For decades I have known a technique of Western overtone singing that I heard perform only one time. Many singers use the technique on which it is based, which I call the L-technique, as their standard for singing overtones. But I suspect that this particular technique is unknown to most overtone singers. Since hearing the shimmering, glistening sound of this unique method, I practise it occasionally. Recently I notice it does not sound as clear as it used to, and so it is high time to share it with others, who then can also use it. I am now getting it back in shape again and will present this technique in a live performance as part of a longer piece, next month in my solo show In|nbalance in Potsdam. In this video I tell a bit more about it and show the technique.

I will give three workshops especially for Designing Voices in Potsdam about overtones and resonance stuffed with information and exercises about many overtone singing techniques, from various forms of Tibetan chant through Western techniques to Tuvan/Mongolian techniques.

So the technique has one clear characteristic that makes it stand out: it highlights two overtones while not sounding the overtone that is between them. This goes against the common wisdom of every practising overtone singer, which holds that you try to concentrate the sound energy in one clear, central overtone. With this little-known technique, it seems you sort of split this energy out again in two directions around one central overtone that you cannot hear. When normally you try to focus all energy on, say, overtone number 9, you now adjust your tongue so that the energy flows out to numbers 8 and 10, making both of them loud enough to be heard. A rather unusual procedure. Very characteristic is the combination of the seventh and the ninth overtones, leaving out number eight; and also nine combined with eleven (with number ten being inaudible). (For the microtonality / Just Intonation freaks and serious singers: more details about the overtone range at the bottom of this post)

For reasons I cannot fully fathom myself, I have never spoken to anybody about this technique: not with Michael Vetter, not with Borg Diem Groeneveld or with other overtone singers. Somehow it remained this special treasure all this time. It is possible others have heard it and know more: please drop me a line if you do. Since I do not know if Michael Vetter ever gave this technique a name, I need to come up with one. I usually think of it as the ‘parallel third technique’ but there can be a fourth in the low range and possibly seconds in the higher range. I find the parallel thirds the most striking element, however, so I prefer that name: the “parallel-third technique.”

Interesting detail: the storm created a special atmosphere in the church in Utrecht: this was also clearly palpable in the live broadcast itself. It was amplified by the storm we, listeners, heard at home, raging outside. This situation and the name Töne im Sturm is also very fitting for the theme of the In|nbalance program I am working on. Is it a coincidence that unusually strong winds are blowing around my place in Amsterdam for several days now, in September 2025, while I am working on this piece and this video? Every now and then the rain flies past my window almost horizontally. The wind produces ominous, low rumbles day and night; rustling sounds produced by thousands of leaves come and go in waves; and then there are the ‘ordinary’ sounds of wind, mid-range, between these high and low frequencies. Three stacked layers of sound. Just as in the parallel-third technique itself.

Michael Vetter with brezel (pretzel). Photo by Mark van Tongeren

The radio programme that featured Michael Vetter’s concert, baptised Töne im Sturm (‘Tones in the Storm’) by the singer, was De Wandelende Tak, which mostly featured traditional music from around the world, often original recordings by musicians, ethnomusicologists and other people with special knowledge of that tradition. I was a frequent guest myself in this program with recordings from Siberia, Mongolia, Kalmykia and other places. The overtone singing concert from Vetter was characteristic of the ambiguous status of overtone singing, because it is not traditional music, like the content of nearly all other episodes of De Wandelende Tak. The concert was organised by Diem Groeneveld, a long-time Dutch student of Michael Vetter and a fine overtone singer himself. Walter Slosse was the host who interviewed Groeneveld about Vetter before and after the concert, and it was broadcast by the VPRO.

This is my recording of the radio programme, made on a cassette and later transfered to the computer. There is a  silence towards the end for a short while, of which I am not sure at which stage it happened – probably during the A/D conversion.

After listening again, I conclude that Vetter’s technique was in an absolutely superb state at this point,

as can be heard  in all the ‘ordinary styles’of overtone singing. The parallel technique becomes clear particularly at around 12:45, and comes back several times later. 

Töne im Sturm.

Live radio broadcast for VPRO radio’s

De Wandelende Tak, mid-1990s.

Details about the range of overtones and their distances

For the overtone cogniscenti: the extremes on the recording of my own version are overtones ten and twelve, but I can go as high as twelve and fourteen, and as low as six and eight. Every time, the overtone in between them is not audible. Nearly all these combinations are variations of the interval of a third. The interesting thing is of course that every third is different, as the distance between the two tones grows smaller with every higher step on the harmonic scale. The H6 + H8 combination, my lowest combination, is a near-perfect fourth apart (497 cents, in case you were wondering), then next is the largest third H7 + H9 (a very large major third of 435 cents). The thirds progressively decrease their distance: the smallest and highest interval I could still sing clearly with this technique is a very small minor third of the overtones H12 + H14 (266 cents).

To hear this technique in its full splendour, come to Potsdam next month! And to learn more, I will give three workshops especially for Designing Voices in Potsdam about overtones and resonance stuffed with information and exercises about many overtone singing techniques, from various forms of Tibetan chant through Western techniques to Tuvan/Mongolian techniques. Check out all the details here.

For all workshop dates in Amsterdam/Potsdam/

Zürich/Vilnius/Ljubljana/Helsinki:

check my upcoming events page.

The post Töne im Sturm: Singing Parallel Overtones appeared first on Fusica.

Bovenal werd het een dag waarin allerlei prachtige reis-, muziek- en andere verhalen opgerakeld werden. Het was bijzonder omdat sommige gasten elkaar wel kenden van de radio maar elkaar nog nooit in levende lijve hadden ontmoet; en ook omdat het een soort reünie was rondom Walter’s legendarische programma De Wandelende Tak, dat in de 23 jaar dat het bestond (van 1984-2007) een grote schare trouwe luisteraars unieke verhalen muziek voorschotelde.

En toen kwam slechts enkele dagen later totaal onverwacht het bericht dat hij op reis in Lübeck overleden was. Ik was op weg naar Siberië en was alleen nog in staat op afstand een laatste groet te brengen aan Walter, middels de nu volgende herinneringen, die ook tijdens de begrafenis op 9 augustus voorgelezen werden.

…..paaaroooooleeee…… paaaroooooleeeee……

en dan die prachtige, welbespraakte, Vlaamse stem die op schaarse momenten vrijwel non-stop trancemuziek van over de hele wereld onderbrak. Het programma Senza Parole (‘zonder woorden’) bezorgde mij hallucinerende radio-uren, ook zonder de paddo’s. Ik raakte voorgoed verknocht aan Marokkaanse gnawa en Dr. John The Nighttripper; aan Griekse miroloi, Moondog en Sufi-gezangen, welke zó lang duurden dat ze wel nooit meer integraal op de Nederlandse radio te horen zullen zijn; en ik raakte ook voorgoed verknocht aan Walter zelf.
Ik ontdekte De Wandelende Tak, Walter’s wekelijkse prime-time radioprogramma gewijd aan musici en reizigers uit alle uithoeken van de aarde. Wonderlijke, dramatische en ontroerende verhalen over reizen ver weg en dichtbij, met vaak ongehoorde en onbekende muziek. En altijd weer die fascinerende, gloedvolle stem.

Mijn verzoek om meer informatie rond 1990 leidde tot een uitnodiging voor een bezoek aan de VPRO studio: de stem kreeg een gezicht, en er bleek een vrouw achter de schermen te zijn die evenzeer een drijvende kracht was achter de enorme productiviteit van De Wandelende Tak en andere programma’s. Walter Slosse en Magda van der Eecken leefden voor de radio, dat was duidelijk. Het waren gouden media-jaren (royale budgetten, en bijna alles mocht), en dankzij de tomeloze inzet en het alsmaar uitdijende netwerk van Walter en Magda stroomde er micro- en macrokredieten naar allerlei musici die anders nooit gehoord werden, tot ver buiten Nederland. Walter stak overal helpende handen toe en liep altijd over van nieuwe ideeën. Zo liet hij mij vorig jaar bij hem thuis een vernuftig zonnecellen-batterijpak zien dat hij in de jaren negentig regelde in Eindhoven, zodat Louis Sarno in het regenwoud maandenlang Pygmeeënliederen kon opnemen.

Een vroeg experimenteel model zonnepaneel dat Walter speciaal voor Louis Sarno bij Philips in Eindhoven regelde, zodat hij maandenlang het regenwoud in kon, onder andere om opnames van de Pygmeeën te maken.

 

Walter wist altijd een uitgebalanceerde koers te varen: hij gaf een stem aan onderdrukten, migranten en muzikale marginalen, maar dan zónder azijnsmaak, mét relativeringsvermogen en soms rake humor. Zijn dadendrang was gebaseerd op passie en overtuiging, en niet op één of ander post-koloniaal plichtsbesef. Hij bleef altijd op zoek naar de menselijke maat en had oog voor de breedst mogelijke context van muziek en cultuur.

Een sigaret losjes in de mond, nervositeit voor of tijdens de uitzending: het was ook duidelijk dat het wel degelijk een enorme inzet vergde om steeds weer met zoveel uiteenlopende programma’s, cd’s en concerten op de proppen te komen. Ik maakte me soms wel zorgen over de inspanningen die Walter leverde, maar het gesprek was eigenlijk nooit op hem zelf te brengen. Het ging over wat Walter om zich heen zag en hoorde, en wat hij vond dat er moest gebeuren.

Het afgelopen jaar viel mij aan niets te merken dat er iets mankeerde aan Walter: na een weerzien bij hem en zijn partner Eline thuis (zijn vrouw Magda van der Eecken overleed in februari 2012), hadden we regelmatig contact via Skype, blikten we terug en passeerden allerlei plannen de revue. Het leidde tot een door Walter en Heiko Jessayan georganiseerde bijeenkomst, nu slechts twee weken geleden: een geweldig weerzien van oude bekenden. Nog eenmaal kregen we de kans om deelgenoot te zijn van Walter’s aanstekelijke enthousiasme voor ongewone geluiden.

In maart van dit jaar publiceerde Walter een bericht over prachtige liederen uit de Catalaanse Llibre Vermell, uitgevoerd door Hesperion XX (‘Hesperion twintig’). Hij noemde het bericht Ad Mortem en haalt onder andere de volgende tekst aan:

 
Vita brevis breviter, in brevi finietur,


mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur.


Life is short, and shortly it will end;


death arrives faster than anyone fears.

 

Dat te lezen is één ding. Dat te voelen is iets heel anders.

De pijnlijke boodschap van die tekst drong vorige week pas echt tot me door, terwijl ik de hele dag naar de uitvoeringen op jouw blog luisterde.
 

 
Senza parole, zonder jouw stem en persoon moeten we verder, maar je stem zal nog lang nagalmen in de digitale ether. In Siberië, waar ik dit schrijf, zal er vandaag ten afscheid een keelgezang rondgalmen door de taiga, langs de oevers van de Jenisei.

 
 
 
En hier is die ode aan Walter die ik vorig jaar zong in Erzhei, Toeva, tijdens de keelzangreis die ik maakte met Taiwanese studenten.
 
 

Uiteraard zijn er sinds zijn overlijden meerdere getuigenissen van Walter’s bijzondere journalistieke carrière verschenen. Enkele oude bekenden uit de ‘wereldmuziek’ haalden herinneringen op in een speciale uitzending van Fred Gales’ De Klankbron, tezamen met muziekfragmenten die ooit te horen waren in Walter’s De Wandelende Tak.
 

Walter Slosse (l) en Fred Gales tijdens de bijeenkomst, een week voor Walter’s dood.

Een andere oudgediende van de VPRO, Peter Flik, herinnerde zich een amusant voorval toen hij met Walter door een van muziek verlaten Leipzig reisde. Er dook ook een filmpje op, gemaakt door een voormalig student van een sociale academie, die Walter in 1978 in zijn bezemkast filmde, waar hij een complete radiostudio had geïnstalleerd. Hoe dat ging staat in een blogpost van Ronald van den Boogaard.
 
 

Nog altijd te lezen zijn het blog Websporen, met dichter Rob Van de Zande, het blog Reizen met Charly dat Walter samen met zijn partner Eline Robin maakte, en het blog Charley’s Blik, dat Eline nog regelmatig aanvult, en waarmee de geest van Walter levend blijft. Walter’s boeiende biografie is na te lezen op Walter Slosse’s Alfabet. Op dat blog zijn ook talloze uitzendingen terug te luisteren, verwerkt in journalistieke bijdragen die tientallen jaren van Walter’s radiocarrière bestrijken. Daaronder is een uitzending die ik voor Walter maakte in april 1996. Te zijner tijd zal ik hier nog wat andere uitzendingen die ik met Walter maakte aan toevoegen.

The post Ode aan Walter Slosse (1947-2016) appeared first on Fusica.

It is about time I start to teach some interesting musical instruments. The first workshop will be about Jew’s harps (also known as mouth harps): the small instrument you put against your teeth or lips to let it vibrate and then resonate in your mouth cavities. It is one of the most typical instruments in which harmonics or overtones are the main sound material you work with. But unlike overtone singing, it is very easy to learn the basics of the Jew’s harp (at least, for some types or models). And yet the Jew’s harp can be a musically challenging instrument too, inviting you while playing to discover more and more. It can be mystical and secretive, folksy and dance-like, serious and subtle, humorous and erotic… It is really like a semi-electronic version of the human voice, only not from the digital age but almost as old as humankind.

Some of my Jew’s harps, made of wood, bamboo, bronze, metal. All, except one, from Asia.

There are hundreds  of varieties of Jew’s harps, which are indigenous to many peoples from the Eurasian plateau (Siberia, Europe, China, Central Asia), South and South-East Asia (Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia), Polynesia and other places.

Let me divert a bit before continuing about the Jew’s harp (or scroll down for the workshop details). My interest in overtones stemmed from the question: what is sound colour? I wondered about this in the late 1980s as a musicology student (after being rejected by the conservatory). Soon enough I would focus most of attention to the voice and continue to do so, to the present day. But the quest for this neglected musical parameter timbre naturally extended to all kinds of instruments: Jew’s harps, musical bows and mouth bows, bells and gongs, didgeridoos, singing bowls, and basically any stringed and wind instrument, as long as it was played with multiphonics/overtones/colouristic changes. (Writing some 25 years after my quest started, things have improved quite a bit: many more textbooks dealing with music and sound now pay attention to the role of sound colour and overtones).

Young girls with indigenous Jew’s harps djam. They typically do not show the Jew’s harp they play. Sapa, Northern Vietnam. (photo: author, 2003)

From my ethonmusicology studies at the University of Amsterdam, I already heard quite a few interesting examples. I also closely followed a Dutch radio program, De Wandelende Tak, where travellers brought their recordings and stories from around the world: amazing first-hand material, often unpolished, raw, but ever so authentic and impressive because of the stories of the travellers (musicians, music anthropoligists, but also many others). And surely there was the third source: records! Already a vinyl-junky (more because of funk, soul, disco and jazz music than “traditional” music, up to that time), I scourched archives, libraries, second-hand record stores and markets, to find gems from faraway places.

For the question of sound colour I was particularly amazed by a set of records by The International Library of African Music (ILAM), with recordings collected and selectively issued by the great Hugh Tracey. Tracey was ahead of his time, a true academic dedicated to collect, preserve, compare, describe and analyse the vast musical universe of sub-Saharan Africa, without (post-)colonial tendencies such as thinking the music would be inferior to our Western music (the world at large still suffers from this problem…). I discovered the ILAM records in the once-famous Ethnomusicology Center Jaap Kunst at the music department where I studied. The Center included a sound archive with many rare items. The ILAM LPs came with small cards for each song, giving few details that would explain what these pieces were about and what the instruments were like.

It was mind-boggling to hear, and read about, the wealth of instruments that African musicians (often ‘ordinary people’) had produced. The entire southern part of Africa seemed to buzz with unusual timbres, overtones and noises. Together with the material I found from Mongolia, Siberia and Tibet, I felt that a great gap in my own Western musical background began to be filled (I only later fully realised that in Europe one can find just as many instrumental varieties and colours, if one looks back far enough). The rare African records which found their way only to some selected libraries around the world, have been reissued now, by a fellow-Dutchman and musician, Michael Baird, on his SWP label.

Hugh Tracey with his Sound of Africa and Music of Africa LPs*

Most of the instruments I learned about while exploring timbre and overtones, I have never seen or learnt to play. There are some exceptions: I have been fiddling around with the Vietnamese dan bau (a special kind of monochord or one-stringed zither found only in Vietnam), the didgeridoo (yedaki in one of the indigenous terms), the igil or horse-head fiddle from Tuva, gongs, singing bowls and musical bows and mouth bows of the Xhosa.

Dan Bau (Vietnamese monochord)

Xhosa musicians (South Africa) with umrubhe mouth bows (third and fourth from left). Photo: author

But back to the Jew’s harp! I took to this instrument more seriously, because it is so prominent in Siberia,where I began to do much of my fieldwork. It is also easier to play, to carry around (like your voice) and to collect (Jew’s harp prices range from very cheap to very affordable). There are very fine examples of Jew’s harps produced and played in Tuva, the Altai and more robust from Sakha (or Yakutia), which is the world’s leading Jew’s harp ‘nation’ (the Jew’s harp is the national symbol of the Yakut people). Recently the irregular International Jew’s Harp Festival was held in Sakha: at that occasion more than 1300 players were recorded, playing simultaneously.

To hear how one of them sounds alone, have a look at one of the stars of contemporary Sakha Jew’s harp culture, Albina Degtyareva, playing her piece The legend of the creation of the world. (you can see her playing in the above video as well).

Obviousy, what she does is very difficult.  Mrs. Degtyareva plays what I call the Rolls Royce of the Jew’s harps, a top model made by master makers from Yakutia. Not quite the right model to start with. We will start learning with the Vietnamese djam/dan moi, the most easy type of all Jew’s harps, with a very crisp, beautiful sound.

WORKSHOP

In the one-day workshop you will get to know the Jew’s harp and learn to play it. You place it in front of the lips or against the teeth. It has a thin lamella, attached to a frame. After  plucking it, it starts to vibrate back and forth between the teeth and/or lips, producing  tones of many frequencies. The colour of the tones are defined by overtones or harmonics which can be clearly heard, and which change when the shape of the mouth is changed.

Although Taiwan boasts some of the most extraordinary Jew’s harps, made and played by the Tayal people, we will learn to play the Jew’s harp from a mountain tribe of Northern Vietnam, the Hmong. Their Jew’s harp is called djam, more populary known by its Vietnamese name, dan moi. In 2003 I traveled to Vietnam and witnessed the local Hmong musicians play Jew’s harps. I also purchase some original instruments from them. Nowadays most djam are produced by Vietnamese makers in the bigger cities, such as Hanoi.

Tuvan xomus (left) and Vietnamese djam made by Hmong makers (right),

with their cases. photo: author

During the workshop every student will get a djam to practice which you can take home afterwards, so you can continue to learn by yourself. During the day you will get to know basic techniques of playing the Jew’s harp and learn a lot about the cultures around this instrument in traditional, contemporary, folk, pop and art music. We will listen to recordings and I will play live examples of different Jew’s harps.

At the end of the day
* you have learned about an instrument you a) did not even know it existed or b) thought to be very exotic
* you will be able to actually play a new instrument yourself and
* you can bring it home with you.

Djam made by Vietnamese (Kinh) makers.

For whom: Anyone curious about music traditions, sound and voice, and learning to play a new instrument. No previous musical experience required.
Age: 10 and up
Language: English (with Chinese translation)
Date/Time : 18 October 2015. Time: 10 AM – 5 PM (Lunchbreak on your own (1-2 PM).
Place: Canjune Training Center, Daan
Price: 1500 NT$
Discounts: students 20% (bring your ID); a parent with a kid 20 % (3000 – 600 = 2400).

Interested? Get more inquiries from Mark (info@fusica.nl) or Yvonne (chichenlyv@gmail.com) or just register and we’ll send you the payment details. Or call us: 0910382749 / 0933178272.

Next workshop: Sound Journey: Art of Listening (Hsinchu, October 31/November 1)
Next next workshop: Vetter-Transverbal (Taipei, December 20)

In Sapa, Vietnam, 2003.

* Photo source: Diane Thram, ‘Performing the archive: The ILAM For Future Generations exhibit, Music Heritage Project SA and Red Location Music History Project’, IASPM 2011 Proceedings.

The post Workshop: learn to play the Jew’s Harp appeared first on Fusica.