Palate Whistle
Ute Wassermann
Palate Whistle
12 years ago, I saw a guy twittering like a bird in the street market in Brisbane. He sold palate whistles, a variation which you find in German toy shops called “Zwitscherblättchen.” Composer Liza Lim, knowing of my interest in bird whistles, which I use among other objects to disguise my voice, has pointed this out to me. I bought a big package and keep ordering them since then. They are made from half-moon shaped felt with a very thin membrane in the middle. You put them in the roof of your mouth behind the teeth. While singing various fricative consonants, the membrane will start to vibrate (and tickle), adding vowel-like distortions and turbulences to the consonantal vocal sound. This caught my attention as I am interested in singing sounds which seem to be disconnected from the voice, like extreme and superhuman vocals, shimmering between electronic, animal, inorganic, and human sound qualities.
I reinvent principles of vocal articulation distorting and shifting the relationship of mouth, tongue, palate, and breathing patterns. Hiding a membrane inside my mouth, an invisible object, yet very noisy, seemed to be an exciting idea. I like the destabilizing and irritating effect it has on the vocal sounds, more so, if used in combination with other bird whistles, resonators, and objects. The palate whistle inside my body is a kind of transgressive object. It feels almost like a body part or a kind of implant, yet it is a sounding object. It redefines the threshold at which the voice (or the body) makes contact with the outside world.
Ute Wassermann is a composer/performer and vocal artist, who is based in Berlin.