2 | Musical Elements

Ancient and Modern Voices

Peter Kun Frary

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The human voice was the first musical instrument. Making music with the human voice is called singing. A person who sings is known as a singer or vocalist.

Prehistoric Roots

The practice of singing predates recorded history, and, after untold millennia, is as popular as ever. Before the advent of written language (c. 3300 BCE), many societies preserved their lore through song. The combination of words and music made the contents more memorable than words alone. 

Country Trinity | Las Vegas | ©Peter Kun Frary

Based on vocal behavior of young children and our relatives in the animal kingdom, scholars have hypothesized that singing predates spoken language, appearing during the middle Paleolithic era or earlier. Indeed, there is some evidence for the idea that humans developed music first, thus providing the foundation for the development of spoken language (Moore, Kimberly Sena. "Which Came First: Music or Language?" Psychology Today, Sept. 20, 2012).

Vocal Anatomy

Singing depends on four coordinated groups of organs:

• Lungs, acting as an air supply.
• Larynx, functioning as a reed.
• Chest and head cavities, serving as resonating chambers.
• Mouth, forming and articulating consonants and vowels.

Pitch Control

Production and control of pitch are fundamental attributes of singing. Vocalists produce musical tones by directing air from the lungs through the larynx, causing the vocal cords to vibrate. Vocal cords, used to produce speech and musical sounds, are twin infoldings of mucous membranes stretched horizontally across the larynx. Vocal cords are similar in function to a clarinet reed: as vocal cords vibrate, they modulate airflow from the lungs for sound production. Vibrations resonate in the chest and head cavities. As one sings, the size of these cavities is controlled by muscles according to desired pitch, timbre, and syllables sung.

Vocal Cords | Laryngeal functions of a vocalist (2:51)

The voice is intimately tied to the rhythms and abilities of our bodies. Indeed, the genesis of musical phrasing—the length and grouping of musical ideas—rose from the idiosyncrasies of breath control. The voice is also connected to our verbal centers and singing has the distinction of fusing both music and words.

Timbre

Singers use their diaphragm, throat, mouth and nose to control timbre and articulation of vocalizations. Vocal timbres vary depending on abilities, taste, gender, register and style of the singer. Vocal timbres of Beijing opera and rhythm and blues are extremely different but use the same instrument, the human voice!

Liliu Project | Leeward Theatre | Photo, ©Peter Kun Frary

Vocal Range

A trained singer has about a two-octave range of pitches. Thus, most Western songs fit within a two-octave range. The low and high points of range vary according to gender, training and physical endowments.

The song, Diva Dance, is from the movie soundtrack for The Fifth Element. The first half (classical style) is "Il dolce suono" from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti. The second half, with pop rhythm section and written by Eric Serra, was supposedly composed beyond the range and ability of humans to sing. Hence the impossible was "sung" by a four-armed space alien in the movie.

For the soundtrack recording, Eric Serra hired opera singer Maria Callas to sing each note separately (not as a flowing phrase), and audio engineers assembled those individual notes in an audio editing program, resulting in a flowing whole. However, a few singers can reach considerably more notes than the normal two-octave range. In the video below, Jane Zhang proved them wrong and sang the unsingable live on  stage. At 3:20 in the video, Jane Zhang ventures beyond the normal soprano range and performs elaborate instrumental-like ornamentation of the melody, a technique known as coloratura.

Jane Zhang: Diva Dance | Soprano aria with coloratura vocalization | This song is from the Fifth Element soundtrack (4:46)

Vocal Classifications

Voices are classified into four basic pitch ranges: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Collectively these ranges are often referred to as SATB. A SATB choir is a vocal ensemble consisting of soprano, alto, tenor and bass singers. Soprano and alto ranges are typically sung by women, albeit boys can cover these ranges. Tenor and bass are normally the domain of male singers. Additional vocal ranges exist between alto and soprano—mezzo soprano—and bass and tenor—baritone.

Castrati

Adult male altos and sopranos, called castrati, were formally integrated into the choir of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by Pope Sixtus V in 1589. Women were forbidden to sing Mass, so prepubescent boys and castrati men sang soprano and alto in Catholic choirs until the twentieth century. Adult males maintain a natural soprano or alto range if castrated before puberty, hence the name castrato (plural, castrati). The cringe-worthy practice of castration for vocal enhancement was banned by the Catholic Church in 1903. The last known castrati Catholic Church musician, Alessandro Moreschi, music director of the Sistine Chapel, passed away in 1922 at the age of sixty-six. 

Because women were allowed to sing in Protestant churches—thanks to Martin Luther—castrati were not normally used in Protestant worship services.

Countertenor

Most male singers are unwilling to endure painful surgery or loss of family privileges for musical enhancement. Thus, countertenors—adult male singers—are trained to use their falsetto (head voice) to sing in the range of contraltos and mezzo-sopranos. Falsetto is lighter in timbre than castrati vocals but, when done well, is hauntingly beautiful. Countertenors are sought after for Catholic Renaissance choral music and Baroque opera roles written for castrati. Listen to Reginald Mobley, countertenor, sing “The Ship That Never Returned” by nineteenth-century American composer Justin Holland:

The Ship That Never Returned by Justin Holland | Reginald Mobley, countertenor, Doug Balliett, viola da gamba, and Brandon Acker, guitar (5:34).

Choral Singing

A choir, also called a chorale or chorus, is an ensemble of singers. Homer's Iliad (850 BCE) mentions choral singing so it's been around for at least 3000 years. Indeed, the chorus was an integral part of ancient Greek religious festivals and dramatic productions. European choral singing likely descended from Greek prototypes.

Choir and Orchestra | John Hamilton Mortimer, 1740–1779 | Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Overtone Singing

Although most vocal traditions revolve around singing one note at a time, some vocalists are able to sing two pitches simultaneously, achieving an effect similar to singing melody with harmony. This technique is called overtone singing or throat singing and involves singing a fundamental and selected overtone. The vocalist learns to selectively amplify vocal overtones by changing the shape of the resonant cavities of the mouth, larynx, and pharynx. While the explanation is simple, the technique of overtone or throat singing is challenging. Often overtones are considerably higher in pitch than used by Western vocalists, sounding far above the standard two-octave Western vocal range.

Mongolian Khöömii

Overtone singing, known as Khöömii in southwestern Mongolia, is believed to have a long and ancient legacy. However, as a folkloric oral tradition passed down through successive generations, the dates of the style’s initial appearance are lost in the mists of time.

Mongolia | Mongolia was once the seat of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in history. | Wikimedia Commons

Mongolian and Tuvan throat singers like to perform in dramatic natural environments, e.g., steppes of mountains, believing their song is spiritual and directly connected to nature.

Mongolian throat singing | Batzorig Vaanchig accompanying himself on an  ikili, a bowed chordophone similar to the rebab (3:53).

Khöömii and Cross-Cultural Exchange

Although southwestern Mongolia continues to be the epicenter of overtone singing, over the centuries, traditional Khöömii has spread to neighboring cultures. Presently, regional Khöömii styles are prevalent in Inner Mongolia, Tuva, Siberia, Tibet, Central Asia, and among the Inuit of North America. Interactions between different cultures involving the exchange of ideas, beliefs, practices, and goods are known as cross-cultural exchange.

Mongolian musicians, influenced by popular Western music genres, have been integrating Khöömii into progressive rock and metal styles, resulting in a unique blending of Mongolian and Western styles.

The Hu, Wolf Totem | The HU's "Wolf Totem" (6:36).

Finally, after centuries of isolation in Asia, the technique of overtone singing has been adopted by Western musicians and incorporated into popular song.

German Overtone Singing Demo | Anna-Maria Hefele (4:58)

Somewhere Over The Rainbow | Anna-Maria Hefele (3:11)

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Vocabulary

singing, soprano, alto, tenor, bass, SATB, mezzo soprano, baritone, choir, castrato, falsetto, coloratura, overtone singing, throat singing, Khöömii, ikili, cross-cultural exchange

©Copyright 2018-26 by Peter Kun Frary | All Rights Reserved

Preliminaries	Elements	Post-Classical	Discovery
Baroque	Enlightenment	19th Century	20th Century