10 Amazing Human Voice Feats: Throat Singing to Shattering Glass

Our voices are incredible tools. From early humans’ grunts to communicate, we’ve developed complex vocal sounds to share knowledge. This ability has allowed us to build upon each other’s achievements, making progress faster and more efficiently.

Now, with 31,000 languages and countless songs, the human voice has achieved amazing things, from opera to mimicking birds. Here are ten fascinating accomplishments of our vocal cords.

A Solo Duet: The Throat Singers of Tuva

The Republic of Tuva, part of Russia, lies in southern Siberia, near Mongolia. Since prehistoric times, Tuvans have lived in yurts made of birch bark and herded goats and yaks on the vast plains. The area is famous for its throat singing, which uses incredible vocal control to bring out the faint overtones of different frequencies.

Tuvan throat singers can make up to four pitches at once, creating a sound like a bagpipe, but more pleasing. The singer effectively harmonizes with themself, singing two or more notes simultaneously.

Starting with a low drone, throat singers carefully change their vocal tracts to break up the original sound. They amplify overtones, making them sound like extra pitches while the drone continues quietly. Often, the singers imitate or interact with natural sounds, like birds, streams, wind, or a camel’s growl.

Recently, throat singing has moved into indoor halls, where concerts are popular with tourists. A great example shows singers overlapping notes, making two sounds at the same time.

Click Languages

Click languages are African languages where clicks act as letters or parts of letters. Clicks were common in Khoisan languages and have spread to other languages in the Bantu and Cushitic groups. In these languages, clicks are only part of the consonants, mixed with more common verbal sounds.

The clicks are distinct. Made between the tongue and the roof of the mouth, they sound like a sharp pop or smack. When the tongue is between the lips (the “kiss click”), teeth, or side of the mouth, the sound is softer.

Xhosa, a major language in South Africa’s Eastern and Western Capes, is a good example. The video “The Three Xhosa Clicks Taught Easy!” shows how to make clicking sounds with traditional language components produced by the vocal cords. Xhosa’s clicks are written as x, c, and q, and are combined with vowel sounds. After practicing, it’s much harder than it looks in the video.

The only known click language outside Africa is Damin, an extinct ceremonial language of the Lardil people in northern Queensland, Australia.

Taa

Taa is the most diverse language in terms of sound. With five types of clicks, tones, and harsh vowels, often spoken with a quick choking sound, Taa is used by a few thousand people in Botswana and Namibia. Linguists believe it has the widest range of sounds of any language.

Taa has two dialects based on the location of the !Xoon people (not a typo) who speak them. Describing the language is complex. East !Xoon Taa has at least 58 consonants, 31 vowels, and four tones: high [á], mid [a], low [à], and mid-falling [â]. West !Xoon Taa has at least 87 consonants, 20 vowels, and two tones.

Hooooooooooooooolding a Note

Maximum phonation time (MPT) measures how long a person can hold a single, steady note. This shows how closed a person’s vocal cords are. The more closed the vocal cords, the less air is wasted, and the longer the sound can last.

MPT isn’t just for impressing audiences. Doctors use it in speech and respiration fields to diagnose problems. It can indicate how well someone is recovering from vocal cord paralysis. Doctors also use maximum loudest phonation time (MLPT) to understand a patient’s voice strength.

Healthy adult men can usually hold a sound for 25 to 35 seconds, while women can hold it for 15 to 25 seconds. In 2017, Ariana Grande held a high note for over a minute in a viral video, but claims that she broke an MPT record were incorrect.

Richard Fink IV holds the record, holding a note for two minutes and one second in 2019, beating Alpaslan Durmus’s one minute and 52 seconds.

ASMR

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is a stimulating feeling that starts on the scalp and moves down the neck and spine. It often feels like pleasant tingles or static. Though the term is recent, ASMR has become popular on YouTube. Many ASMRtists have millions of subscribers, and some have become millionaires.

ASMR is triggered by soft vocalizations like humming, whispering, and tongue clicking. Sensitive microphones amplify these sounds, creating an ASMR autotune. Non-vocal elements like tapping, crinkling, and dripping are also used. Some people also have visual ASMR sensitivity, triggered by calming hand gestures or a metronome.

ASMR might not exist without Bob Ross, whose show, The Joy of Painting, attracted viewers with his rhythmic brushstrokes and soothing baritone narration. Many viewers felt tingly and euphoric, zoning out as Ross painted mountains and “happy little trees.”

The science behind ASMR is still unclear, but studies show it’s a physical reaction, not just an emotional experience, making it a feat of the vocal cords.

TEN Octaves?

Tim Storms, an American singer and composer, has the widest vocal range in recorded history. Storms holds the Guinness record for spanning 10 octaves, about twice Mariah Carey’s range and three times the standard singing range.

Storms also holds the record for the lowest note ever sung: a G (-7) at 0.189 hertz, eight octaves below the lowest G on a piano. This note is beyond human hearing and was captured with a special microphone and sound analysis.

Storms’s talent was discovered in a Christian choir. As his voice deepened, he fascinated concertgoers and doctors. An ENT specialist found that Storms’s vocal cords are nearly twice the normal length, and his arytenoid muscles have above-average movement, creating rich sounds.

Gimme a Break

The human voice can shatter glass. Many people can break a glass with their vocal cords alone.

Every object has a resonant frequency, a pitch at which it vibrates. Hollow objects like wine glasses resonate easily. Tapping or running a wet finger along the rim can demonstrate this.

To shatter a glass, a singer must match that frequency and be loud enough, needing at least 105 decibels, about twice the sound of talking. The singer must hold the right note for several seconds.

Luck also matters. Invisible cracks on the glass’s surface vary, making some glasses easier to break than others. Some glasses may break with human sound, while others don’t.

Gone Pishin’

Pishing is when birders lure birds from hiding using their voice. Skilled birders create something like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

According to Nicholas Lund, founder of The Birdist blog, “I’ve had big flocks of Pine Siskins completely surround me. I’ve had warblers bounce around my feet… When pishing works, oh man, you’re on top of the world.”

“Pishing” is an onomatopoeia, coming from the “psssshhhhh” sound that mimics a bird’s alarm call. Birders categorize bird noises, like mating calls and flight chirps. Pishing imitates a “scold,” a bird’s warning system. When a bird scolds, others come to see what’s wrong.

Scolds work across bird species, drawing out different birds. The video shows pishing in action.

Pansori

Pansori is a South Korean form of musical storytelling, mixing the words “pan” (a gathering place) and “sori” (song). It features expressive singing, stylized speech, gestures, and stories from elite and folk culture.

Pansori performances can last up to eight hours. A singer, with a fan, improvises on themes from rural and sophisticated stories, accompanied by a single barrel drum.

Pansori began in the 1600s as an oral tradition among commoners. In the late 19th century, it became popular with affluent Koreans, who added sophisticated literary content. Subjects range from romantic tragedy to fantasy. Ch’unhyangga tells of love between an upper-class man and a lower-class woman, while Sugungga satirizes a hare in a sea kingdom.

Pansori was designated a National Intangible Cultural Property in 1964 to preserve it.

The Korean film Seopyeonje is about Pansori and is worth watching. The trailer is available here.

A Near-death Aural Experience

Klaus Sperber, or Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor known for his unique stage persona and wide vocal range. Nomi combined opera and absurdism, staging visionary performances with heavy makeup, eccentric costumes, and a distinctive hairstyle.

His repertoire included synthesizer-laden versions of classical opera and pop covers like Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” and Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” He even sang backup for David Bowie on Saturday Night Live in 1979.

Nomi died from AIDS in the early 1980s. In his final months, he focused on operatic pieces, wearing Baroque-era opera garb with a high collar to hide AIDS-related lesions on his neck.

One of Nomi’s last performances shows his voice full of life as his body failed.

The human voice is an amazing instrument capable of incredible feats, from the complex harmonies of throat singing to the delicate mimicry of bird calls. These ten examples highlight just a fraction of what our voices can achieve.

What’s the most impressive vocal feat you’ve ever heard? Leave your comment below!