Hint and tips: Khoomei

Hello everyone,
I just had an idea to create this (hopefully) series of topics made for us to share our knowledge about throat singing (and overtone singing as well). In my own experience i've discovered, that anything might help you to begin and develop as a throat singer even if it's very unconventional. I've learned, that even the most "strange" tips may be very helpful for finding right techniques and styles. So share your own experience, knowledge, hints and tips for all kinds of throat singing (and overtone singing as well :)) and help everyone who visits this discussion to become a throat singer. Cheers

And here's my own tip on how i got a basic Khoomei style, focused on beginners: (and please Alzin do not ever and i mean EVER upload the "lesson" i gave you, please please don't do that:))

At first this was very strange to me but i've found out that it really works. In the beginning I was kinda stuck on dead point on my way to achieving khoomei because i wasn't able to find the right constriction. In the end it was easy like a feather (at least for myself). Basically I was just playing with my mouth and with my voice, and by some really strange coincidence i found the best constriction which works for me. Here's how you can do it:

With my mout open i kinda stretched my lower lip to one side (left or right, doesn't matter) as far as I could and then by making a sound with my voice the constriction just fell into it's place and i was able to get some khoomei voice. It's very hard to explain that sound of my voice. It's something between imitating a vomit sound and imitating Louis Armstrong while making constant "UAUAUA". You just need to practice on your own, play with your voice while your lower lip is stretched to one side (and put it back once you reach khoomei of course). Try out making different sounds. Hope this helps someone

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 23, 2011 at 6:40pm

Good start. This is going to be neat.

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 23, 2011 at 6:45pm

My tips for a beginner Khoomei voice include imitating Ned from South Park, the one-armed army vet guy that had throat cancer and uses a vibrator to talk, you know the one.

I also recommend pretending you are lifting a heavy weight and grunting, but on a constant note.

Exercising your constrictive musculature within the throat is important for maintaining sound quality, overtones come later...

Permalink Reply by Alzin on March 23, 2011 at 7:56pm

Ok everyone, here's the lesson Ivo gave me:
Just kidding. ;-)
What still helps me and where I seem to get nearer to khoomei is doing kargyraa and then stop the ventricular folds. Just take them away, and an almost-khoomei voice remains when I do that. But I'm not too close to xorekteer right now, it's just getting better slowly, unfortunately, I don't have much time for practise anymore...

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 23, 2011 at 8:54pm

You can exercise all the time though. Whenever I walk a hallway or ride an elevator or wait for a bus, I would hum or sing in constriction. Over time - yes, a long long time - a decent Xorekteer developed. That is training and drilling daily, all day, whenever I could, for a year. I estimate that I invested a total of 3 hrs a day over 350 days = 1050 hours of practice, however that is not all Xorekteer practice, strictly speaking. For the first 6 months there was a very large portion of time spent on Kargyraa, after 5 months, I probably could say I "got" Xorekteer, but I immediately neglected further training in favor of Sygyt, which suddenly worked, well better than before. Up until about just short of a year into training, I did Sygyt more intensively than Kargyraa even, when I hit a wall and went "back to the roots" of Khoomei and resumed training Xorekteer some more, this time with feeling.

My training regimen isn't suggested to me or derived from some sort of course manual or the like. I simply listen and imitate and heed advice for training techniques as I interpret it. A lot of my choices are influenced by my environment and real world schedule. My Khoomei never interferes with family life for instance. Nor do I have to decline overtime at the job because "I have to go to Khoomei practice", I can just practice while working, duh.

This is in no way ideal. A warning be to those who want to go "hardcore" on the training: You can overdo it. Easily!
I set no goals or deadlines, just went by a pace that felt adequate to my needs and greeds. Of course, I wanted to learn as quickly as possible, but it even took time to realize that it will take time... (um, that's confusing) and that no matter how ambitious you are and how hard you push yourself, you can't make your wife give birth faster, even if you are tired of waiting for the baby after 3 months.

I know folks that like Khoomei and have no interest in trying to do it themselves. Others wish they could do it, have tried and can't seem to grasp the basics. Others can do overtones, but don't ever amount to much of a Tuvan style singer. Some have learned much in 1 year, others are still beginners after 10 years of practice.

I highly recommend workshops such as are offered by Steve Sklar as they are a great way to meet like-minded folk and share ideas face to face, rather than download tag on the internet forums... immediate feedback is helpful, like the piano teacher slapping your fingers with a chopstick when you mess up an etude...

Permalink Reply by Ivo Romanek on March 23, 2011 at 9:42pm

Wow. I'm not sure if I am even close to khoomei now. When i listen to certain video with throat singing, I am able to imitate it, but it may be just a "ghost". I'll be uploading some of my latest samples in friday so you can hear what I'm talking about. Thing is i can't practice properly right now, because there's alway someone at our house and I don't want to make their ears bleed so...:) I'm gonna keep you updated with my progress

Permalink Reply by Alzin on March 24, 2011 at 5:31pm

I just imagined doing some kargyraa practise in my lecture at university. lol
Well, of course I practise as often as possible, it's just that now I got people around me more often, so I can practise less, but maybe still more than other people. I got a feeling that I am nearing xorekteer, I'll have to see if I'm right. No samples so far, it's just a feeling.
I'd really like to do a workshop, I'll have to see if one is nearby when I have time.

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 24, 2011 at 5:51pm

Well, I can tell you this: A year and a half into training, my Xorekteer is still changing and improving, who knows where it will end. It's more than just being better able to hit the overtones or holding long steady drones, the fine control over the constriction and various pulses and other complex interactions is improving alongside that.
I do, however still sound like a beginner most of the time. Sometimes, at rare moments, which is why I tape all the time, in case I miss something, I get a real good phrase out. Those are the ones I share. You can imagine how much audio litters my "cutting room floor".
I am still sifting through my recordings - I did make some Khoomei clips in various stages of constriction so to illustrate how it's supposed to sound. I just have not processed them yet.

Permalink Reply by Alzin on March 25, 2011 at 3:18pm

I wish I could tape all the time... I'm just not home often anymore. But I can practise outside, anomymity in the cities is a good thing... ;-)
I still feel like something changed over the last few days. I'll see if it lasts and what actually changed. Maybe I just started to practise in another way, I wonder where this takes me...

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 25, 2011 at 7:05pm

Exactly... that's what I'm talking about... give stuff time to manifest and develop, define itself, etc.

Do invest in a cheap portable digital recorder, they come in versions that take 48kHz audio in WAV or MP3 formats, hook up over USB and cost less than 15 Euros... it's like a reverse MP3-player, same size, replaced the dictaphone...

Permalink Reply by Alzin on March 26, 2011 at 1:51pm

Mh, I'll see if I can get one, would be useful. But then again I'd have to find some lonely, quiet place in the city, what is very difficult, it's quite noisy... Still, I think I have changed. Though I can't show anything, because I'm still testing and experimenting with this new thing... I guess I use my normal voice more, in a way, which would mean I constrict different... it's exciting.

Permalink Reply by Ivo Romanek on March 26, 2011 at 5:52pm

That's why I'm happy to live in countryside. So many quiet places :) Dan, could you please post a sample of your current Xorekteer? I am just trying something out.

Permalink Reply by Dan Zimmermann on March 27, 2011 at 8:57am

Alzin: The new dictaphones come with a variety of noise filters and compressors built in. The expensive ones can record sound that's right up close like when you're speaking right into it, but everything else is silent, for example stuff that's more than 60 centimeters away. That would come in handy, right? Make sure to talk to a salesperson, und laß Dir nix lahmes andrehen.
Also, I have recorded a new sample where I sing the same phrase repeatedly while slowly adding more and more constriction. I haven't listened to it yet, but I think you will be able to hear overtones even with clean normal voice. It's supposed to illustrate that you don't have to "drone" to do your scale drills.

Ivo: I wanted to find something about this network out before posting such samples here. I'd like to have the training samples available here, but I don't want them to appear in my playlist on my profile. I've been busy, so I have not yet looked into that. Send me a message with your email address and I will mail you whatever you would like of mine. I can't wait to find out what you're trying.