Revenge of the Boring Man
My wife, when having trouble sleeping, would sometimes ask me to tell her about the overtone series. She needed something that would bore her to sleep and she of course knows that I’m a compulsive explainer.
Unfortunately for her, one night she made the mistake of actually listening to the explanation. Then it stopped working.
A couple of months ago, a video showed up in my YouTube feed. It’s linked below. It’s called Polyphonic Overtone Singing. I had a look. The woman singing was really good. It occurred to me that most people seeing this probably didn’t have a clue what they were watching so I, a compulsive explainer, having time, wrote a rather long comment: “For those of you who don’t understand what she’s doing….” I explained what harmonics/overtones are, that she was isolating them, that she couldn’t just pick any upper note because they had to fit into a series, etc. At the time I got a couple of likes and was informed by an email from YouTube that I had a comment. YouTube informs me about comments and likes, but they’re really not consistent about it.
This morning I had a like and, when i get a like on a YouTube comment, I drop in and see what’s going on, see if there are comments in the sub-thread I don’t know about, etc.
Fourteen new comments and 447 likes. People are apparently actually reading this. Sometimes if I get a lot of likes on something I’ll look at the comments around me. I’ll have a dozen likes and the guy before me has a couple of hundred. It can really depend both on traffic and on how early after a posting you comment. The last time I saw that video there were some others who had maybe a dozen likes while I had one or two. They’ve generally still got their dozen or so likes, so my likes are not due to just general traffic. By the way, 447 is way higher than I think I’ve ever gotten on a YouTube thread, probably better than double my next best total.
I guess that explanation is good for more than putting people to sleep.
03/26/2021 @ 1:55 pm
That’s just CRAZY. And it seems impossible. (I went to youtube but didn’t find comments,)
03/26/2021 @ 2:18 pm
To find comments you have to hit the YouTube label below the video. That will bring you to the site and that’s where comments are. My own comment shows up in the top of my feed but that’s because YouTube does that, so I don’t know where my comment would show up in anyone else’s.
03/26/2021 @ 6:27 pm
Admire the talent albeit my sincere trust is that sound does not gravitate to the filibuster annuals or in vitro experiments. Not the bustle in my hedgerow toward euphonious embraced tranquility. All year I’ve succumbed to that ‘glimpse news syndrome’; i.e. all this time on the dock to read, watch listen — wasn’t there an obnoxious Cuban experiment with sound effect (what was it ❓)
employed as an ambient “control” mechanism in order to disparage/rattle/roll GITMO? Then 48 hrs or such ago that ‘discard-comment’ that Red China ardently believes America is in decline? That is, along with inane Republican discourse/testimony such as Louisiana Senator J.NeelyKennedy’s attempted transition of the sane gun legislation conversation to ‘yeah-but’ let’s compare STATS of carnage/homicide/mass murder by militaristic ‘center shelf’ assault weapons to drunk driving mayhem?
Ontheotherhand silence encourages THEM.
Sincerely appreciate Anna-Maria Hefele’s VOICE! No doubt she justifies Wild Horses (or-pick-which-show-stopper) and please accept my apologies as I prolly meadered off-topic with my ‘onside kick’ for gun sanity and yeah, sure: please Utube Ms. Hefele with God Bless America!
She possesses that Dolly Parton home-home on the range charisma! Perhaps mellifluous also means one gets used to not getting used to it. Hey not even seven hours from MIDNIGHT.
No experiment=no progress. Know thyself and nothing to regress. I’d seriously fork over some of my hard-earned cash for her recordings. Man o man does Ms Hefele do Ms Joplin?
03/26/2021 @ 6:45 pm
If she does, not with lyrics while she’s singing two tones at once. The filtering needed to isolate the note is the same filter used to produce vowels.
03/26/2021 @ 7:51 pm
Y-ike-ster! You’re such a polymath koshersalaami…please be careful out there good buddy!
Praise God Earth Day is just around the corner (I’ve sunlight here 1st time in the past week. Tonight the Milwaukee Hoan Bridge will be lit with red/gold as loving memorial to victims of mass shootings — friends with balcony vista and I will seek reprieve with old records, Nikons — pack the car and go to Bowling Green daybreak &::SIGH::just::SIGH::). Life is not a lodestone!
03/27/2021 @ 1:21 am
I unfortunately can’t copy my comment from YouTube to move it. However, if you’ve watched this video I can give you a way to do a simple, crude version of what she’s doing, which is isolating overtones (also called harmonics or partials). The way I teach you will give you a high note much softer than the fundamental (main, lower) note. It’s extremely easy and takes under a minute:
Sing a note on the low side of your range. Doesn’t need to be near the bottom. While singing one note, say “wow” in very, very slow motion. You will hear a series of quiet flutelike notes go up while your mouth opens and back down as you close. She’s taking those notes, controlling them, and shaping her mouth differently to make them really loud. I can answer further questions if you have them.
03/27/2021 @ 8:58 am
I discovered something fascinating about this. I played this for my wife because she has been a member of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra choir for over 20 years. She has forgotten more about singing than I will ever know. I played it, and then sent it to her for her to listen. As she was playing it, I went upstairs to do something, and as I was ascending the stairs, I heard the higher note that the woman was singing. While I was down on the main level I only heard the lower note. I can’t explain it, but that is how I experienced it.
03/27/2021 @ 12:28 pm
I can explain it. The higher the pitch, the shorter the wavelength. The absolute maximum the wavelength of the overtone could be is half that of the fundamental but that’s not generally where she’s singing. She’s usually at a quarter wavelength or shorter.
One characteristic of shorter waves is that they’re more directional – their paths are narrower – and it’s harder for them to turn corners, but that’s only a piece of what’s going on and probably not the main piece. Short waves are easier to interrupt and easier to absorb. To help you visualize this, picture yourself on a dock on a lake. You look down off the dock at the end and you drop a pebble into the water. The ripples break up against the piling. Short waves. Then a motorboat goes past and its wake hits the piling. The piling doesn’t affect it. It just goes around the piling. That’s a longer wave.
As to absorption, there’s yet another factor going on: energy per cycle. A sound source has to move a certain amount of air per period of time to get loud. The lower the pitch, the fewer pushes the sound source gets per second (or any other period, but second is most used). That means every push has to move more air. That’s why bass instruments are bigger than coaches’ whistles, which also get quite loud but at high pitch. When you have short enough waves that there are a whole lot of pushes per second but each push is small, they become small enough that their energy can be absorbed by, say, carpet. Drapes. Upholstery.
You’re not hearing the high pitches because they’re not making it downstairs.
03/27/2021 @ 3:20 pm
Yo article is like a warm blanket in the ICU
‘best’ guess Monday’s Jeopardy: 61 Cygni
I dreamed of my poor old Poppie
(or is dreamt apropos)
personal: Beulah is finally home!
tractor-factor booked Beulah & the All Days
I may have ‘cured’ my Dr. Strangelove sindrome
I remain the designated champagne taster
koshersalaami:
U guise are the champs!
L☢;}
03/29/2021 @ 9:13 am
Absolutely remarkable. Two reactions: first i recall attempting to sing like that as a child. Not for any particular reason other than i was creative and probably in my own headspace, i enjoyed music and at some point i think i was trying to create that effect without knowing what i was doing.
Second listening to this made my throat tickle awfully .
03/29/2021 @ 9:19 am
PS
You and your wife appear to have a terrific rapport. And your title is hilarious.
03/29/2021 @ 10:14 am
We’re coming up on our 39th anniversary in a little over a month
03/29/2021 @ 9:22 am
You were doing great if you managed to figure out two notes were possible. I wouldn’t have known that until college.
03/29/2021 @ 11:20 am
I didn’t KNOW. I just did ….things….anything really. At that stage cresting wasnt intellectual. Or even thoughtful. Even now its impulsive, following an inner need or idea and tgen theres that vigorous soul bubbling business. 🙂
03/29/2021 @ 11:33 am
I gotta tell you – from my perspective singing two notes at the same time may be nearly impossible but its not a huge stretch of the imagination to try to do it if you spend any time musing and humming and making up melodies and lyrics etc. Particularly as a child. Its possible most child who loves singing or making music tries to do something like that.
What’s remarkable to me is there are singers who’ve actually accomplished this type of singing because exploring it has to create some mad nasal, ear and throat tickles and other stresses.
03/29/2021 @ 3:58 pm
I don’t know if it does.
I would think you’d have to trip over it by accident. Trying to sing two notes at once I’m guessing would involve doing very strange things to your vocal chords but how it turns out it’s done has nothing to do with that. It has to do with isolating a sound that your vocal cords are already making by changing the shape of your mouth cavity, mainly by moving your tongue back and forth.
I don’t want to tell you something you already know, so I’m sorry if I am. When vocal cords or guitar strings or nearly anything that produces a note vibrates, it doesn’t only vibrate along its whole length, it also vibrates in halves at twice the speed (an octave up), thirds at three times the speed (an octave and a fifth from the whole length note – called the fundamental, etc. So there are notes within notes. But your mouth can block most of them and let one through. That’s what she’s doing. It’s also how vowels work.
03/30/2021 @ 6:00 pm
The comment on YouTube has reached 500 likes. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be able to teach that many people about overtones.