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The World According to Sound: Pianist Keith Jarrett's Involuntary Vocalizations

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Keith Jarrett is famous for his jazz music and his involuntary vocalizations. (Olivier Bruchez/Flickr)

If you caught jazz pianist Keith Jarrett earlier this week in either San Francisco or Los Angeles, you might have heard a little more than just music. Jarrett is famous for his involuntary vocalizations.

These noises he makes are hard to describe. Sometimes it's a grunt or a hum, other times it's a squeal that varies in pitch. At certain solo concerts, Jarrett makes the sounds for almost the entire show. Check out this performance of his in Toyko. Many jazz pianists involuntarily vocalize, but Keith Jarrett is arguably the most conspicuous.

There is some dispute over whether these sounds are truly “involuntary," if the musicians needed to make them to play the way they did. Regardless, many of the most famous jazz pianists vocalized -- Bud Powell and Oscar Peterson to name a few. You can hear vocal sounds from pianists on a lot of jazz albums if you listen closely. Sometimes the musicians are making these noises, but we just can't hear them because of how the session was recorded.

Jazz musicians aren’t the only ones who involuntary vocalize. Some classical pianists, like Glenn Gould, also did it. Gould claimed these auditory occurrences were unconscious. When Gould was a child, his piano teacher tried to cut this idiosyncrasy, but nothing seemed to work. Gould’s humming has been called “Alien Conversations.” Some classical purists feel it ruins his most famous recordings, even though you can barely hear him.

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This little audio treat comes to us from The World According to Sound.

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