Customer Reviews

Tibetan Tantric Choir

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

To the best of my knowledge, Western musicians never utilized (or developed or imagined) vocal overtones, although Eastern musicians of several different cultures did. Well, some Westerners have recently, but not until first becoming aware of it through exposure to the Eastern innovations.

The bullfrog analogy in the Amazon.com official review was an interesting one, but if you hate the sound of frogs pay it no attention. The monks hold long, sustained notes, sometimes solo, sometimes in unison. I've always considerd this style of overtone singing more as an ocean of droning reverberation that comes and goes, the incoming waves overlapping and absorbing the outgoing waves.

I have played this cd for unsuspecting people before and when I asked them what they thought it was they very rarely ever even think that it is possible to make this music with just human voices. This is definitely transportational music of deep human importance.

Also look into the group HUUN HUUR TU. They also do overtone singing. Both styles are technically similar in that one man sings an extremely low note and a high overtone simultaneously but stylistically the Tuvan style (HUUN HUUR TU's style) and the Gyuto style are completely different. Both equally amazing and transcendent, but both completely different.

This is an outstanding recording and performance.
If you are familiar with "throat singing" and wish to add it to your recording collection, this is an excellent disc.
Keep a couple of things in mind:
This is a prayer, not a song.
Each singer is producing more than one note at a time.
These pieces are as much about feeling the performance as hearing it.
Enjoy.

This is the one for superior sound quality. I bought their Rooftops cd after this and immediately found that one a poorer recording. Here the liner notes list by name every microphone, model and its positioning. Meticulous. Bares repeated listenings. Be warned, this is minimalism. Song number one is only voice, song two adds bone instruments. Crank up the head phones. Listen hard.

I love this c.d. It becomes beautifully familiar over time. This is a must for any meditation musical library.

IF YOU MEDITATE OR EVEN LIKE CALM AND RELAXING SOUNDS YOU WILL LOVE THIS CD. I USUALLY PUT IT ON FIRST THING IN THE MORNING WHEN I ARISE TO MEDITATE AND THEN TO REVIEW MY DAY. THIS CD IS BOUND TO RELAX AND SOOTHE THE RESTLESS SPIRIT. IN THE EVENING BEFORE RETIRING I AGAIN LISTEN TO THESE ENCHANTING SOUNDS TO PREPARE FOR A DEEP SLEEP. THE VOICES OF THESE MONKS ARE INCREDIBLY COMPLEX, CAPTURES ONES COMPLETE ATTENTION AND IS TOTALLY ENJOYABLE.

I've been looking for a Gyuto Monks CD for some time. This really hits the spot.

I've been listening to the Gyuto Monks during my daily meditations. The music is beyond explanation... simply amazing. It has greatly improved my meditative experience.

Buddhist chanting is an acquired taste. The extremely deep and emotionally affecting chanting is executed deep in the throat. Bells provide the perfect counterpoint at exactly the right time. This chanting is likely to sound weird, if not scary, on first listen. I listened to Freedom Chants today after a long interval and found it weird and scary at first. I knew I really liked the music and was in culture shock. I also was in the "Holiday Spirit": exhausted, frazzled and trying to do to much. After listening to the monks for a while, I found myself involuntarily taking large breaths and relaxing. My tension dissipated automatically. After a while, I felt peaceful and unconcerned about the Holiday madness. I looked at the cover of a fashion magazine: an anorexic model wearing a sparkle top grinned painfully. Forced, unnatural gaiety. The Holiday issue put me in culture shock in the other direction. Why do we do all this? That's what this music is: a drugless tranquilizer and life evaluation tool. But you gotta get through the culture shock.

I will rarely if ever say my critique of an item on amazon is almost purely a matter of taste. In this case, I would say it is. I agree with every review that's been written about this album - good and bad.

Some people will really hate this album. I think it's great. I find it very relaxing. I honestly don't know if I'd call it music though.

Listen to the samples - that's pretty much how the whole album sounds, with nearly undetectable variations.

It kind of sounds like the drone of the refrigerator attached to a vocoder. Unlike Tuvan throat singing, etc, it's honestly debatable if it's music. There's virtually nothing resembling rhythm and there really isn't any structure beyond maybe a measure repeated a couple of hundred times at points. There are harmonies, but no real melodic structure.

The closest thing I can think of to this is the drone of ambient trance and the occasional Vangelis piece.

On the downside, if I put this up loud enough, this makes my fillings shake. I'm not kidding. Tons of bass.

The recording is of very high quality. I listen to it over and over again.