Learning Multiphonics

Biggs · Post by **Biggs** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 12:06 am

While buzzing, scream the note through the horn. Then just refine your technique until you get the sound you want.

Dylan King · Post by **Dylan King** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 1:10 am

When you sing, you will automatically change the tone coming out of the horn. One must find a nice balance between singing and the buzzed vibrations. It will vary with anyone, being that both tuba playing and singing are such individual techniques.

Find your own voice. Don't be afraid to experiment and make strange noises and outrageous sounds with your mouth. Trust your own ear. Listening is always the hidden answer behind results.

vmi5198 · Post by **vmi5198** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 9:36 am

Here is a shameless plug for an arrangement for solo tuba. I have written out Pachelbel's Canon in multiphonics, and performed it in my 4th year of uni. It was a lot of fun, and always came out as a joke. Take a quick look!

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

Tabor · Post by **Tabor** » Mon Jan 24, 2005 10:30 am

Multiphonics are a weird thing. It sounds easy, to just sing a note while playing, but the different frequencies vibrating against each other can really make things weird. In singing, there are cavities of resonance (called formants) above and even below the glottis. The second formant (mouth) is variable while the first is relatively fixed.

In the female voice, when those cavities are close to the same size, they resonate similar frequencies and compete with each other, thus creating a tricky few notes where vowel modification is needed they call "the passagio". In male voices, there is a physical change which takes place to overcome this, essentially "halving" the action of the vocal chords (much like when a violinist plays the 1st octave) Tuning changes, timbre changes. It takes some practice.

I was playing a part that had two tuba parts in a band ensemble that just has one tuba (me) the other day. I was playing the bottom part and singing the top part. I was happy because nobody in the band noticed what I was doing until about the third time through, still, the third time through someone did notice the changes...

The tuba adds a huge "third, fixed formant" to the voice, and then singing while playing...that is a thesis! (shhh...nobody take that idea)

-T