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expressive device for many vocal [n] consonant that starts each pho- vowel shapes to create subtle “fi lter
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ensemble singers. Figure 1 shows neme in this section is an inherently sweep” effects from note to note as

the opening tenor line of the piece nasal sound, which can help rein- the vowels change (Figure 4).
in its original notation. force individual harmonics. For this Another piece that uses a vari-
Mäntyjärvi’s performance in- passage I’ve used the wedge-shaped ety of vocal timbres is Hee-oo-hm-ha
struction of “almost painfully na- Overtone Dominant notation and by Toby Twining (b. 1957). Twin-
sal” is, of course, tongue-in-cheek, allowed the various consonant and ing is a New York-based compos-
and we can only hope he does not
want the singers to do anything
painful to either themselves or the
audience. Let us imagine that the
composer desires what is common-
ly thought of as “nasal” timbre, but
which might in fact be a narrowing
of the vocal tract to emphasize a
particular band of frequencies that
produce a bright and biting timbre
in stark contrast to the Fundamental
Dominant sound. In this instance
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I have employed the Narrow Band
sound using the diamond shaped
symbol in order to indicate an ap-
propriately bright timbre (Figure 2).
Later in the piece, Mäntyjärvi
asks for a somewhat diff erent tim-
bre (Figure 3).
The performance instruction of
“like a demented jaw harp” seems,
again, intended to be humorous,
but may leave the performer with a
question of how this sound should
be interpreted diff erently than
the previous instruction. The term
“demented” implies an extremi-
ty of sound, which I interpret as a
more extreme narrowing of the vo-
cal tract, creating something even
brighter and more focused than the
instruction in the previous example.
Because a jaw harp is an instrument
that uses the vocal tract as a resona-
tor to emphasize specifi c harmon-
ics from a single droning pitch, it
is not unlike the use of Overtone
Dominant singing. In addition, the

60 CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9