I’m a monk, been chanting throat singing for years and I think I could share some of the secrets if you are interested. There is a whole technique based on pressure and air flow and helps you hit lower notes quicker and more reliably for example

I’ve been wrestling with that last question for years, great video man!!!

Your impact on the bass singing world can't be overstated... and at such a young age ! Really proud of you 👍🏻

I'm a big fan of taddl, and hearing him interact with the guy that taught me subharmonics was pretty sweet!

You should talk to Elizabeth Zharoff of The Charismatic Voice. I’m sure you guys could nerd out over vocal technique, and I know she’s a big proponent of getting scoped so you can see what your voice is actually doing, which as far as I know, hasn’t been done yet to analyze the anatomy of what’s happening in subharmonic singing.

Awesome. Great work, brother!

I'm a flutist and vocalist and this gives me MANY ideas for trying to get subharmonics to sound out of a flute. Flutists can use a number of techniques to produce overtones and multiphonics, but nobody really tries to get subharmonics out of them.

I got the honor of actually speaking to Geoff a few years ago in Grinnell Iowa and I was very briefly able to discuss subharmonics with him, and I asked him where he had seen the technique, and his response was something to the effect of, "I think his name was David Larson, I saw it in a youtube tutorial." and the amount of just sheer joy to see our little slice of bass singing reach someone I idolized felt so awesome. This was summer of 2019 as well so subs were a known technique but not as widely used as they are now.

The man that started it all -- great video my guy! I remember chatting with you on Instagram back in 2015 when I first saw your videos and got interested in subs -- crazy how long ago that was. One added bit of useful voice science re what you mentioned about subs being easier on closed vowels (or closed mouth position): based on how the physics of the voice works, and how the subglottal and supraglottal pressure systems work while singing, closed vowels and closed mouth position (also known as SOVTs (Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract) actually help the vocal folds adduct (come together) easier. It's a great trick for young singers to train with these a lot to achieve good vocal fold closure, creating a pure, more efficient (and more powerful) sound.

Interesting to see you lay all this out like this! You've done a great job of influencing the community in a positive way. I guess that's what putting out good content does! Also, it's interesting how the internet can make niche musical communities almost like a small town. Lots of familiar faces here... this takes me back.

Definitely not just bass singers studying with your techniques- I'm a Mezzo-contralto, learning to expand my range in this way. (I'm working with tonal singing to expand my range upward, as well!) Brilliantly helpful!

Your channel has been a huge inspiration to me, seeing various extended vocal techniques explained in detail and pointing out the commonalities between different vocal scenes using these techniques. It really encouraged me to experiment and take things from what different singers were doing and see how I might adapt it. It still seems like a lot of vocal communities are kind of floating along doing their own thing independently of each other. I hope more people see your videos and realize all the cool things going on everywhere and try to learn from and collaborate more with each other.

WOW! I understood the concept of the clashing reverberations of the soundwaves creating a subharmonic, but actually seeing that clashing amplified using a harmonica is amazing!!

Fantastic video David! Having been doing this technique ever since you released the original video back in 2015, it's really interesting to hear the feeling of doing subharmonics being put into words like this. Subharmonics are so intricate and mysterious, the way they manifest in the human voice is truly impossibly precise.

Rock on bro! Thanks for all that you do-amazing as always!

Proud to have been here since the start! Congrats on all the impact you've had David :)

It was so cool watching your video years ago and seeing the world of subharmonics open up with Geoff Castelucci and seeing more and more people know about the technique. I even mentioned it to my chorus teacher back in high school and she had no idea what subharmonics were and she has a masters. Crazy how almost no one knew about this technique until your videos

Having watched Taddl 10 or so years ago before he changed his path, it was a real suprise to see him here again after watching your video about the topic years ago and now suddenly getting the updated version in my recommended. how small the internet can be

I greatly appreciated this video, I've been trying off an on a way to practice sub-harmonics throughout the day, just couldn't find a way to do it without bothering the people around me, until now. Love your videos David, you and Geoff are what got me back into bass singing after 6 years.

Thank you for this vid! This is **chef's kiss**

Yes Taddl... Nice letting him show of... Thanks for your informative/educative video

You can actually also create subharmonics with a stringed instrument using a bow, using a single string. I understand that subharmonics can be created by the interaction of two frequencies such as a 5th creating an underlying lower harmonic frequency. However, I honestly don’t think it would be possible for your vocal chords to create two different frequencies from each other, and my thoughts are that subharmonics can also be created by manipulating pressure and air speed, which is essentially how it is done on a stringed instrument such as violin or viola, using a single string. But, how does manipulation of speed and pressure create a subharmonic frequency? That part, I have yet to figure out. I would love to see a slow motion video of a stringed instrument playing a subharmonic. I really do think it is very similar to what is going on in the voice, and could possibly bring some answers

This was such a cool video David! I think I watched your first tutorial back in 2016 and have been developing my subharmonic register ever since. It was amazing to see it being slowly integrated more into commercial singing! Thank you so much for making that video!

I've been listening to your videos for a year or two now as a high tenor and have gained an octave plus learning to use distortion and extended vocal fry from your videos. Thank you dearly for your service to music, David!

Hola David, absolutely loving your enthusiasm for this area of vocal technique. I remember lying in the bath when I was kid, accidentally finding these tones, just suddenly dropping down into them and trying to make them last as long as possible, it truly is a fascinating sound. Of course I had no "technique", so it would seemingly come and go as it pleased, and it felt special when I could do it for extended periods. I definitely think the reverberation of the bathroom and the relaxed state of the body both helped these sounds come about. I think one of the main things with these sounds is to surrender to them, and not try to control them - like you were saying, let the natural mechanisms of the voice and sound do their thing, it's almost like you just have to will these sounds into existence, the sideways thing is spot on..........................One thing that does surprise me is that in this discussion of subharmonic technique there is little or maybe no mention of Tuvan throat singing or the multi harmonic singing of the Tibetan monks, or the many other centuries old (or more) singing traditions. It's absolutely mind blowing what these singers can do, and there's so much to learn from them, with a traditional technique that has been developed over multiple generations. One of the most impressive techniques is the ability to not only sing the fundamental and a strong sub harmonic, but at the very same time also sing complex melodies with overtones. I must admit I have only watched this video and maybe you mention and explore these traditional techniques elsewhere on your channel, and if you do apologies in advance :-) Having said all that I do think there is a very important place for people like you to be "translators" of such age old traditional vocal techniques, to be able to express these techniques in familiar western terms. If you're interested in exploring this subharmonic world even further I'm sure you would find it rewarding to study or at least connect with some traditional singers of this technique, it could only deepen your enthusiasm and understanding of this style of singing. Congrats on doing what you're doing, love your relaxed and open style of presentation, you're obviously inspiring a ton of people all round the world to plumb new depths of vocal sonic booms, and that is surely a good thing :-)

WHOA DUDE! I've been trying to hit lower notes for years and just stumbled on your vid. I'd never purposely tried to hit "fry" so after about 15 minutes of trying to hit it, I accidentally hit subharmonic. Now that I know what it feels like, I'm totally stoked to explore that realm! Once I'm consistently in control, I'll need to try for 2nd sub. Thank you!!!

Yeeees, been waiting for this for a long time!

This is really really fun. Thank you so much for this tutorial

I found you back in high school after watching the oogie boogie song. Using your tutorial, although it took like two or three years of trying, I eventually figured out the technique at two in the morning while laying in my dorm bed and singing myself to sleep. I immediately jumped up, ran into the basement to the dorm piano, and didn't sleep that night because I had to know I could replicate it in the morning. Since then, I've been singing subharmonics casually day to day, and have even managed a fleeting second sub once or twice. Similarly to you, I've just been completely fascinated by the technique and the science behind it. When I realized you could use two voices, I was amped out of my mind. I just wanted to say thank you for putting in the efforts that you have to not only learn and understand it but to make it known. It's totally changed how I look at singing and has on multiple occasions reignited my love of it.

One of the things I’d love to learn from an anatomical perspective is the difference between various vocal basses. For example, being able to see the vocal folds vibrating when using regular subharmonics vs throat bass vs vibration bass vs vocalized chest bass vs inward bass. They’re all different sounds, but SEEING why would be incredible. You should contact an ENT doctor to see if they’d work with you in a video

yo this is so crazy i remember wating your first video on this 7 years ago and beingone of like the first 20 people commenting ansking questions. i love to see the amount of outreach you have had. Love you david keep killing it!

This video, along with one of Geoff's, helped me a lot. After like an hour I got the hang of finding the lower note, (inconsistently) and now I'm working on eliminating some extra vibration. Looking forward to using this throughout my life. Edit: Also emptied an entire water bottle lol

I'm always amazed when I learn of a new way that things can line up or mirror perfectly. How awesome 🙂

I'm not a singer (pretty bad at it really) and not a beat boxer either! But I was very fascinated by you tutorials about Subharmonics! I found myself practicing Subharmonics while working, for no good reason at all! I guess this is how captivated I was about it! Keep doing it! If you can bring me, who has no use at all for it, to practice it! Imagine someone who sing!

Congratulations on the Geoff Castelucci shout-out!

I have never heard such an in depth take on this topic, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and journey

I've been doing my own research into the mechanics of subharmonics for a while now! Read on if you want a stupid long explanation of what I've found: While the physics and math of beat frequencies (combination tones, whatever you want to call them) makes sense, I've always been suspicious of my two vocal folds actually vibrating at different frequencies. That would mean one chord is vibrating at a higher frequency than the fundamental you're singing, but you never hear or feel a higher 5th when you do subharmonics. It would also take more energy to raise one vocal chord to a higher pitch, but I never feel an increase in air pressure to get subharmonics out - in fact, I have to decrease my air pressure usually, and I can't push too hard on my subharmonics they go away. So it wouldn't make sense from an energy standpoint to have the vocal chords vibrating at different frequencies. And different frequencies would also mean that the vibration going on isn't symmetric in your throat - one side would be vibrating faster, and I'd bet you'd be able to feel that difference. I detect no such thing, subharmonics always feel symmetrical in my throat. Vocal chords can vibrate at different frequencies though - this is called dyplophonia, and it's usually caused by some disorder in the throat, like a paralysis of one of the vocal chords or the muscles that control it. There are entire medical specialties dedicated to this and related vocal disorders. I've read tons of fascinating stuff about this, but none of it comes close to describing the subharmonics I'm looking for. If people interested in subharmonics haven't heard of Leonardo Fuks, he's the place to start when looking for an actual answer here. He did a lot of research in the late 90's into what he called Vocal Ventricular Mode (VVM) phonation (using the false folds, aka kargyraa, throat bass, etc) and was one of the first to theorize the mechanism of how the false folds vibrate with the vocal folds. In the process he mastered subharmonics too - he called subharmonics "periodic pulse register", and he has audio clips on his website of him going down to a 5th subharmonic. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually talk about PPR much in his research papers. Instead whenever it comes up he just references other papers from the 80s for the a more detailed explanation of it, and then those papers just say that PPR is presumed to be a kind of vocal fry without explaining it. I've heard people explain subharmonics as vocal fry before, but it's never really sat well with me. Vocal Fry is when your vocal chords relax so much that they are touching, and when you push air into them, the air "bubbles" through at a controlled rate. This is why fry is seemingly bottomless, because you can use the muscles in your throat to make that bubbling as slow as you want, down to just letting individual bubbles out. I used to do that all the time as a kid. This is compared to normal "modal" speech, where the vocal folds only touch at their most extended point on the vibration cycle. I've heard Thou Yang describe this (what I'm calling vocal fry) as "unsupported fry" and subharmonics as "supported fry". However, this doesn't fit with the vocal-chords-vibrating-at-different-pitches theory of subharmonics, because that bubbling naturally requires the vocal chords to be relaxed, whereas having one chord vibrating at a higher frequency would require more tension, not less. What's more, I'm able to get subharmonics off of my vocal fry - when I go lower and lower on a 1st subharmonic, I can go a bit past the lower limit of my chest voice's bottom end, and when I jump out of the subharmonic I find myself in vocal fry. Don't believe me, try it for yourself! (for that matter, I can also get a subharmonic when in falsetto, not that it sounds any good.) So if subharmonics aren't vocal fry and aren't one chord vibrating a 5th higher than the other, what is it? The only hint I've been able to find has come from a 1994 paper titled "A subharmonic vibratory pattern in normal vocal folds". I haven't been able to read the full paper yet (paywalled), but the abstract says this: "measurements reveal two different open phases within a subharmonic cycle-the first shorter with a simple shape, the second longer with a shape containing a “ripple.”... The stroboscopic visualization reveals an unusual mucosal movement during the “ripple,” characterized by an opening movement of the upper margins, which interrupts the closing movement of the vocal folds... this vibratory pattern [may arise] as a consequence of detuning of the usually identical frequencies of the dominant modes of the vocal folds, with 3:2 entrainment replacing the normal 1:1 pattern." That's where I'm at now, trying to get access to read that whole paper, because I'm not sure exactly what the abstract is saying. If I'm right then the ripple they're mentioning would be a superposition - when two waves exist at once on a medium. Picture a sine wave, but the line of the sine wave is squiggly; a higher frequency "superimposed", or added, onto a lower frequency; or in this case a lower frequency being added onto a higher one.. This would make sense for your vocal chords - by relaxing them a bit, but not enough to make them touch like in vocal fry, you can introduce enough slack that a lower frequency could be superimposed onto the fundamental. But that line at the end also suggests a detuning that leads to a 3:2 vibrational pattern, which kinda sounds like the vocal folds vibrating at different frequencies, so I don't know. But even if that was the case, it wouldn't be so simple as one vocal fold just jumping up - this ripple that they're mentioning is doing something weird. This still doesn't quite explain why the undertone series pops so naturally into place and why this ripple wouldn't appear in arbitrary frequencies, so not sure on that one either. More research to be done. If you made it to the end of this, thanks for sticking with me! Hopefully this was interesting or informative, and sorry I don't have anything conclusive. Also feel free to correct me if you think I got something wrong. With subharmonics getting more and more popular, I think there's a real strong opportunity to do more legit academic research into this, and if anyone has more info on research past or present, I would love to hear about it! I have plans to reach out to some ENT doctors in my area soon to get a doctor's perspective on it as well, hopefully that is interesting.

Dude what a journey this has been for you. I don't know what to say. Just thank you for changing the lives of thousands of singers and beatboxers around the world. You have truly made this tequnique popularize and I could't be more grateful for it, and I know that many agree with that. Personally you have changed my life and approach to low singing. As a tenor singing low was always a bummer. The only time of the day when my voice would feel somewhat low and resonant was on the mornings and that was it, after two hours it was all gone. Then around November of 2019 I saw your first subharmonic video turorial and Iremember becoming obsessed with it because of how powerful it was and the possibilities it could give me. I literrally binge watched all of your subharmonic tutorials shortly after that. I can still vividly remember the first time I succesfully hit a subharmonic. I was aming for a C2, and then out of nowhere my voice flipped down there. I can still remember the feeling of power and accomplishment I got. I can still remember how werid and awesome was that for the first time I sang a low note lower than Gb2. And I remember that night I spent like one or two more hours trying pitches and I remember I sang the G1 from the ring of fire and felt invencible, even though it sounded very weak and unstable at this time. Fast forward Two years and you have opened a door for me to endless possibilities. Unfortunatly I am still recovering from vocal damage due to oversinging during quarantine, but once my voice is back I want to be back and stronger than ever and I have a few Voiceplay and acapella covers in mind to upload. I don't have muche else to say. Just thank you David. I will always admire you, you are my hero. Love, from Argentina

I've really learned a lot from your videos and it's been an insane help in developing my low range. Great content!

I remember watching your videos years ago. Good to see you’re still making videos

This is amazing, I saw this and started yesterday, and I immediately got the feeling and my first subharmonic notes. I found, I can pretty consistantly hit a B1 (actually B2 and B1 :D) with decent loudness and support. But I'm not sure, how to efficiently practice from now on. Could you maybe provide us with a quick routine, for daily practice, of some exercises you found helpful to really improve the range you can use subharmonics in? Also: I think my goal would not be to get extremely low, but to be able to connect the subharmonic register to my lowest comfortable singing voice. I found it pretty hard, to do the subharmonics in higher ranges, I think I already get it but the actual main note is very present, so that it doesn't really sound like the clean low note... Can you maybe show yourself singing a scale while switching registers? In general I noticed it can be controlled, how present the actual note is over the subharmonic note (e.g. Taddl preserves it very hearable). Do you have tips on controlling that? I think, the answer to most of my questions is practice, feeling and time, as I started yesterday :D But maybe you still have some tips, to help us not wasting effort in wrong directions :)

This is the best video on subharmonics on the internet for sure! I really hope this video will get a lot of views so more people know the ‚full‘ story about the subject. Btw, Geoff Castellucci is the reason why I found out about subharmonics but you are the reason why I understand how they work and why I am able to sing them. I‘ve been playing around with subs for about 2 years and 4 months. At this Point I am fairly consistent with it and I am able to hit 2nd subs as well. I actually used some 2nd subs in my music here on KZfaq. I am a Tenor so 2nd subs are the only way I can hit a solid 1st octave note while staying in subharmonics. Inhale is my go-to technique for 1st octave notes but 2nd subs are something special that I like to throw in once in a while and pronouncing words with subharmonics is easier than with inhale. Thank you for the video and for the insight, it‘s always fun to hear you nerd out about subharmonics. It‘s such a cool and interesting topic but I don’t really have any people around me to talk about it. I hope it‘ll gain even more popularity in the upcoming years.

I was one of those people that watched your video from 7 years ago!!! I’m still getting there!😊 took breaks here and there but still making progress!😊❤️ thanks brotha!

the little tutorial help out real quick. thx u David for helping me discover an extented range to my vocal range. Im glad to hear how you came about it. it also helped me with more inward vocal fry bass.

I feel like I've been doing this for years without realizing it. I've been a bass in a few choirs for 6 years now and as you were explaining this as I tried to do it it just felt like I was switching into a different register. Similar too moving from a chest voice to a falsetto but the other way around.

I will forever scream from the rooftops that I was the reason David Kahn made that halo video ❤️ he gave me the shout out at the end #blessed

Randomly in my recommendations, and this was absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sharing your experience. I don't even sing, but love the physics behind this.

Early morning driving to the gym in Cardiff, South Wales listen to this. I am burn only impressed but genuinely overcome by your gentle, humble nature. Thank you, sir!!!

The vocal fry tutorial was great :) it worked for me really quick. I think I've been doing this subconsciously for a while not realizing what it was LOL

About the last question, from a mechanical engineer's perspective: If you take a steel rod and hit it with something, it will vibrate. Unless some specific conditions happen, it will vibrate in many different frequencies, but the most prominent will be it's first modal (or natural) frequency (frequency itself is dependant on the shape and material of the rod, like the pitch when singing is dependant on the shape of the oral cavity and whatever else is included). The second most prominent will be it's second natural (modal) frequency, and so on. First natural (or modal) frequency is always the lowest of all the natural frequencies of the object (or cavity) and it has the highest amplitude (carries most energy with it), with each following natural frequency being a higher pitch and having a lower amplitude. Some technicalities and specific scenarios aside, many of it's first natural frequencies will be equal to it's actual first natural frequency (probably analogous to the carrier pitch) multiplied by some whole number. Natural frequencies of things (works for air in cavities as well i guess) that vibrate very often have perfect intersecting points of the sinusoids of different frequencies (obviously not every single zero point of the sinusoids match, but rather for example every fourth zero value of the second sinusoid could match up with every zero value of the first sinusoid, for example). So, while i don't have any real knowledge what happens with the human voice in regards to subharmonics, I can draw some analogies that are basically educated guesses (educated in regards to engineering and metal rods, thou I do have a few years of music school behind me): when you set up the carrier frequency with the shape of your mouth instrument, all those following frequencies are just waiting to happen, but for a lack of technical term, with less chance/motivation/intention to happen. So, here's my guess: setting up the carrier frequency is basically just setting the mouth/throat shape to have the first natural frequency of that cavity the frequency for the tone you want, and then by some manipulation of muscles you disturb either one of the vocal folds or something else to not be in that first frequency, which just makes it fall straight into another natural frequency for that exact shape of your instrument (and since that other one is most likely to be the first one multiplied by a whole number, you now have both tones for a subharmonic). Again these are guesses, i would hope more experienced engineers, possibly of the audio-sort, step in and give their two cents.

this was my hearing about subharmonics and just following your instructions here I was able to hear the fringes of it start to happen already. truly amazing stuff

This is incredible, I never knew my voice could do this! Thank you🙏

Bruh, your little tutorial got me doing it and then I started speaking and got so spooked I lost it, and now I have to rewatch the little tutorial because wtf just happened? So happy to have run across you! Edit: For what it's worth, as a kid I always played with vocal fry, so when you were like "Yeah, try to do it with a tone" it was like a key.

I have found subharmonics myself, just by relaxing my voice. I have found it to be easy to train and improve, but I still struggle to hit the second subharmonic. I am 16, so maybe that impacts my vocal chords in a way that makes it easier to hit, but harder to make lower. I don’t know chords so I don’t know what my lowest note is, but I know someone who knows notes so maybe I’ll update this

Thanks for the crispy new content

That’s just freaking amazing ! Didn’t thought adding control to vocal fries would result in a so specific and amazing vocal skill !

Omg, I’m surprised at how easy this actually is, after like 20 min of practicing with your quick tutorial I’ve been able to maintain a subharmonic pretty well and I’m able to sing a few notes with it. But the lower I try to go the less volume I’m able to sing at. Oh and I’m not someone who talks with vocal fry at all, but I’ve had lots of experience, for some reason, to use it for fun.

I didn’t know it had a name, but I’ve been using sub harmonics for years, but for an entirely different reason. I learned it from Mongolian throat singing. I’ve been able to do beats for a long time but singing lyrics has always been weird for me, so this vid is helpful to practice properly

Awesome video man! Can't thank you enough for really breaking this topic down. I run a creepypasta narration channel and I've been really trying to get this technique down to work on doing creepy characters/villians or just deep bassy bad guy voices haha

This technique has eluded me for many years, I've always come back to your channel to see if I can figure it out. Loved this video, I'm gonna give it another try!

The thing that instantly made me learn subharmonic was this : sustain softly a note mouth closed (sustain a note around your vocal range, not too high not too low) constrict it a bit so it’s kinda electric (almost like you want to go to vocal fry but you can’t since your singing a note, don’t add force though it shouldn’t be loud, the softer the easier) then move your jaw as far as possible forward/ open you mouth and pull you tongue forward as far as possible; the back of your tongue will slightly stretch your vocal cords and make you will likely fall into subharmonic, it should feel like a fall, like you let go your voice and it fall into subharmonic if it didn’t work, keep messing around with your voice and try sometimes the jaw /tongue technique, subharmonic are as sensitive as whistle, i do them since 2 years and still fail them often so don’t worry

all of you guys need to go listen to David’s music, it’s so good

The vocal fry thing was really helpful!! I got it almost right away. Now to practice consistency! I've been practicing other things but knowing what it's supposed to feel like is what I needed

Thanks so much for all this Knowledge David, really has helped us mortals

You might know this but, since our vocal chords are basically a tube, open end air column harmonics apply to this. The harmonics that you're skipping through are the resonant frequencies based on the length of the tube.

My theory as to why human voices are so good at this particular thing would be that it's effectively a result of damped and driven oscillations. When anything is oscillating freely it will have a natural frequency, however if you add some kind of slowing force (damping) or accelerating force (driving) you can alter this frequency in subtle ways. The air coming out at the fundamental pitch you're singing could be acting as both of these through the negative and positive pressure gradients as it passes through your false chords, basically tuning them to a frequency which is very harmonious with the fundamental, i.e. forcing a clean ratio. This would explain why once you start to get it your voice kind of locks into it completely, without any beating from being out of tune

Thank you for teaching us something that beautiful!

Great video, loved the harmonica and the mathematical explanation. It opened a lot of ideas. Thanks !

I'm expanding this technique to metal with my band 👌 thanks for doing what you do!

So cool, I would love to see more about 2nd sub harmonic. How consistent are you with it? How can you achieve 2nd and 3rd harmonics?

So what really helped me from the original videos, and what accelerated my grasp on control was when you mentioned the positioning of the vocal folds in relation to each other. Helped me better understand the muscle groups i needed to focus on were actually located higher than our normal folds.

Fascinating! I have been following your channel on and off, since the time I was exited to learn about the extremes of human voice. I have focused my study towards mixed voice and raspy belting/screaming, as well as flageolett and whistle voice and try to make reliably accessible in a live setting (which is for me personally the proof of a flawless technique). It's fun to see someone scientifically nerd out in one niche :)

I think I just got it from the little cut-in-tutorial, damn that's crazy. It's very not clean and I can hear the voice cracks / fry come through many times Still very fun to do, sat the whole video there doing it lol. Thanks!

@8:55 I had been trying to find a note to get my voice to go into the subharmonic / fry you were describing and hit it for a brief moment, and then - swear to God - you gave this example pitch @8:55 and it was the EXACT note I was singing 🎶 haha we were suddenly in unison. I thought... Damn he's good he predicted the note I'd be singing at the exact moment I was singing it. On KZfaq haha Wild.

Thanks to you, I have managed to get a great grip on the Subharmonic register. I even managed to teach some of my friends. So as I was watching session and getting excited everytime you mentioned points about the sub like it being easier to find when you close your mouth, it being the opposite of overtones, realized it was the opposite of overtones back in 2018. On practicing my sub, I actually practiced my sub on the vowel "I" before I extended to other vowels. Also, I realized it got better when I practiced it 10 to 20 minutes sitting or lying down then standing up. It gets solid faster like that. Or trying to use it while walking so that you find a comfortable environment.

This video is like a documentary, never heard about this topic and it got me, new subscriber here!

I guess the reason it feels like the intervals are magically "locking in" is because of resonance, if ratios are too obscure they cancel each other out and the tone cannot be sustained (so it stops or slips into an interval that resonates better)

12:25 " Squats? *Yea* "

man i enjoyed this video so much, i cant explain how much i can relate to stuff you said (ofcourse im talking agout religiously listening to Voice Play, Pentatonix and Home Free for years)

Thanks man!! great video.

I genuinely thought you were a tenor this whole time! Now I'm curious, where does your head voice stop? I'm almost certain I know why having a closed mouth helps with subharmonics. I suspect most people have trouble introducing the level of breath pressure needed for subharmonics while keeping their throat relaxed, since for most singing breath pressure and tension are directly related. Closing the mouth and forcing the air through the nose is a way of forcing more pressure while simultaneously discouraging tension.

The Book of Jasher tells how Jacob’s sons could scream as a combat technique that was so loud it could be heard, and felt for miles. Legend perhaps, but maybe in the early stages of humanity, before our present genetic diversification, we possessed vocal abilities that were lost but the programming remains. The potential for what we could relearn is incredible.

Really cool of you to take the time to make a new video of this nature (you even included chapters, hot damn). I'm not a singer, or even a musician. My only intersection with this stuff outside of an appreciation for vocal technique is that I have formal education in and studied linguistics and neurolinguistics. This stuff is really fascinating. So much so that I've been practicing various subharmonic techniques including fry and kargyraa. There's also an Italian version native to Sardinia sung acapella called cantu a tenore, though I think it employs the same technique as kargyraa (based on the sound). It has been a fun journey thus far. I've found the best time to practice it is in the shower, particularly in the evening when I have little to no control of the fry register. My voice is a little "broken" by default due to muscle disease. Whether or not this made it easier to drop into the sweet spot I don't know, but it took me maybe a week or two of everyday practice to get to the point where I could just hold a comfortable 1st sub o vowel til the cows come home. 2nd sub is another story. Still a work in progress. Being a former athlete with incredible lung capacity and pulmonary health probably helps, as I find it takes a lot of air past the first sub. Using more air but with less tension seems to be the hurdle for me at the moment. I've seen a bit of improvement in my speaking voice. It tends to break down into fry less often. Next time I get scope by the ENT I'll be sure to get some footage.

What an awesome thing to see a pioneer of a new musical technique giving such a detailed history of it. 🤯

Greetings David. I have an educated guess on why it seems the ratios seem to be built into our voices. And I say "seem to", because I don't believe they are. I believe what's going on is a phenomenon called synchronization. If you have multiple oscillators in a closed system, such that they can influence each other, they tend to synchronize. The easiest example is if the two oscillators have the same frequency, if one tries to go faster than the other, due to it being in a closed system it transfers some of it's speed to the slower oscillator speeding it up, and simultaneously slowing the faster oscillator down. Eventually the two oscillators become paired, to break out of this coupling the difference in desired oscillation speed much be large enough that it exceeds this synchronization. Most of the time when this happens it means that a more optimal ratio is found, one that requires the oscillators to change their frequency less. To deviate from this synchronized speed would require a continuous addition of energy to the oscillators. The two oscillators cause enough interference to each other that they deviate from their intended frequency. Rather than contently trying to correct this frequency by very carefully controlling the forces at play, allowing the oscillators to deviate and become coupled is actually the more energy efficient state. There's a famous experiment you can do placing metronomes on a surface that's on wheels, and setting them going at different times. Even if the metronomes are not exactly the same frequency, they will after a few cycles become perfectly in sync (Veritasium has a great video on this). Less known however is that this works for other ratios as well. If you have two metronomes that are far apart from each other, they will still synchronize, but at some ratio. The exact ratio is the ratio that requires the least deviation from the generated frequency from both oscillators. I believe this is what's occurring in the voice during subharmonics. The ratio is more or less fluid between the vocal folds, but due to synchronization in a coupled system they'll end up falling into the most energy efficient state, which is synchronization. To change ratios you need to simple cause the intended oscillation to pass the threshold where the current ratio is no longer the most efficient way to synchronize.

Wear both headphones, and hum the note he's creating with the harmonica even with a different octave.... It's fun :>

Dude this is amazing! I'm not really even primarily a singer and I tried it just for fun when you were demonstrating how to do it, not expecting to get anywhere soon, and I learned to do it immediately using your advice! So cool! I'm gonna use this in my recordings!

Great tutorial and video! Within 5 minutes of watching, I was able to sustain notes in the sub harmonic range 😄, super excited to practice and use it :)

Would you be able to expand on 1st vs 2nd subharmonics? I can do subharmonics well, but I don't really know if I'm doing 1st or 2nd. I tried to do what you talked about in your "2nd subharmonics" video, but most of the time I feel I'm just moving to a lower note while remaining in the 1st subharmonic when attempting to go to the 2nd.

It's super cool to be here as a counter tenor (light tenor) saying that I can sing down to a G1 and once I get a bigger microphone I'll record a few covers with it. In the start I did hurt my voice a little bit in the start, but it seems to me that the only thing that hurts is doing it wrong. So basically like singing normally but harder and riskier! Edit: My range has grown to be G1 to E6, so it has also gone higher.

just did the rabbit hole run through your tutorial videos (again) and finally found the range 🤯 right before immediately losing it 😅 legend, no one has ever explained it more thoroughly and with as much clarity as you have over the years

Wow thanks for this video too! Taddl really is a beast 😂

in the crack between falsetto i noticed a falsetto subharmonic, have you noticed it too? I can do poly which is the crack between mix/chest and falsetto, so im not sure if it’s really a falsetto subharmonic or a constricted poly, but i have to say it really feels like falsetto subharmonic even though i saw any falsetto fry

There seems to be a lot of similarities between metal vocals and subharmonics, even more than what was discussed in the video. The fry based subharmonics could definitely be compared to a fry scream and the throat bass seems very similar to a false chord scream. In both of these cases I think the base sound of the metal vocal is actually coming from the same mechanics that sub harmonics are based in. From my limited understanding of subharmonics and mediocre understanding of metal vocals, I think subharmonics are a much more melodic, gentle, less restricted take on these mechanics, whereas metal vocals lean more into the distortion by creating a more constricted passageway for air, removing the true voice (in a lot of cases), and occasionally adding multiple layers such as combining fry, false chords, and or the aritnoids (I think that’s what they are called they are little cartilage above the false chords I believe). It could be cool to see someone do a deep dive comparing the two vocal styles to see how much overlap there really is

Thank you David, for this video. I haven't taken singing as a whole seriously until this year, and I learned about bass singing and subs about a year ago because my voice is naturally on the lower side (my chest voice goes comfortably to a D2 most days). Your video is helping me find subharmonics a little more easily, but if i'm being honest, there's no one else around me who wants to do this with me or even wants to deal with hearing me learn it. I wish had a vocal coach who knew as much about subharmonics as you do or anyone else who's been using it for years. Like i wish that Geoff was my coach rn, love that man's voice. I can't get it consistently at all yet, and it's a real bummer, cuz ive been trying for a long time. If anyone can help in any sort of way, I'd appreciate it way more than you think. edit: spelling and rephrasing

I just wanted to thank you for explaining this so well. I've been trying to sing subharmonics for months and I've never hit the first octave. This video was the most helpful guide That I have seen on KZfaq.

so, I'm pretty young, still in high school. Like you said "young fresh voices [often] have a hard[er] time finding this technique", this was not the case for me. I had NEVER wanted to sing, I avoided choir like it was the most disgusting rat I'd ever seen. However I had always had a interest in music. Last year I heard Geoff's sixteen tons cover, and thought it was awesome. So, just for the fun of it, I tried to emulate it and hit almost every note to my surprise. I realized "well damn I can go pretty low" and then got caught in the voiceplay rabbit hole, ...eveentually finding the oogie boogie song and being blown away of course. This got me interested and I was looking up a whole bunch of tutorials. Yeah, kinda an awkward introduction to singing but it works eh? I "mastered" this technique 11/04/ last year (mastered meaning being able to hit it basically whenever ) and from there I learned a few variations like indicators alien bass[by the way I feel like it's not just the 3rd subharmonic as you described in your reaction but I dunno]. I believe I had looked at Geoff's tutorial, then he credited you and I found your tutorial; I tried it first at around 3 months before I mastered it, and I hit it for the first time within a week of trying. I got really lucky to say the least. To be honest, I didn't ever have the click you described, it was sortof just something I could do on and off and it was really discouraging because your tutorials... sadly didn't help much after the first time getting it. For me, bass2yangs tutorial is where it clicked, the *day* I watched it, I mastered it. In fact, it was within a few *hours* of watching his tutorial that I was consistently getting a powerful first sub. Even this video actually better explained to me what's going on with the different pitches. Alot of people say they've never heard subharmonics be louder than normal singing, maybe I'm the counter example, it has actually helped me speak louder, I often slip into subs in casual conversation whenever I fry at the end of a sentence and my voice ticks up in volume just a teeny bit. Also I have a new technique for subharmonic singing (this is why I mentioned variations) singing with an "r" attached to the vowel you are using seems to turn the volume up from a 5 to a 8/9 (on a **relative** scale up to 10 in relation to my normal voice loudness[and it's only a guess cuz it's actually from a 12 to 20 in relation to *my* voice]). So for an "a" you would use the "are" mouth position, "o" is "or", "oo/u" is "ure" as in (l)ure, "e" is "er/ear", and "i" is sorta wierd for me, but "ire" as in fire is the best sound for me. Let me know if you get any results or if it's just placebo :P (even if it's not real, I know for a fact that it makes the 2nd (maybe 3rd) sub way easier) Anyways around the same time I learned subharmonics you actually brought me into the beatboxing community, and I just wanted to thank you for all that I've learned from this :) and for introducing me to a new world of discovery edit: I am sure you understand the fact that even though throat bass and vibration bass are a form of subharmonic, they do not sound the same as the lighter version me and you use. I have found that adding the "r" gives you a much clearer sound, and it almost sounds like vibration bass to me. you can even do the air filter thing that remix does(explained in his vibration bass tutorial). kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jrVmlcmB0Zi4YYE.html example of "r vowels" for those who want it.

maybe humans evolved it to scare the shit out of predators by screaming at them in subharmonics :D

I have no idea about the signing world, but your channel is so fascinating. Been watching for a couple years now

My dad had a beautiful deep baritone voice. So cool to listen to all of your subharmonic vocals. Awesome that you can share & teach via KZfaq etc. If you think you may have injured your vocal chords, you may want to see a specialist.