MissNajaSays: Lalah Hathaway can sing 3 notes at ONE TIME!

While I’m sitting here trying to sing in one chord, Lalah Hathaway (daughter of Donnie Hathaway) has pulled out a grand seat for me! Check her out on this video HARMONIZING WITH HERSELF! Some even argue that she is singing in a tri-chord method. The video in its entirety, is amazingly creative, especially the part when the drummer gets so enamored by her vocal aerobics that he leaps up from his drum set BUT if you want to fast forward to the good stuff check out 6:00- 6:30.
For those of you that are super technical and not easily impressed, check out the deeper explanation below the video clip!

Can a person sing two notes at once the way a piano can play two notes at once? Not really. Not in any highly functional kind of way.

The answer depends upon what you mean by “two notes.”

What people can do is what Philosopher Dirtbike describes: You can emphasize the overtones in a complex sound so as to give the impression that you are “singing two notes.” This is the technique that is used for Tuvan throat singing which, as you can hear, isn’t really quite “singing two notes at once.”

The trick that Lalah Hathaway uses almost certainly comes from engaging the vestibular folds, aka the false vocal folds. These are capable of a limited kind of phonation in certain circumstances. This is why her voice sounds tense and peculiar and different from her regular singing voice when she produces the phenomenon. Pretty well covered here. It’s worth noting that certain types of Tuvan throat singing do accomplish two notes by adducting the vestibular folds. But yeah, most types work by isolating overtones in various ways by manipulating the mouth, nose and throat.

Formants are pretty unique overtones because they are really quite strong. Each note of your voice has all sorts of overtones, but then it has these exceptionally notable ones, the formants, which can be sort of highlighted.

It works in part because you actually perceive fundamental pitches even if they aren’t there, so long as the rest of the overtones are in place. So you don’t have to physically produce the lowest tone of a series in order for you to hear it (why telephones cut off everything below 300 hz).

Three notes is also definitely possible. If you love this sort of thing, check out Bobby McFerrin do it here (ffwd to 2:12).