From the September 1999 Scientific American Magazine | 5 comments

The Throat Singers of Tuva ( Preview )

Testing the limits of vocal ingenuity, throat-singers can create sounds unlike anything in ordinary speech and song--carrying two musical lines simultaneously, say, or harmonizing with a waterfall

By Theodore C. Levin and Michael E. Edgerton

More from the Magazine

September
1999 Issue
Science and the Citizen SILICONE SAFE
By the Numbers U.S. IMMIGRATION
Letters to the Editors Letters
Buy the Digital Edition

From atop one of the rocky escarpments that crisscross the south Siberian grasslands and taiga forests of Tuva, one's first impression is of an unalloyed silence as vast as the land itself. Gradually the ear

habituates to the absence of human activity. Silence dissolves into a subtle symphony of buzzing, bleating, burbling, cheeping, whistling--our onomatopoeic

Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.

Read Comments (5) | Post a comment

You Might Also Like

Discuss This Article

Click here to submit your comment.

VIEW:



	Email:
	Name:
	Address:
	Address 2:
	City:
	State:

Subscription Center

World Changing Ideas

Video ContestInnovation is the key to a better future. Enter your own World Changing Ideas videos in our contest.

Editor's Pick

Time to Ban Production of Nuclear Weapons MaterialA new global treaty that cuts off production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons could jump-start nuclear disarmament and help prevent proliferation