A multiphonic is an extended technique on a monophonic

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

(one that generally produces only one note at a time) in which several notes are produced at once. This includes

wind Wind is the natural movement of atmosphere of Earth, air or other gases relative to a planetary surface, planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heatin ...

, reed, and brass instruments, as well as the

human voice The human voice consists of sound Voice production, made by a human being using the vocal tract, including Speech, talking, singing, Laughter, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically ...

. Multiphonic-like sounds on

string instruments In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...

, both bowed and hammered, have also been called multiphonics, for lack of better terminology and scarcity of research. Multiphonics on wind instruments are primarily a 20th-century technique, though the brass technique of singing while playing has been known since the 18th century and used by composers such as

Carl Maria von Weber Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber (5 June 1826) was a German composer, conductor, virtuoso pianist, guitarist, and Music criticism, critic in the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Best known for List of operas by Carl Maria von Weber, h ...

. Commonly, no more than four notes will be produced at once, though for some chords on some instruments it is possible to get several more.

Technique

Woodwind instruments

woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and Ree ...

instruments—e.g., saxophone, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, flute, and recorder—multiphonics can be produced either with new fingerings, by using different embouchures, or voicing the throat with conventional fingerings. There have been numerous fingering guides published for the woodwind player to achieve harmonics. Multiphonics on reed instruments can also be produced in the manners described below for brass instruments. It is said to be impossible to recreate exactly the conditions between one player and the next, due to minute differences in instruments, reeds, embouchure, and other things. This, however, is not entirely true; the multiphonic will depend on the room temperature and other such things, but essentially multiphonics sound the same due to the harmonic structure of the multiphonic. A multiphonic fingering that works for one player may not work for that same player on a different instrument, or a different player on the same instrument, or even after switching reeds. This is often the result of slightly different construction of two instruments from different makers.

Brass instruments

In brass instruments, the most common method of producing multiphonics is by simultaneously playing the instrument and singing into it. When the sung note has a different frequency than the played note (preferably within the harmonic series of the played note), several new notes that are the sums/differences of the frequencies of the sung note and the played note are produced; leading to the popular term

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

trombone The trombone (, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's lips vibrate inside a mouthpiece, causing the Standing wave, air c ...

/ horn

growl Growling is a low, guttural vocalization produced by predatory animals; producing ''growls''. Growling or growl may also refer to: Sounds * Death growl, the dominant singing style in death metal music * Stomach rumble, Stomach growl, or borborygm ...

. This technique is also called "horn chords". The tone sung doesn't necessarily have to be in the played tone's harmonic series, but the effect is more audible if it is. The tone quality of brass multiphonics is influenced strongly by the voice of the player. Another method is referred to as "lip multiphonics", in which a brass player alters the airflow to blow between partials, in the harmonic series of the slide position/valve. The outcome is just as stable as any multiphonic and perfectly structured. When the frequencies add together or subtract from each other (essentially merge), the fundamental is recreated. For example: A 440 and A 220. This would combine to make 660, creating a new fundamental of the second lowest B of the piano. A third method, known as 'split tones' or double buzz, produces multiphonics when players make their lips vibrate at different speeds against each other. The most common result is a perfect interval, but the range of intervals produced can vary broadly.

String instruments

String instruments can also produce multiphonic tones when strings are bowed or hammered (as in piano multiphonics) between the

harmonic In physics, acoustics, and telecommunications, a harmonic is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'' of a periodic signal. The fundamental frequency is also called the ''1st har ...

nodes. This works best on larger instruments like double bass and cello. Another technique involves the rotational oscillation mode of the string, which might be twisted to adjust the rotational tension. Other multiphonic extended techniques used are prepared piano, prepared guitar and 3rd bridge.

Vocal multiphonics

The technique of producing multiphonics with the voice is called overtone singing (typically with secondary resonant structure) or throat singing (typically with additional tones from throat trills). There is another technique done in whistling, where whistlers hum in their throats while whistling with the front parts of their mouths. This is well known for achieving a spacey "ring modulation" sound (e.g. by Jim Carrey in '' The Truman Show''). All three vibrations—whistle, voice and throat trill—can be combined also.

How multiphonics work

In general, when playing a wind instrument, the tone that comes out consists of the ''fundamental''—the pitch usually identified as the note being played—as well as pitches with frequencies that are

integer An integer is the number zero (0), a positive natural number (1, 2, 3, ...), or the negation of a positive natural number (−1, −2, −3, ...). The negations or additive inverses of the positive natural numbers are referred to as negative in ...

multiples of the frequency of the fundamental. (Only pure

sine wave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or sinusoid (symbol: ∿) is a periodic function, periodic wave whose waveform (shape) is the trigonometric function, trigonometric sine, sine function. In mechanics, as a linear motion over time, this is ''simple ...

tones lack these overtones.) Normally, only the fundamental pitch is perceived as being played. By controlling the air flow through the instrument and the shape of the column (by changing fingering or valve position), a player may produce two distinct tones not part of the same harmonic series.

Notation

Multiphonics may be notated in score in a variety of ways. When exact pitches are specified, one method of notation is simply to indicate a chord, leaving the performer to figure out what techniques are necessary to achieve it. Common on woodwind music is to specify a particular fingering underneath the required note; as different fingerings produce different qualities of sound, a composer who is concerned about the precise effect created may wish to do this. (The same fingering can cause different result on instruments from different manufacturers, due to variations in construction.) Approximate pitches may be specified by wavy lines or in cluster notation to designate acceptable ranges of sound. There is, however, a wide range of notation used to designate multiphonics, with several individual composers preferring notations not in common use. Piano multiphonic notation can include, among other factors, the numbers of sounding partials or fingering distances on the string. Such notations have been developed in recent studies by C. J. Walter and J. Vesikkala.

Use in literature

The first real use of multiphonics in literature are of the brass "horn chord" style.

used this technique in horn compositions, leading up to his well-known Concertino for horn and orchestra of 1815. \new Staff \relative c Woodwind multiphonics and brass lip multiphonics did not make appearances in

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

until the 20th century, with pioneering compositions such as

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental music, experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia (Berio), Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Seque ...

's ''Sequenzas'' for solo wind instruments and ''Proporzioni'' for solo flute by Franco Evangelisti using them extensively in 1958. Multiphonics are widely today used in

contemporary classical music Contemporary classical music is Western art music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st-century classical music, 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 Modernism (music), post-tonal music after the death of ...

. The technique is used in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

as early as the 1920s by

Adrian Rollini Adrian Francis Rollini (June 28, 1903 – May 15, 1956) was an Americans, American jazz instrumentalist, multi-instrumentalist who primarily played the bass saxophone, piano, and vibraphone. He is also known for playing novelty instruments such ...

on his bass saxophone. Then it was largely forgotten until Illinois Jacquet used them in the 1940s. Multiphonics were also widely used by

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...

, and jazz flautist

Jeremy Steig Jeremy Steig (September 23, 1942 – April 13, 2016)Peter Keepnews, "Jeremy ...

References

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080610054833/http://www.idrs.org/publications/journal2/jnl10/multi.html Nora Post, "Multiphonics for the Oboe"br>"What is multiphonics?", with audio examplesThe Virtual Flute
* ttp://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/multiphonics-for-tuba-digital-sheet-music/20108969?ac=1 Multiphonics For Tuba {{Extended techniques Musical performance techniques Extended techniques