Instructions for Learning to Throat Sing

By Nobleman Nash Hollowhill - October 1, 2009 

 

Here follows my personal account of the transformative process of Throat Singing, as I have taught myself, learned from tutorials on YouTube, and mimicked from recordings. I do not profess to be an expert in this art form, but after learning the process for roughly 5 months, I have astounded friends with the range of sounds I can create, so I will attempt to fill in the facts of my progress until now to the best of my ability.

It is important to keep in mind that were it not for parallel learning trends I explored while away at college such as didgeridoo playing, meditation, yoga, tai chi, and the use of cannabis/hashish and psychedelics including psilocybin mushrooms, salvia, LSD, and DMT, I probably would not have progressed with such speed. Because the entheogens test my progress in certain ways and aid my progress when I initiate it, they were an essential part of the process. I fell into a religious paradigm with my experimentation and self-centering practices, often using a 7-day basis for expansion and trying to focus on Sunday as my one most consciously holy day. Not only is Throat Singing an extraordinarily effective method of meditating, it is very enjoyable while on a psychedelic, and in my opinion, unavoidable on a difficult dose. Frequently, in situations where it was acceptable, I entertained the sensation while on high doses of these chaotic substances of spontaneously allowing myself to begin doing yoga, and/or Throat Singing as a way of riding out the difficult experience I was having. While psychedelic use can be dangerous in inexperienced hands, I wholeheartedly encourage this both as a method of enduring the fear induced by these chemicals, and facilitating the process of learning these arts. Finally it is important to me that I mention that during the process of using entheogens and learning to Throat Sing, I began to believe that not only was God real, but that I was a tiny portion of its essence. I truly believe to this day that God chose me to learn these processes, in particular Throat Singing, and the purpose of this is yet unknown, but it seems inevitable that it is somehow connected with the future.

To start, I began learning to meditate by picking up the didgeridoo and practicing relaxing my breath while focusing on keeping it steady. I then started doing this without the didgeridoo in a cross-legged position, and eventually found it to work best laying down. I hummed quietly to myself, and started using mantras as a way to focus on the here and now, as well as build a multifaceted Buddhist character about myself. This humming was accompanied by cannabis use, but never nicotine, as this has been proven to be terrible for the lungs, throat, brain, etc. while quite the opposite as I’ve read about cannabis. Cannabis helped increase my lung capacity, as did didgeridoo playing. As the humming reached lower and lower notes, it calmed my body so that my mind could think more clearly, and I eventually started making a quiet croaking sound by slowly and steadily drawing air in and out regulated by my vocal chords. I also tried breath suspension at very short intervals when it was comfortable for me as I regulated my breath silently in public places. Abdominal breathing is an essential part of this process, because most people breathe into their chests and shoulders, greatly restricting the amount of air they can take in. I began learning to do yoga shortly afterwards and found these methods of breathing to be wonderful for achieving enlightening states.

Gradually as I focused more on keeping my breath steady and drawing the hummed note out for as long as possible, I started to use lower and lower vocal chords to regulate this process, and it came very slowly. I remembered that in the house at which I had my first acid trip, I heard a CD with Mongolian Throat Singing, which I later obtained from one resident of that house, so I looked on YouTube and found many beautiful performances of this art, and even tutorials by some younger practitioners. They seemed mostly concerned with the process of slowing the breath down, which I had already learned quite well and successfully used to make acid, mushrooms, and salvia more tolerable and provocative rather than bluntly terrifying, as they tend to accelerate the heartrate and breathrate, and make relaxation extremely difficult. Other techniques to comfortably loosen the vocal chords I picked up from the tutorials were the eating of spicy foods, ginger, or garlic, massaging the front of the neck and throat, and starting with short bursts of guttural grunting before eventually elongating them into a sustained drone. I use nearly every facial expression possible to enunciate the more subtle tones through a smooth progression of vowels. I believe as a method of loosening the vocal chords, cannabis can be smoked, (blond rather than brown/black) hashish is particularly effective although an excess of it (brown/black) in a short period of time can be less than helpful, and finally there is DMT.

I tried DMT 8 times in the first 3 days of obtaining it. This is to date my only experience with the drug. I have absolutely nothing negative to report, but this brings me to my final point which is that DMT is far harsher on the lungs and throat to inhale than cannabis or hashish. Nevertheless I believe it can be used as an aid to learning to Throat Sing because it is just bearable enough to enjoy the sensation of relaxing the vocal chords, while not doing any noticeable physical damage. In addition Throat Singing can help to ease the nerves while under the influence of this intimidating intoxicant. I tried Throat Singing on DMT only a couple of times. Once was at sunrise in the auditory space of the bandshell on the quad of my college. I laid down with my ceramic spoon-shaped cannabis pipe, into which I placed a metal screen and a folded section of tin foil that I had scraped a very small amount of DMT onto, (I don’t have a scale so it would be impossible for me to estimate the dose other than that it was well under 1/50th of a gram) and after getting into the Corpse Yoga Position where I am laying down (it works best for me if my legs are crossed at the ankles, all of my muscles progressively stretched outward and relaxed in sync with my breath, while my arms, shoulders, and neck are allowed to fall into any position necessary for me to become comfortable and draw breath most effectively,) and I have become impervious to distractions like birds chirping or city traffic by placing a blindfold over my eyes and focusing on my breath, I inhaled using my vocal chords to croakily regulate my intake of the harsh DMT smoke while maximizing my lung capacity in this manner.

After holding it in for a good 30-45 seconds, I slowly, slowly exhaled by straddling the line between regular humming and vibrating my throat vocal chords, scrunching up my face to get high overtones within the vowel EEE (more accurately in German ÜÜÜ) in which my soft palate is pushed forward allowing the soundwaves to resonate in my nasal cavities. I start off going straight to the lower notes I can reach, and as I relax more I can start at much higher notes and form descending chromatic scales until I come to rest in the lowest possible frequency. I go back and forth between the vowels EEE YAY YAI YOI and finally YIEAOUWM, to make the most complete harmonic sweep, while filling in between with various other consonants, mostly R’s because that is essential to forming overtones. After doing this routine, I go from WHOA WOW WOI WHY to WHEE and improvise with various combinations, e.g. WHEEROYEROWERAIAYEEEYAYOI etc. but each complete phrase invariably ends with OM, AUM, WOW, or WHOA at the lowest note. It is said that the combination of pure O sounds and W’s (WHOAWHOAWHOAWHOAWHOA) is used to eliminate the higher overtones and make the drone more stable. At this point I can comfortably Throat Sing for up to an hour on end, which gives me an extremely sharp experience of the passage of time, distorting it from ordinary reality and frequently causing time to open up into ecstatic timeless experiences, and after I finish I feel very relaxed and rejuvenated.