singing instead of yodeling in his cowboy
songs! Listen:
http://khoomei.com/mp3s/amiles1.mp3
Here's a discussion on whether it was really overtone
singing or just humming and whistling - but in fact the latter basically comes
out to overtone singing anyway, and the speaker agrees it is indeed throat singing:
http://www.downhomeradioshow.com/2008/02/roots-of-the-otis-brothers/
Direct link:
http://www.downhomeradioshow.com/ShowMp3s2008/DHRArthurMilesThroatSing.mp3
If you have a little extra time and a lot of interest,
try this broadcast on "diphonic singing" from the Archives for the
Secret Museum of the Air with Citizen Kafka and Pat Conte (there's an interesting
recording of Bunun millet grinders from Taiwan):
http://wfmu.org/playlists/SM
One more example of multiphonic singing for fun,
involving vibration of the lips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWevUhY_jQI&index=2&list=PLqW5S1JFoBUn2WUwHqJiaebY39TtUwywv
Undertone singing and more
Here are some interesting audio samples created/collected
by Brazilian engineer and musician Leonard Fuks, who received his Ph. D. from
the Kungl Tekniska Högskolan (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm,
Sweden, and now teaches at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Fuks
has studied undertone singing, which he believes is produced by vibration
of the false or ventricular folds, just above the vocal folds, at half the rate
of the vocal cords. This results in a tone one octave below the fundamental
frequency produced by the vocal folds. Overtones can be produced at the same
time. Explore this page for more information and audio links:
http://www.speech.kth.se/music/publications/leofuks/leosounds.html
Note
the Popeye the Sailor link!
This
page has ended up a lot longer than expected, and it's just scratched the surface
of overtone music. There's plenty more for you to discover through the Internet,
CDs, books, magazines and even travel. So formants are a lot more than just something
technical to get through in the phonetics textbook!
Learning
to segment – and even read! – spectrograms has for most of us been a
completely new but very exciting kind of challenge. The next page will tell you
more about spectrograms, what kind of information they contain, what this information
can be used for, and how to read them.
Next: Getting
into spectrograms: Some useful links
on to next page back index I index II home