Seen this video of Lalah Hathaway popping up on my Facebook feed.
Around 6:10 she does something rather unique with her voice – she sings chords as part of her scat! A little googling later and I’ve discovered this is a technique known as ‘overtone singing‘. From Wikipedia:
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic 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 the lips to produce a melody.
Here’s another, more traditional, example of overtone singing from Tuvan musician Kongar-ol Ondar:
Just…wow…
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