Overtone singing is a vocal technique where a single person produces two distinct pitches at the same time: a steady, low drone and a separate, higher melody that floats above it. The higher pitch isn’t a different note being sung in the usual sense. It’s a natural component of the voice, called a harmonic, that the singer isolates and amplifies by precisely reshaping the mouth, tongue, and throat. The effect sounds almost electronic or flute-like, and it’s startling to hear from a single human voice with no technology involved.
How One Voice Makes Two Notes
Every musical note you hear, whether from a guitar string, a piano, or a human voice, isn’t actually a single frequency. It’s a stack of frequencies called the harmonic series: a fundamental pitch at the bottom and a ladder of higher pitches (harmonics or overtones) vibrating at exact multiples of that fundamental. When you sing a note at 150 Hz, your voice simultaneously produces energy at 300 Hz, 450 Hz, 600 Hz, and so on up the series. Normally, these harmonics blend together so seamlessly that you perceive them as a single tone with a particular color or timbre. The reason a trumpet sounds different from a violin playing the same note is that each instrument emphasizes different harmonics.
Overtone singers exploit this physics. By moving the tongue, jaw, lips, and soft palate into very specific positions, they create a narrow, precisely tuned resonance inside the vocal tract that dramatically boosts one single harmonic above all the others. That boosted harmonic becomes loud enough to be heard as its own separate pitch, a clear, whistling tone hovering over the drone of the fundamental. The singer can then shift this resonance smoothly from one harmonic to the next, playing a melody entirely in overtones.
MRI studies of overtone singers have revealed what’s happening inside the mouth in detail. For lower overtone pitches, the tongue tip is raised and pulled far back in a “hyper-retroflex” position, with the larynx dropped low and the pharynx narrowed. For higher pitches, the tongue shifts forward into a shape resembling the vowel “ee,” the larynx rises, and the pharyngeal cavity opens up. The space in front of the tongue constriction acts like a small acoustic chamber, and adjusting its volume produces resonances between roughly 1,000 and 3,200 Hz. This is the range where the overtone melody lives.
Crucially, the voice source itself doesn’t change during this process. The vocal folds maintain a steady vibration pattern, and the phonation is only slightly more pressed than normal speech. All the magic happens in the filtering and shaping of sound after it leaves the larynx. The singer isn’t producing extra energy at the chosen harmonic. They’re sculpting the resonances of their vocal tract so precisely that two closely spaced resonance peaks converge on the same harmonic, amplifying it far above its neighbors.
Tuvan Throat Singing Styles
The tradition most associated with overtone singing comes from Tuva, a predominantly rural region of Russia located northwest of Mongolia. There, the practice is called Khöömei, and it grew out of the herder and hunter lifestyle, with its deep connection to the surrounding landscape. Tuvan singers traditionally imitate the sounds of the natural world: animals, mountains, streams, and the harsh winds of the steppe. What was once a folk tradition practiced in open grasslands has become an emblem of Tuvan national identity, now often performed by professionals in formal concert settings.
Tuvan throat singing encompasses several distinct styles, each with a different character:
- Khöömei is the middle-range, foundational style. It produces an airy, soft whistle above the drone, described as wind swirling among rocks. This is often the style beginners learn first.
- Sygyt is the high-pitched, piercing style. It creates a sharp, flute-like whistle that cuts clearly above the fundamental, evoking birdsong or summer breezes. The overtone melody is at its most prominent and distinct here.
- Kargyraa is the deep, growling style. It produces a rumbling undertone below the fundamental pitch along with higher overtones, suggesting howling winter winds or the bellowing of a camel.
The Unusual Physics of Kargyraa
Kargyraa deserves special attention because it works differently from other overtone singing styles at the level of the larynx. High-speed imaging studies have confirmed that in Kargyraa, the ventricular folds (sometimes called the “false vocal folds,” a second pair of tissue folds sitting just above the true vocal folds) actively vibrate. They close completely but briefly, at exactly half the frequency of the true vocal folds. So if the true vocal folds vibrate at 140 Hz, the ventricular folds vibrate at 70 Hz, damping the sound of every second vocal fold pulse. This creates the extremely low fundamental frequency, typically around 70 to 100 Hz, that gives Kargyraa its distinctive growling, sub-bass quality. The singer is essentially using two vibrating structures in the throat simultaneously.
Overtone Singing Beyond Central Asia
While Tuva and Mongolia are the heartland of the tradition, overtone singing exists in several other cultures. In Sardinia, a style of polyphonic folk singing called Cantu a Tenore features four male singers standing in a tight circle. Each has a distinct vocal role. The lead voice sings poetry in Sardinian, while a “half voice” provides melodic support. The two lower voices, called the contra and the bassu, use a specialized laryngeal technique rather than a regular singing voice. The bassu sings the same note as the lead, and the contra sings a fifth above. According to local tradition, these voices imitate the sounds of wind, sheep, and cattle. The style carries both sacred and secular forms and has been recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage.
Inuit throat singing from northern Canada takes yet another form, typically performed by two women facing each other, trading rhythmic vocal sounds in a kind of competitive game. And in South Africa, certain traditions incorporate related vocal techniques, though the styles and cultural meanings differ substantially from Central Asian practice.
How It Entered Western Music
Overtone singing reached Western audiences largely through the work of David Hykes, an American composer and singer who became the first Westerner to deeply engage with the throat singing traditions of Mongolia, Tuva, and Tibet. In 1983, Hykes and his ensemble, the Harmonic Choir, released “Hearing Solar Winds,” a recording that introduced many listeners to the sound of harmonics sung as melody. Hykes went on to develop what he called Harmonic Chant, blending overtone technique with contemplative and sacred music traditions. He performed at the first New Sounds Live concert in New York in 1986 and spent decades teaching and performing from his base in France.
Since then, overtone singing has spread widely. It appears in contemporary classical composition, electronic music, sound healing practices, and experimental vocal performance. Online tutorials have made the basic technique accessible to anyone willing to practice, though producing a clear, controllable overtone melody takes considerable skill and ear training.
Learning the Basics
The entry point for most people is learning to hear and then amplify overtones by slowly shifting vowel sounds. A common starting exercise involves sustaining a steady “oo” sound and gradually moving the tongue toward an “ee” position while keeping the pitch constant. As the tongue moves, you can begin to hear different harmonics brighten and fade. The goal is to make one of those harmonics ring out clearly enough to sound like a separate note.
Nasalization plays a role in some techniques, particularly for lower overtones. Lowering the soft palate to partially couple the nasal cavity creates additional resonance peaks and anti-resonances that help isolate specific harmonics from their neighbors. For higher overtones, a careful combination of lip rounding, tongue position, and a slight retroflex curl of the tongue tip becomes more important. The front cavity of the mouth, the space between the tongue tip and the lips, acts as a tunable resonator. Making that space smaller raises the overtone pitch; making it larger lowers it.
Most people can learn to produce an audible overtone within a few practice sessions. Producing a clean, sustained overtone melody that sounds musical rather than accidental takes weeks or months of daily practice, depending on the individual. The skill is partly muscular and partly perceptual: you have to train your ear to hear the individual harmonics before you can reliably control them.