Sometimes, you’ll hear a beautiful voice described as ‘unearthly.’ In Anna-Maria Hefele’s case, her voice isn’t just unearthly, it’s downright alien.
Hefele is a German musician and a master of the unusual vocal technique called ‘polyphonic overtone singing’ or, more colloquially, ‘throat singing.’ That means that she is able to manipulate her voice in such a way that she can hold two notes simultaneously—a talent similar to the rapid-fire voice of this young singer.
While it may seem at first like an extraterrestrial ability, throat singing has actually been around for millennia. It is practiced all over the world, largely in the far north of Asia, Europe, and North America. Mongolian, Siberian, and Inuit cultural groups all have some form of polyphonic singing.
Musicologists theorize that overtone singing originated in the Mongolian steppes, and the tradition spread organically across the extreme north of the world, evolving as it went. In Mongolia and Siberia, forms of throat singing are still popular among male herders. In Canada and Greenland, throat singing and breathing games are practiced as a competition between women.
We should note that Hefele is not a traditional practitioner of the technique. Like this similarly talented opera singer, she often performs with instrumental support. She also has an unusual amount of control over the fundamental note, meaning that she can can sing both a melody and a harmony at the same time.
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