The best synthetizer is… the human voice ! | Mal Webb | TEDxGeneva

Reviewer: Hélène Vernet

Thank you, Sir.

So first step, I’d like you to put down

the title of my speech into this loop recorder.

I want you to press this button on the first word,

and then again press this button.

Theo Bondolfi: Okay. Mal Webb: Good luck!

(Whispering) Okay. Do it twice. Here we go.

TB: Human voice is the best synthesizer.

MB: Okay, put it right on the first word.

TB: Human voice is the best synthesizer. Human voice is the best synthesizer.

MB: Okay. We’ll hang on with that.

Thanks. Give him a hand.

(Applause)

Okay. The human voice can make a lot of sounds,

far more sounds than any one language needs.

For example, the Zulu language of South Africa

has (click sound) and (click sound), but it doesn’t have “R”.

But a modular language of Australia has “R” and “rrr,”

but it doesn’t have “sss” -really!- which might seem strange

but not when you can see that huge palette of sounds

that each language has to choose from.

It’s like the human voice has evolved beyond the needs for communication

though meeting the needs of imagination …

(Rhythmic mouth sounds)

(Singing) You don’t know

what you don’t know you don’t know.

You don’t know what you don’t know you don’t know.

You don’t know.

You don’t know.

You don’t know what you don’t know you don’t know.

(End of the song)

(Applause)

I started learning drums when I was about four.

Then I took up piano and then a lot of instruments.

(Laughter) Maybe too many!

But I love exploring the possibilities of each one.

I’ve always sung and made silly sounds with my face

like all little kids do, but I just never stopped.

And then, when I was about nineteen, I’ve discovered Bobby McFerrin,

and went “Oh, the voice can be an instrument.”

I’ve started researching how it is used around the world

and working out how it works.

It’s really the best sound synthesizer there is.

(Changing voice) So now, I’m going to take you

for a guided tour from lip to lung,

through all the physics physiology

and frivolity of this: the human voice.

(Returning to normal voice) So first, to make sounds,

you need oscillators which make vibrations,

and you need resonators that amplify and tune those vibrations.

Let’s look at all ours oscillators,

all the bits in our face that can flap around.

First, there are the lips: (Demo). They can flap around.

They can also flap against your tongue : (Demo).

There is top lip: (Demo) and bottom lip: (Demo).

There is also a double (Demo) like that.

Probably you didn’t realize, no one even knows.

Look, this is it in very slow motion.

(Laughter)

How fun is that?

So next there’s the tip of your tongue: (Demo),

then the uvula which is what flaps when you snore: (Demo).

You can use that. It’s not very nice but you can use it.

And the next few are a little bit hard to see.

So I’ve sent a camera up my nose, so we can.

Yeah!

(Changing voice) Here we go through the nasal cavities

heading over the soft palate, heading towards the … oh, there’s a spit bubble!

… Through the spit bubble, and there is my tongue.

There we’re looking down at the larynx

and the vocal folds which are vibrating together.

Let’s have a listen to them singing.

(Song)

Does it sound familiar? Yeah.

So now we can see the ventricular folds which can vibrate together

when you’re: (Throat sound).

It’s a bit like when you’re strain to lift something (Throat sound).

It’s that sound and it is used as “throat singing”

all around the world from Sardinia to Tibet, to Alaska.

(Throat singing)

That style of singing.

It’s also used in rock: “Yeah,” “Waah,” all those different sounds.

You can do it very safely.

It’s a different part that’s vibrating and you can do it very safely.

Now, if you push the back of your tongue (Changing voice) back into your mouth,

a bit like that, you can eventually push the epiglottis

against the ventricular folds so they vibrate like this.

(Video) Mal Webb: Heu! You did very Armstrong.

(On stage) Yeah, very Armstrong. “I see trees of green, red roses too…”

You can do it with your voice and without your voice.

(With a normal voice) Exactly. So that’s all our oscillators, okay?

Actually, there is another one: when you burp.

That one vibrates but let’s not go there.

Next, there are different registers,

different ways your vocal folds can vibrate.

Firstly, there’s the speaking one.

Then there’s (Changing voice) this falsetto,

which is a larger contact with the vocal folds.

Then, there is a partial contact of the vocal folds ;

only part of the vocal folds vibrates, and this has a lot of different names.

In fact, it’s all very confusing.

(Normal voice) But, you can make these registers overlap.

When you go between other registers in the falsetto

it’s called yodeling: (Demo).

But, you can bring those noises together,

(Demo)

which is a central african yodeling.

Then some pop singers in the 90’s:

(Singing) “Zombie-eh, be-eh, be-eh,” you know those ones.

You can bring them further together under the same note: (Demo).

And you can yodel the wrong way: (Demo),

and do scales, and you can actually yodel upside down: (Demo),

which is a little bit weird.

It also can be used to sound a little bit like autotune, like:

(Singing) “So sa-a-ad that you’re living”

if you want to – probably not.

Anyway, when you’re practicing, you’ll be sitting and going

(Yodel)

then the phone rings and it’ll be like:

(Yodeling) “Hello? Hello! Hum..Yes it’s Mal. I’m a man.”

So you do practice it in private.

Okay. So next, I can do all those three registers.

I can do them all on one note – I practiced a lot, so I can go:

(Singing) Ha-a.

That’s all three registers. Have a look at this on the inside.

Here it is : speech,

falsetto,

and zipped – there it is –

and up high.

These two high ones are both called “head voice.”

It’s kind of confusing.

Anyway, there are other registers.

One is called “whistle register”

which is what Mariah Carey famously holds, those high notes.

I can’t do that one, so we will skip over.

Then, there’s “pulse register” or “glottal fry” which is the croaky voice

(Changing voice) that you all wake up with. Yeah? You all know that one.

(With a normal voice) It’s good for doing fake didgeridoo like:

(Demo)

Like that. That’s fun!

Then, if you do a really open vibration,

that’s called “incomplete closure” but I call it “caveman”

(Demo)

You can also call it “teenager.”

(Changing voice) “Oh momm, uh!”

That one …

(Laughter) (Applause)

Thanks.

Speaking of caves, let’s see this one on the inside.

You’re ready?

(Caveman sound)

That’s a long way inside.

Now I’ve seven ways that I can make an octave below my voice.

I can use all these different parts of my face that can flap.

Here we go.

([Lips sound) That’s my lips,

now my tongue: (Demo)

and then my uvula: (Demo)

and then my epiglottis: (Demo)

and then my ventricular folds: (Demo)

and then glottal fry: (Demo)

and then the last one, caveman: (Demo).

Here you go. How was that?

(Applause)

Alright.

You can do really, really low vibrations that aren’t a note anymore,

They’re more like a rhythm, like: (Demo), with the tongue,

or: (Demo), with your lips,

and then: (Demo), with your tongue,

and: (Demo), with the uvula.

If you combine all those, check it out: (Demo).

You’re really going to make your head wobble!

it’s like an internal massage of the head. I use it as a warm-up, (Demo).

That’s all three things flapping. Try it at home later.

Alright!

I call the three kinds of vibrato: “throat”, “gut” and “goat.”

“Throat vibrato” is the normal –

(Singing) A-a-a-ah –

where you’re wobbling the pitch.

Then, there is “gut” which is pulsing the air stream like:

(Demo) like the Bee-Gees.

(Singing) “You should be dancing, yeah.”

So that’s “gut vibrato,” but there is also “goat vibrato”

which is like laughing or sobbing like:

(Singing) “Some day, my prince will come”

(Laughter)

or (Singing) “Are you lonesome tonight?”

That’s “goat vibrato.”

You can also do vibrato with your hands like: (Demo),

or: (Demo).

Then, you can use it as an articulation like Bobby McFerrin does:

(Demo)

There are other parts you can articulate with like: (Demo),

you know that one, but also: (Demo)

which is always fun.

Now, if you constrict the air stream of your breath,

you can make turbulence, and the turbulence can be an oscillator.

So you can make a noise, like: “fff” or “shhh” or “hhh”

but you can also make a note: (Demo),

which is a whistle, and I can whistle with my lips, (Demo),

my tongue, (Demo), my uvula, (Demo),

but also with my vocal folds. Check this out.

(Demo)

So you can do like fake panpipes.

(Demo)

Oh, there you go. Alright.

(Applause)

You can also combine whistles with the other flappy things in your face

like your tongue (Demo),

or your uvula (Demo),

that sort of things, and you can also sing at the same time like:

(Demo)

There are so many variations of whistling.

So much fun! Now, let’s get on to the resonators.

All the air in your mouth, your nose, down into your lungs

and the back of your throat called “the pharynx,”

all this air vibrates and resonates

to make the vibrations of your voice and other flappy things louder.

But it can also change shape and size to change the tonal quality.

The primary tonal quality changing is your larynx,

so you can drop it down when you yawn.

(Changing voice) “How is it going?” Yawn makes your head bigger.

(Changing voice) But you can raise it up, that makes the head smaller.

(Normal voice) A good example is Ernie and Bert from Sesame Street.

(Changing voice) Ernie had a high pitched voice but a low larynx:

“Hey Bert, how are you doing?”

whereas Bert had a low pitched voice but a high larynx, almost squeaky.

(Normal voice) There’s a good difference between pitch and tone

which is kind of confusing but when you breathe helium,

that doesn’t change the pitch of your voice at all.

It changes the tone quality in a really extreme way.

Next time you’re breathing helium, try!

Okay.

Next: if you hit your cheeks like this: (Demo)

the air in your mouth vibrates.

It has a note that it likes or resonant frequency.

When you sing, you’re not just singing one note,

you’re singing other little notes at multiples of that frequency

that are called “harmonics,” “overtones” or “partials.”

You don’t hear those little notes as notes,

you just hear them as tone quality.

(Recorded voice)

Those little spikes poking up are notes but you don’t hear them as notes.

But, if you make the shape of your mouth

match one of those harmonics,

you can make it resonate and amplify to make it sound like a note.

And that’s what harmonic singing is.

(Demo)

Cool? So that’s harmonic singing and that’s the south-east Asian style.

But, if you push your tongue further back like Kermit the Frog:

“Hey, it’s Kermit the Frog here,”

you can do the truth of the Mongolian style.

(Demo)

(Recorded harmonic singing)

There it is.

You can see that little growling at the end

coming in at the low frequency.

It fills in all the gaps in the horn which is kind of cool.

When you sing, you always think of the voice

going in the direction of your breath, but it doesn’t,

because sound at more than 2,000 Km/h,

is much faster than the air you’re blowing.

So when you sing, (Demo) you can feel it in your chest,

so the air is actually going down.

It’s like it can swim up the air stream like a salmon,

like a sonic salmon.

If you change the direction of your breath,

you can get a whole lot of different tone qualities as well, like:

(Demo)

which is so much fun like: “Huuah!”

There are so much fun sounds you can make on your in-breath.

Now let’s get percussive.

If you say the word with the sound “ng” like “song” at the end,

you can flap your mouth round and nothing happens, (Demo).

So you can do the evil laugh: (Demo)

Flap your mouth at the same time.

But it also means you can clap your tongue at the same time like:

(Demo)

Yeah? That means you can beat-box and hum at the same time.

I show you:

(Demo)

There you go.

(Applause)

Let’s get the mic happening.

Now, if you use your voice to make the drum sounds,

and add your voice, you can do sounds like:

(Beat-box)

But, if you use more lip buzzers, that’s normal beat-boxing like: (Demo)

so I can do things like: (Demo),

or maybe some jazz: (Demo).

That sort of things.

You can also do some crunchy low file like:

(Demo)

That sort of things. Try that at home.

(Applause)

Now, beat-boxing is usually told with sentences.

I’ve made up a few sentences of these.

The first one is “bouncing clouds”:

(Demo)

You’re whispering the sentence.

Then you can suck the clouds in: (Demo)

The next one is “To be baffled to be clever”:

(Demo)

Then “Syncopated soccer boot”:

(Demo)

Yeah? And then “Born to be too puffy to beat a baboon to poverty”

(Laughter)

(Demo)

You get the idea? Then, the classic “Bent imp Shenton”:

(Demo)

(Rhythmic claps)

Cool! Alright.

So, you might notice when I’m beat-boxing,

I’m holding the mic in front of my mouth because you want the pops.

But when you’re speaking, pops are horrible, yucky!

So if you move the mic to one side, pops can go past

and it doesn’t change the sound your voice makes.

The sound of your nose like “m” and “n”

are important to your voice.

So I put the microphone on this corner of my mouth.

I call this “the Cindy Crawford Mole Position”.

It really helps you sound like yourself on the mic. It’s great!

Okay, so now you have it.

The voice is an instrument, you play with it.

Possibilities are endless,

and you’ll never be bored again on trains and trams, driving …

You’re bound to be able to do sounds that I can’t do

because we’re all different and yet, we’re all kind of the same.

So let’s see, “Human voice is the best synthesizer.”

You can hear the melody in that already,

so I’m going to make a bit of loop around that,

using “human voice is the best synthesizer.”

Here we go.

(Musical improvisation)

(Singing) There’s no better one in the world.

There’s no better synthesizer in the world.

I can’t think of one!

Can you tell me, can you tell me? Please tell me what you think …

Could there be a better synthesizer?

(Recorded voice) Human voice is the best synthesizer.

(End of improvisation) MW: Yeah!

(Applause)