Her voice sounds like some sort of alien spacecraft hovering over the city. In her video demonstration that has gone viral, Anna-Marie Hefele shows how one person can hit, sustain, and move around the scales, of two notes at the same time.
Listen to her demonstration with earphones and you can really hear the two distinct notes being manipulated in her throat.
Anna-Maria Hefele, is an Austria-based singer who is bringing overtone singing into the spotlight with her demonstration video of the style she has been practicing for the past ten years.
On her website, Hefele describes that she has been practicing the art of overtone singing since 2005 and is also a classically trained singer who plays instruments like the harp, mandolin, Schwegel, didgeridoo, and the piano.
How does she do it? Well, overtone singing, also called throat singing, harmonic singing, or polyphonic solo voice is actually a form of singing that is practiced by many groups around the world.
It is a technique where the singer manipulates the placement of their tongue, lips, etc. in order to achieve various harmonics, resonances, and over and undertones of the natural voice.
Many cultures believe it has shamanic healing qualities and the chants are often used with neo-tribal rituals of healing and therapy.
Many other popular singers use overtone singing to enhance their vocal range.
Janis Joplin was also able to achieve vocal overtones in her unmistakable raspy sound, which are particularly emphasized in her signature pieces like Summertime and Cry Baby. One can hear two to three distinct overtones in her wails and she could even sing her own minor chords during her performances.
Another singer who exemplified perfect clarity and depth with the overtones, in her case, the perfect alignment of a single tone of her voice, was Karen Carpenter.
Recently, Avi Kaplan, the bassist of the band, Pentatonix, displays his overtone singing talent at the group's acapella concerts where he combines overtones with modern dubstep. Hint: listen to "the Mariah Carey whistle tone," as he calls it, above the dominant tone that he's singing to catch the melody of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
Hefele's otherworldly music is available on her website and she posts announcements to workshops she teaches on overtone singing on her Facebook page.
