Cantu a tenore | Hacker News Reader

Cantu a tenore

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69 pointstintinnabula26 comments

The most impressive thing about this is not the overtone singing - one can learn that given some practice time - but to me it's how LOUD the quartet sounds.

I'd recommend being in the same room with them if you can, the feeling is just incredible, and videos and recordings absolutely do not render how powerful this kind of singing can get with the years of practice that they put in.

You can try that out with your friends. Get two or three of them, stand in a circle, facing each other, and start making "MMM" or "AAAAH" sounds, trying to "find" each other in tone and pitch. When you manage to tune in to the group sound, it will sound as loud as a brass orchestra.

Speaking from experience. Although it works better with male singers (because louder voices).

> In 2005, UNESCO proclaimed the

What is it with Italians and UNESCO? I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about things Italian. I speak the language fluently, my kids have citizenship, I can talk about politics there - but I never quite grokked this fascination with getting everything declared UNESCO this, UNESCO that.

At the core, I think there's just a lot of cultural and historical sites in Italy specifically because of the Roman Empire and its tentacles.

Then there's the fact that UNESCO sites receive funding, which Italians love.

Then Italians are (overly?) proud of their history and food and they won't pass up an opportunity to tell the world they're the best. [1]

  1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp2uDyzxP6g

I should have specified that I'm not really talking about all the amazing historic places that Italy has. That makes perfect sense. It's the random things like this singing that have me scratching my head.

Italy are marketing themselves as "Cultural Superpower" since a few years. Having lots of UNESCO things plays in to that I guess?

But apart from the marketing, Italy really has a lot of stuff worth protecting.

I think Italy's leaders and cultural champions' aim is to regard Italy as "The cultural backbone of the world", because to be a superpower you have to lead others... They mostly try to market Italian landmarks and folklore as an entitlement to get funds from cultural endeavours.

Italian cultural resources >> natural resources

Seems fair as a country to say "How can we maximally utilize our cultural resources?"

If the UN provides a vehicle with which to do that, they use the vehicle. Gripe about the game, not the good player.

I am not sure there is any reason to single out Italy here:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_UNESCO_Intang...

The interesting parts are the non-parties, such as the British Empire, joined by Russia, the United States, Somalia, et. al.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_i...

Indicates that Italy has the most (58) World Heritage Sites, above China (56), so considering landmass, I suppose that's a lot.

A friend of mine is fascinated with what he calls "the marketing prowess of the Italians". There are so many things (especially food) that Italians have basically taken over in the world's psyche (well, Western world).

I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_t... is also related to this.

Basically, your "thing" (a style of song, a method of making cheese") gets a stamp and then people cannot mess with it.

As a "consumer", I get some form of quality assurance that the UNSECO site will be well maintained, that my Parmigiano Reggiano is not some cheap knock off.

It's a bit like someone with a RHCSA certification, or an MFI certified Apple accessory.

> that my Parmigiano Reggiano is not some cheap knock off

In US it probably is[1] as US does not recognize European PDOs on food. You can sell Sammarzano tomatoes without the tomatoes even coming from Italy.

This is all political and has roots in the Boeing-Airbus trade dispute.

https://www.walmart.com/search?q=parmigiano

I get it with regards to an actual, physical site. That makes sense to have some kind of protection.

But with things like this kind of singing, what does it really achieve? Do the singers get money to teach it to the next generation or something?

When I still lived in Padova, a friend wanted me to translate an application for... I think it was "open source software" to be declared some kind of UNESCo thing, and while I am normally pretty generous with my time, I was just like "open source needs people to work on it, not some kind of UNESCO designation".

https://youtu.be/xSSWrZ_4xb4

That group (Tenores di Bitti) are quite nice. My favorite are the Cuncordu e Tenore de Orosei. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RnoWeykrjQ

You may recognize them from some soundtrack work in Werner Herzog films.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdQn04CEOK8 Sweden?!

Related, mongolian throat singing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvan_throat_singing

The Balkans have a tradition of pastoral singing that's very interesting as well. Here's a sample --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KPh93AJEUk

Be sure to listen to the sound sample on that page. Unexpectedly gorgeous IMHO

The Georgians invented polyphonic singing. Male choral music from Georgia is stunningly beautiful:

https://youtu.be/iOzXuQTJPfY

Beautiful, indeed, thanks for sharing that link. But have you got any references on your claim on the origins of polyphony? My understanding is that it is generally accepted to have developed globally, broadly speaking from homophony to heterophony to polyphony, in many different cultures.

As example I prefer Trio Mandili's Apareka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbsQJBxICN0 and the "heavy version" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iybYK53pzYw :)

Exquisite and thrilling, thanks! But Tuvan throat singers say hold my beer.

Hold my Kumis?

Damn my eyes. Upvote earned with prejudice

> The Georgians invented polyphonic singing.

At best they have the oldest tradition of polyphony in church music.

It's very difficult to trace the history of polyphonic singing as it developed independently along music in different parts of the world.

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