Humming Two and Three
Each of these twenty minute sessions was done using three
octaves. I hummed on the lowest tone for a long breath out, relaxed with my
next breath in and initiated a tone one octave up. Following that, my next tone
initiation was one more octave up. I cycled up and down. In that way, the
center tone got the most humming. Again I felt the mind alert and open whereas
the body was very relaxed.
By the third session, I found that my breathing became more
sustained almost immediately; the thoracic cavity yielded to larger intake, and
the sustained exhalation on the hum was longer. This surprised me. Again I felt
relaxed yet quite alert mentally.
As for vibration, I find that the first 10 minutes, the
lower octave hum has a quick vibration that I can easily feel. The middle
register hum begins with a quicker vibration, but yields to a slower and less
even vibration. The highest hum is fairly straight feeling. Only in the second
ten minutes does the vibration in the lower part of the voice get slower and
less consistent. As I add more breath pressure, I can keep the vibration from
getting irregular. In the middle voice, the vibration also can be made more
stable by increasing the pressure of the breath. In the highest octave, a
larger vibration begins to occur. It is never as quick as the lowest vibration,
but it were as though I could feel it and hear it at both a fast vibration, and
a slower one at the same time.
I read this week about
the investigation of the inner nature in an article, “Embodied Ethical Decision
Making”, written by Lenore Hervey. Though she was discussing how the body might
move in dance based on what the mind was thinking, it seems that the vibration (or
embodied thought) in the larynx might also relate to ethical decision making. One
philosopher thought that ethical thought might come from natural functions of
the body. Others suggested that the “lived experience of the body” was related
to ethics. Might one develop a greater ethical sense if they were more aware of
their own body experiences?
Humming Four
For ten minutes I hummed throughout the breath on each of
three pitches, at the interval of the octave, alternately. What I found was
that the lowest tone no longer caused any discomfort; in fact I began noticing pleasant
thoracic vibration. The middle octave tone did offer vibration in the neck and
lower head area. The upper octave tone offered no vibrational sensation in the
thoracic cavity. Yet the longer I did this, I began to feel more vibration in
the skull.
Then I continued for another five minutes humming very
pointedly into the nasal passages in the middle and upper octave only. I was
able to increase the amount of vibration, but not enlarge the area where it was
felt.
Next I hummed “The Ashgrove”. It is a simple folk song of
the British Isles with a two-octave range. When I sang it in the lowest part of
the voice, the second part of the song went into the middle range of the voice.
I tried to notice the amount of vibration I felt while singing in this range.
Then I hummed beginning in the middle range, the upper octave of the vocal
range was used for the second part of the song. I tried to notice where I felt
vibration. Vibration while humming in the higher ranges of the voice had little
vibration associated with it. However, I heard a definite resonance difference.
Humming Five
In the fifth session I hummed on the “vocal fry”. This is
the sound the larynx makes when trying to sound at the very lowest part of the
range. Some liken it to the sound of frying food. I felt a tremendous increased
sense of vibration in the thoracic area when humming ‘vocal fry’ as compared to
any of the hummed pitches.
I am reminded of the singers from the Steppe whom I heard
last summer in Washington DC at an international folk music festival. They have
very resonant voices, and use the lowest part of their voice and the vocal fry,
as well as singing in the chest voice register.
This video is a display of Steppe sacred music. You can hear singing on the vocal fry. You can tell there is vibration in the body!
Huun-Huur-Tu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0djHJBAP3U
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