Throat singing in the shower

Dumagat woman and child 

14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019

"While singing, the Dumagat woman in this recording vibrated her throat with her hand" are the liner notes to the Dumagat Throat Song by David Blair Stiffler on Music from the Mountain Provinces (Numerophone 2012). The record was intended to be released on Folkways but while recording it founder and director Moses Asch had died. There are a great many throat songs on the year's Top 100 list and I've tried to imitate some but I can't get the particular breathing done. Little did I know that I had performed, as a youngster, the kind of throat singing described by Stiffler all along. I never practiced much as because it's a painful technique and each performance only lasted 20 seconds at most. The recording on the Dumagat lasts for one minute and nineteen seconds and must have been so painful, unless I did it all wrong or Dumagat throats are stronger than mine. The mountain provinces in question are situated in the Philippines where Stiffler recorded in between 1986 and 1988.

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