Kongar-ol Ondar, Tuvan master of throat singing, dies at 51

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:47 AM - Edit history (3)

This is too old to be LBN. He died back in July.

To say that throat singing is otherworldly is to understate the case. I first heard it, oh, it must have been twenty years ago. If you're driving, and it comes on the radio, the shock will almost be enough to cause you to run off the road.

Kongar-ol Ondar, Tuvan master of throat singing, dies at 51
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/kongar-ol-ondar-tuvan-master-of-throat-singing-dies-at-51/2013/08/13/5e31f332-0457-11e3-9259-e2aafe5a5f84_story.html

By Elaine Woo, Published: August 13

What do Richard Feynman, Willie Nelson, Frank Zappa and Boris Yeltsin have in common? ... The answer was embodied in a radiant singer named Kongar-ol Ondar, whose voice was unlike any in the Western world.

Mr. Ondar was a master of throat singing, a vocal style native to his small Russian republic of Tuva. He mesmerized audiences with his ability to produce two or more notes simultaneously — a low, steady drone overlaid with higher-pitched tones that to the unaccustomed ear sounded like a radio gone haywire.
....

The maestro’s fame spread to the West, where he recorded Tuvan music with Zappa and Nelson. They probably never would have heard of Mr. Ondar if not for Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist whose obsession with faraway Tuva set off the chain of events that helped make Mr. Ondar a world music star.

Mr. Ondar died July 25 at a hospital in the Tuvan capital of Kyzyl after surgery for a brain hemorrhage, said a friend, Sean Quirk. He was 51.
....

He also was featured in “Genghis Blues,” a 1999 Oscar-nominated documentary by brothers Adrian and Roko Belic that traced his friendship with Paul Pena, an American blues artist and self-taught throat singer.

Genghis Blues
http://www.genghisblues.com/

This page links to many obituaries:

Kongar-ol Ondar
http://www.ondar.com/

Remembering The People's Throat Singer Of Tuva
http://www.npr.org/2013/08/09/210485677/remembering-the-peoples-throat-singer-of-tuva

Kongar-ol Ondar, a Master of a Vocal Art, Dies at 51
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/arts/music/kongar-ol-ondar-a-bewitching-master-of-remarkable-sounds-dies-at-51.html

....
Throat singing, also called overtone singing, is practiced in only a few parts of the world, mostly in Asia. The Tuvan variety, known as khoomei, is the most famous of all.

Whenever someone sings a note, the column of air in the throat vibrates, producing both a fundamental tone (the note’s basic pitch) and a series of higher pitches — the overtones.

In conventional singing, the overtones are largely inaudible, manifesting themselves as timbre. In throat singing, through careful manipulation of the mouth and throat, a vocalist can render certain overtones audible, resulting in two, three and even four pitches sounding at a time.

Properly sung, khoomei sounds as though the singer has ingested a set of bagpipes, with a low drone and a high melody issuing simultaneously from the same mouth.

Zappa.com
http://www.zappa.com/whatsnew/ofconsequence/kongar-ol-ondar/index.html

Here's a thread from a few years back at DU.

Amazing Throat Singing!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=245x147808

[Scootaloo]

1. Aw man, now they're both gone!

Huge fan of Paul and Kongar... Damn.

[MuseRider]

2. So sad.

I am sad to hear this. What an interesting sound, always was so interested in it.

[DreamGypsy]

3. A western homage to Tuvan throat singing...

...from Nathan Rogers, the son of legendary Canadian singer/songwriter Stan Rogers and, obviously, the nephew of almost as legendary Garnet Rogers, Stan's younger brother.

Here is Nathan singing his own composition Naamche Bazaar at Stanfest 2007 during an artist workshop.

In homage to the great Tuvan singers:

[Roland99]

4. Damn...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

5. I'm bringing this back, due to a thread at JoeMyGod today.

Viral Video of the Day: Polyphonic overtone singing

JMG links to This Woman Can Sing Multiple Notes At Once

where we see this remarkable video too: