Multiphonics and gender

[Henry Gertcher]

My disclamer: I am a really bad singer and probably an average tubist. That being said I will throw in my two cents.

From what I know about mulitphonics is that they were originally played on French horns. I forget who was first atributed to playing them or where I read it so I can research it right now.

My experience is that by playing a note, say C below the staff and singing the perfect fith above (G) you can hear both notes and you can get an E to sound above the note being sung. I don't remember the exact physics behind this but it is all relative to the harmonic series. The same thing can be performed at a piano. A neat trick to try is to hold down a key without sounding the pitch; say the G below middle C and play the C below the bass clef staff. Hit the note hard and release the key immediately. You will hear the G clearly. This will work with most of the notes in the harmonic series.

I guess MP would include any sung note either above or below a played note however I have only used it to build a chord. It does work if the difference between the two notes is more than an octave but I have never been able to tune them to hear the third. That being said, I guess it would depend on the effect the composer was going for. It could be for building a chord or for singing a melody over a constant bass note or for more of a growling effect. So I would say that it is not a gender issue but more of a vocal range issue. One last thought, I would say it is sexist for the composer to assume a vocal range for a performer but I couldn't blame them for writing for a bass or low tenor voice as it is my experience that there are far fewer female tuba players.

Henry Gertcher

[Steve Marcus]

One example that comes to mind immediately is Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who added lots of spice to his flute solos with multiphoncs.

Hmmm...Just remembered David Amram effectively playing Pakastini flute with multiphonics in his own compositions.

Multiphoncs can be used--or abused.

[Mark Preece]

I started experimenting with MP when I was at university. I ended up having a lot of fun, and wrote a little ditty to help with this... I think you know it!

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/sh ... reid=19465