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.

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.

How can one hold a note, a PERFECT note, for so long?? A single note wavering and unaltered. Just phenomenal.

My college chorale did this several years ago when I was in college -- it still gives me goosebumps!

the overtones go CRAZY around 6:15!! Its so cool!

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!

Incredible! It's like the music has taken up life of its own and exists in the space between the singers. Damn Mr Coughalot in the audience!

I have heard this performed live by a high school choir....and it is so 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.

our hs chorus did this in a complete circle around the audience. We all freaked out, and slid practically under our seats, it's so good, yet so creepy

Chanticleer is the best

our choir did this some years ago, haunts me to this day, love it

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'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.

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 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 could listen to this all day.

An excellent example of stagger breathing! Surely this is one of the greatest choral ensemble ever.

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.

Chanticleer is a grammy award winning group beat that!

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

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

This is great

It´s cool! my choir Kantika Korala is going to sing Past Life Melodies, our conductor is gonna show us how to sing harmonics. :-D

this cannot get anymore amazing my goodness!!!

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.

Love from Lithuania!

they are magical!

I love this song so much...

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

we are doing this tomorrow for NJ regional choir : P it's the coolest song ever on the planet !!!

Wonderfully executed, and wow are these guys talented... I'm thoroughly amazed.

great performance! I had the wonderful experience of performing this piece in 1999. very challenging

existential. they cast a spell on us all for they are truly magicians

my high school choir did this song back in 2002, I love this song :)

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 witnessed it performed by a high school concert choir....my sister was in it...so unbelievable when you hear it live...

Chanticleer ROCKS!!!

Our choir sang this. It was so much fun.

I can't stop listening to the overtones. So cool.... I can't wait to sing this. ^^

I attended a choir performance today and this song was performed.

I'm SO excited to do this piece. Especially after hearing Chanticleer perform it. My women's choir has just started learning to sing with overtones :D

Agreed. Still a rivteing sound.

I have now decided that this piece should be done by an all male choir... it is so much better than any other recording on KZfaq....

i think this is the only time in my life when i can describe something as hauntingly awesome

this is incredible!!!!

Wonderful!

Our choir is in the process of learning this song, very difficult but cool!

It's midnight here, I have a choir concert early in the morning, but what am I doing? Researching overtone singing and listening to Chanticleer

Wow i cannot believe they accomplished overtonal singing with so few voices and absolutely no women!! My hat is off to you!

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

Maravilloso.

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.

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

This song is amazing. Where going to be singing this piece in chorus soon. :3

It takes forever to download for some reason, but well worth the wait!

This. Is. Amazing. My high school chorus will never top this. Maybe that's just because we're in high school. But this is INSANELY good.

this is sick. :) i love it!!!

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....

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...

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.

bravo!!!!!!!!

Very cool! Wish that one guy coughing for the last three minutes would've considered a cough drop or discretely stepping outside!!!

Stunning.

and throat singing fro 6.00 incredible!!

Incredible performance reminds me of the "Gyoto Monks" and the throat singing just incredible and captivating.

@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 :)

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.

Man pavelkostov! You are on every video that has to do with low basses! Keep sharing your passion! I agree...He's a pretty powerful bass!

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.

ha! agreed.

Our children really participated in this piece. The meaning of this piece was read beforehand. Does anyone have this?

shut yours eyes .................its sounds like that organ its fabulous overtones and undertones make my eyes water!!

It's amazing to think that my school owns this song! Hahaha! St Peters Pride! It was commission for our Chorale!

@limericksandoysters I do believe in actuality their tuning is just so good that the overtones are produced prominently.

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?

Holy freaking hell. The tuning and perfectly in sync vowel shapes could only be done by a group like this. This...is simply incredible.

Sweet baby james, if you're going to have a coughing fit...leave the room, n00b. This piece, these performers, are incredible.

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.

@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).

Inmejorable!!!.. Un regalo para los oídos. ¿No hay manera de borrar las toses?

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!

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.

@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.

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 have sang this song it's intense

wish i had the proper anatomy to sing with this group. love. the beckstress.

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.

Stockhausen has wriiten lots of pieces "Stimmung" "Sternklang" "Lucifer's Farewell" all based on overtone singing. Check them out.

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

rockin' mustache dude :D

It's the overtones (the high notes that you hear because of all the vibrations caused by the low notes.)

I meant to say that some guy from this choir came and taught us.

Exactly...I agree that it sustains, it just seemed to be more prominent at times.

wow. when they produce those overtones at the end... it's almost extra terrestrial.

my choir did this song ..... its so amazing! hard to do overtones too!!

That is because in the song it drops a half step. from the transition to the Ab

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).

4:33 - 4:35 is amazing

In my school we learnt to do harmonic overtone