Humming Two, Three, Four and Five

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

Humming One

For this creation I am sampled the vibrational effects of the larynx. I have a brief video of humming in my lowest register. The interval hummed is of going back and forth between two pitches one whole step apart. I actually spent 20 minutes humming. I spent time humming in my lowest vocal region, and then took it up an octave. The object of the event was to notice what my body felt and what my mind thought during the time. 

My breathing slowed and regulated. My mind, though active, was at peace. When I changed octaves, my breathing had to adjust to the needed increase in pressure. My body seemed more in a state of alertness. I stayed in the low octave for five minutes, then went to the upper octave for 10 minutes, and then back to the low octave for five minutes. The most impressive sensation I had was that my larynx became sore humming in the low part of my voice. It was much more natural for me to hum in the middle register.

One other thing I noticed was that due to the thickness of the vocal folds in the lower part of the voice, the vibration of the instrument should have been slower. It was not. It was faster. The vibration in the voice in the upper octave was the slower vibration rate. I was not impressed that my mind "went" anywhere unique, but the whole body did feel relaxed and calm.