Sweet Russian Chant

A couple days ago I finally figured out how to do Kargyraa, a type of throat singing that allows you to sing ultra low notes. So I immediately started fooling around with it, and this clip is the result. Trust me, there's no bass boosting or pitch-shifting or other cheating going on here; this is really what you can do with Kargyraa. I set it to Russian words and made it a sort of contrabass chant with choral harmony on top. Simple, short, but hey, not bad for my first day! :P

In case anyone's wondering, the picture is of "The Monastery of St. Nil' on Stolobnyi Island in Lake Seliger in Tver' Province, northwest of Moscow." I got it from this website: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/. It's a gallery of amazing color photos from Imperial Russia around 1910-1915. The czar hired a photographer to document his empire, and the photographer pioneered doing color photos.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• multitrack
• cappella
• acappella
• acapella
• kargyraa
• bass
• contrabass
• russian
• chant
• throat
• singing
• philip
• barkhudarov

[Nederbird]

Awesome! I've also learnt some throat-singing techniques, but I never applied them in this way (although I wanted to try while reciting the passages of from the Bible in Hungarian). IMHO I think that it would be great to heart christian sacred music sung in church using throat singing. ^^

[Badasscommy]

Actually, more recently I've found a slightly different way of producing this undertone. It's the same throat singing technique, but it produces a different sound quality, one which can sound very much like a real sung note when underneath a chord. I'm planning on recording some of Rachmaninoff's Vespers soon and using it to do the low Bb's. ;)

[asilenthill]

omg please make a "how to" video for how to do this kind of singing! i wanna scare the crap out of my music teacher! ill subscribe ~ u had better make that vid! lol even a powerpoint would be ok...

[Badasscommy]

Well, I dunno if a video would help that much... You can hear people describing it or read about it online, but it doesn't really make sense in terms of actually doing it until you try it.

I learned by listening to videos like this and recording myself. I tried different things until I produced something similar. Then it was just a matter of practicing a bit.

[Badasscommy]

As a first step, try singing a note and growling at the same time. Think Louis Armstrong ;). Once you've got that working, you can even make some nice overtones by playing with the shape of your mouth and position of your tongue (although I didn't do that in this video). Good luck!

[jta4207]

I posted a video comment of me doing something similar to this. It's We Hymn Thee by Chesnokov with me singing all of the parts. (You are a much better tenor than I am). I want to know what you think about my inhale singing technique compared to the kargyraa for singing in the profondo range.

[Skarpeciatko]

That is monastery in Ostashkov, Russia. It was very important place for orthodox spiritual life. During Soviet rules it was turned into a concetration camp and became a place of martyrdom for Polish prisoners. Place dedicated to God was poured with blood.

[MrRobokoper]

Looks like the Nabu from star wars.

[philosoful]

That's awesome - I can sing a Low C at best though very weakly but I don't think I'm doing Kargyraa, could you explain it/how you learn it? I'd love to try it. Many thanks =]

[tristeriaplanet]

this is wonderful......i am thinking to do a song with this kind of chant........can you help me...

[Deader87]

& I admire that brother. We Western-Christians could really learn that from them to go back to our roots more, if you ask me because we do so poorly in keeping tradition in our religion

[reprovo]

orthodoxy is a rather different christianity than catholicism , its old skool.keeping it real!!

[RushAndRuleIt]

Do you have any advice on loosening the ventricular folds, or otherwise making this easier to perform so I can hold the "notes" longer? I notice you get a long duration here. Any other advice would also be appreciated, like on how to get a clean-sounding note that is super deep, as discussed in another comment here. Cheers!

-Ross

[RushAndRuleIt]

Your videos are all so amazing, I can't believe you don't have 100,000 subscribers by now! This video is the main reason I subscribed.

Anyway, I finally posted a video of me attempting Kargyraa (or at least, a coarticulation of the regular and ventricular folds, if that is indeed Kargyraa) in my video called "The Trilingual song".

[talibski]

It's place where Polish policemen and administration workers, captured during 1939 Soviet invasion, where imprisoned. Then they were killed in city Tver. Communist government turned sacred place into place of crime and suffering.