Past Life Melodies by Sarah Hopkins Performed by Chanticleer February 10, 2006 at The National Filharmonic of Lithuania Music Director: Joseph Jennings ------ chanticleer.org / chanticleersings / chanticleersf
I cannot begin to describe how amazing this is when heard live. The air vibrates, your skin tingles, you truly feel it as well as hear it. I've been longing to hear this live again for a long time.
some 15 years ago they were in Vienna Konzerthaus, and when they sung this piece I had the most extraordinary reaction - I fell into a deep trance, saw myself and the whole auditorium from high above, before slowly descending down to my seat and return to normality. Some years later I had the opportunity to talk with Eric Alatorre about this event. I simply love this group!
I'm so impressed by chanticleer. It says on the piece that this song is recommended for a choir with around 60 people in it, yet chanticleer can pull it off with just 12. And that means with the 11 parts, basically everyone is singing something different. Just awesome.
I adore how the silence and the pauses (and the dips in sound) accentuate the sound they produce and what is to come merely beats afterwards. Astonishing and I enjoyed performing it myself.
I've sung this many times, and am always one who does the harmonic overtones, but this, has knocked my socks off! the control, in their voices is impectable. amazing!
We did this years ago when I was in choir - the people in the audience were looking for the flutes/other instruments... the overtones are so amazing and get even better after the 6 minute mark. The chant alone is pretty fantastic. Thanks for posting!!
I loved performing this peice when I was in high school at sunnyisde 2006 in Germany, France, and Italy... It sent chills down everyone's back, and even some of the audience members cried when my high school choir performed this peice. So difficult, yet so amazing... Thanks for posting this one!!!!
I've experienced a performance of this piece before, and it was absolutely incredible. The conductor explained how we'd hear 'whistling' and 'alien spaceship' sounds (to some chuckling), though nobody was actually whistling, just singing overtones. When we suddenly had sheet music bearing the words "Past Life Melodies" handed out to our collage chorale group, I was, of course, ecstatic. We're to perform it in about two weeks as part of a workshop. I'll let you all know how that goes.
incredible :O wow, what power of human voice, i am impressed, i m singer too,but not everyday i can hear such a clear sound, and such a colourful music..... bravo
I have performed this piece many times. I always found it to be the most physically tiring yet emotionally uplifting pieces. I was in St Peters Lutheran College Chorale so we had the opportunity to have Sarah Hopkins come in and teach us how to sing the piece. Whenever I hear it I can just see her in her rainbow clothes with a big smile of her face :D
All music has overtones. When a note resonates, there are sympathetic vibrations on the overtone scale above the note. To control overtones in your voice, start with a resonant fundamental pitch, and then change the shape of your mouth--it will start out sounding only like strange vowels. But when your resonance is constant, you'll hear the different notes pop out as the shape of your mouth changes to amplify different sets of sympathetic vibrations.
I'm awestruck by the fact that this sound is being created by twelve men in suits and bowties standing in a semicircle... feels like a completely different world. Amazing
Heard Chanticleer perform this live inside The Cathedral of The Sacred Heart, in Detroit some years ago. I was floored by the resonating sounds as singers' voices created a transforming quality which moved about the cathedral interior and lifted you to a different place. Quite astonishing.
well. this piece was written for my choir...woohoo. i have to say, this is a quite different version to the original recording. it's awesome though. didn't realise just how popular this piece really is. whoever is thinking this is too long to sing in a performance, it's not-the audience is usually amazed by the sound. but you have to explain the overtones first and how they sound like that. the wine glass explanation perhaps... anyway, thanks to whoever uploaded this, sooooo cool. :D
It was written my by sarah hoppkins and it an you can contact her and ask but I know it is an aboriginal chant but I lOve this song it's one of my favorite choir peices
This is a rather interesting piece... seems like it'd be near to impossible to keep in tune, but they somehow manage to keep it placed up until sometime in minute 7 when they start going slightly flat. Have to say, however, bravo - very well done.
the overtones are not created by the vibrations of the low notes. it is created by literally weaving notes in and out of each other. my choir in high school performed this song. and even while singing this it is the most amazing thing to hear it is such an etherial sound. overtone is one of the most diffacult types of vocalism to master.
this is great. my choir did this in high school. i believe this is a 12 part piece and i did part 11 hehe. and i also did the overtone it was fun! chanticleer is awesome too
Someone else tell me if you hear what I'm hearing around those same times...it may just be me wanting to hear something that isn't there...at any rate, this is incredible. I've heard St. Olaf Choir do this a few years ago (about 5 years ago) and they had an individual in the choir that was UNREAL at producing overtones that were very prominent, especially at high partials. Maybe someone could post other songs that incorporate overtone singing?
Es impresionante esta version de Past life Melodies, yo dirijo un grupo de musica etnica, y conoci la obra a traves de Chanticleer, impresionante a donde me transportaron con la obra es magico, poderoso en las voces, magistral.
I just found this video again. I love this. I would LOVE to hear what this actually sounds like. The recording is kinda crappy. Even if it was the best recording ever, you lose something when you take a room full of sound and try to pipe it through a few speakers. This is a work of magic and you should all be proud and thankful to have been involved.
Hi, i'm a sound engineer in Bent, New Mexico. I was really inspired by this piece. Like a combination of drone, middle-eastern, scottish bagpipe and Renissance. Plus, it's by a composer who is a chick. Anyway, i'm gonna try to restore the sound here in my studio. We'll see what happens . . .
This song was performed at a choir festival I attended in February. I really enjoyed it. Our choir didn't do so well. Actually we did so terrible that I've really come to resent our director for letting us down.
From time to time, I am hearing a sub-low b flat being sung as well by the bass, (or b natural) To keep all of this in tune at various octaves while producing those overtones are incredible! The overtones were particularly promininent especially at the beginning of them trading off. Amazing!
OMG who else could make you feel the angst of the past, the present, even the future as carried forth by the sonic time-capsule of this performance? Is life a basso sostenuto of pain, and voices droning across the milllenia, oh the broken donkey back, the whip that strikes us into the future (or back into the past?) OK, I surrender, drone on across my nervous system, plug into my dreams, gag and reach, the noise of birth is beyond anything you imagine....
@RobbytheLion This isn't the tuvan/mongolian type style of overtone singing. This is the tibetan/indonesian style, in which overtones are produced in the nasal chambers, hard/soft palettes, and between the teeth and lips. If you listen to barbershop, a properly tuned chord with proper shape produces an overtone. This is an amplified version of that, in which each individual produces a whole overtone instead of relying on all 4 to get their piece correct (causing a scale lineup and 1 high tone).
I checked it, it's a b-natural. Nothing all that spectacular other than that it's freaky that you can hear it in the first place with only two basses (if I recall correctly from the website, and if that info is correct for this video).
I've heard Chanticleer sing this piece live both with one bass and with two (I believe Bischoff is the second bass in this video). With one I can hear eric clearly but he didn't carry as far down as he does in this video. With two you can hear it very clearly in a good auditorium, or even a decent one. Alatorre's voice is very good for overtone singing; I really enjoyed this piece on the "Sound and Spirit" CD.
my high school choir was going to do this piece, but our director doesnt know if our audience would accept it very well, not to mention the fact that it is a 9 minute song...
True, it's not incredibly spectacular except for the fact that it was unexpected. I have heard several choirs/ensembles perform this peace and yet I never heard the basses sing the octave down like that. It just seemed to make this piece that much more interesting.
I can hear that note at the 6:22-6:47 mark - I think it actually continues, but the baritones or tenor 2's cover it up when they crecendo. Almost sounds like an oil tanker's horn.
@Icyveins906 I'm a folk singer, and also dabble in metal. So forgive me if I am competely clueless in regards to classical singing. It's something I really want to learn! In classical singing, there is discipline which helps you hold a note steadily for a long time, and bend notes smoothy, and also blend language in so it is recognisable. That's what I want to learn.
This is HARD to do slow! Plus I don't have any formal voice training, so yep I'm screwed! I'm a big Sera Hopkins fan, and this is one of the most haunting pieces of hers. What an amazing composer! What an amazing woman! Bless her.
@RobbytheLion The singing here is by no means operatic except the "roar" more or less at the beginning. Chanticleer is trained by the best from all over the world, so it can be hard to understand how they do some things.,,but the whole secret to the tibetan/indonesian "throat singing" styles is allowing the inside of your mouth to take a shape which allows your vowel and pitch to vibrate the flesh/teeth/cartilage enough to cause a secondary ring of almost equal volume to occur. It's fun :)
@Icyveins906 Well put. I'm in NJ All-state too. Can't wait to perform this. Look around for me in the Bass 1 section. Ask any tall white guys if they're M.C. Jazzhands.
we did this one in my Chamber Ensemble a few years ago, we spread out and surrounded the audience in the old church we performed this in, so haunting and magical.
@katzgoboom Harmonic overtone notes are sung and they're not. They are normally unintentional, but through practice like this, you can bring them forward so that they are audible against the base pitch. Harmonic undertones occur this way as well, but I have yet been able to bring them forward. Certain chord structures also make these tones easier to hear because they are a 3rd, 4th, or 5th. Your ear wants to hear them, so they come out better. Sung, and not.
check out david hykes and his harmonic choir if you're a fan of vocal harmonics. he and his ensemble are masters. this, of course, is also effing amazing
