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Vocal Stratosphere

This episode was written and produced by Martin Austwick.

Our vocal system is incredibly complex. What we call “the voice” starts with very precise movements of our vocal cords, and then goes through an entire “resonation system” that includes our throat, mouth, lips, tongue, and teeth. With enough control over these components, people can do some truly mind-bending things with their voices, creating sounds that feel out of this world—from rumbling lows to piercing highs, and even two notes sung at once. This episode features vocal coach Matt Ramsey and Tuvan musician and throat singer Albert Kuvezin.


MUSIC FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE

Original music by Wesley Slover.
Who Can Say Goodbye? By Anki
Practice by The Field Tapes
Connection by LIlo
Kyrie, Eleison by Silver Maple
Spirited by WEI
All Mine by Baby Craig
Delmendra by Desjardins
Dream Her Voice by Potions
Borbak Karam Bodu Bodaar by Tyva Kyzy
All Mine by Baby Craig
Red City Theme by Albany, NY
One Last Ride by Chris Shards


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View Transcript ▶︎

You're listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz.

[music in]

Back in college, I was a music major. And one of the requirements of my degree was that I had to take singing lessons. Out of every class I took, this was the most anxiety inducing. Because, while I was a good trumpet player, as a kid from Arkansas, I just couldn’t get rid of the country twang in my singing. I was super nervous about it, and let's just say, it didn't go that well.

[music out]

The only song I remember singing was “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from the musical Carousel. And to this day, I still can’t hear that song without cringing.

[clip: nightmarish You'll Never Walk Alone]

[music in]

But on the plus side, that experience did give me an appreciation for just how complex the human voice is.

I’m fascinated by the ways that people can manipulate their voices, to the point where they can make sounds that feel truly out of this world…

Our producer Martin Austwick is also a talented musician. So when he suggested that we make an episode about the extraordinary range of the human voice, it seemed like the perfect chance to give this topic the attention it deserves.

I’ll let Martin take it from here.

Martin: My love of audio all started out with my love of singing. I've been a singer songwriter for probably about 20 years, but I've never formally studied singing, so I don't really understand how people make these incredible sounds with their voices.

Martin: Like what's the difference between head voice and chest voice? How high and how low can people sing? And most importantly…

[music out]

Martin: …How does Mariah Carey do that whistling thing with her voice?

[clip: Mariah Carey]

Martin: I know enough to know that singing starts with the vocal cords.

Our vocal system is really complicated, but imagine a big tube that comes up from your lungs. That's the trachea, or windpipe.

Martin: The vocal cords are basically a pair of fleshy curtains. And they can close across that windpipe to stop things falling down into your lungs. Things like food, twigs, small birds.

But these curtains are really flexible. And as they move in different ways, the air passing over them makes them vibrate, which produces sound.

[music in]

Matt: At it's absolutely most basic, there's really only four things that your vocal cords can do.

Martin: That's vocal coach Matt Ramsey.

Matt: They can stretch [sfx], they can thicken [sfx], they can open [sfx] and they can close [sfx].

Everything we do with our voice… from whispering to screaming to singing… starts with some combination of these ingredients.

Martin: But before that sound comes out of our mouths, it goes through something called the resonation system.

[sfx: vo effects]

Matt: And the resonation system is everything that's on top of the vocal cords, from the throat, to your cheeks, to your lips, tongue, and teeth. All of these things are creating resonance and kind of shaping the sound of the vocal cords.

[music out]

Martin: With enough control over these components, we can do some truly amazing things with our voices, like singing two notes at once. Here's a clip of a German singer named Anna-Maria Hefele.

[clip: Anna-Maria Hefele]

But before we can reach the outer limits of the vocal stratosphere, we need to start at ground level. First up is the chest voice.

Matt: Chest voice is probably the most common terminology used for the lower range of voice. Basically the vocal cords, they're a little bit thicker and slacker. And so when we hear those low notes that Johnny Cash sings…

[clip: Johnny Cash - Walk the Line]

Matt: or Amy Winehouse sings...

[clip: Amy Winehouse - My Tears Dry on their Own]

Matt: or Adele sings...

[clip: Adele - Hello]

Matt: …those are coming from the vocal cords vibrating a bit slower.

Martin: Next up is head voice, which is basically the opposite of chest voice.

Matt: And that just comes from the opposite vocal cord configuration. So in chest voice, the vocal cords are kind of thick and slack, but as you stretch them, it's going to vibrate faster, creating higher notes.

Matt: So a fantastic example of this really full head voice sound that I'm talking about is the song “Grenade” by Bruno Mars. When he goes for that, "I'd catch a grenade for ya…”

[clip: Bruno Mars - Grenade]

Martin: Some other examples of head voice would be the higher notes of “Sir Duke,” by Stevie Wonder...

[clip: Stevie Wonder - Sir Duke]

Martin: And “Two Birds,” by Regina Spektor.

[clip: Regina Spektor - Two Birds]

Martin: Another way that people hit those high notes is something called “belting.” It's a technique of singing loudly and powerfully in your upper register, to the point where it can sometimes sound strained. Think John Lennon singing “Twist and Shout.”

[clip: The Beatles - Twist and Shout]

Matt: It just doesn't get any better than that. He's just screaming it out basically. The legend goes that this was at the very, very end of their recording day and John's voice was already shot, which is why there's so much kind of a rough quality, which we all love about this recording.

Martin: Aside from belting, another way to add a bit of grit to your performance is with the so-called pharyngeal voice. It's what makes Axl Rose sound like Axl Rose.

[clip: Guns ‘n’ Roses - Paradise City]

Matt: We think that pharyngeal voice was first discovered by choir singers before they allowed females to sing in the all-male papal choir.

[music in]

Matt: And so these choir directors were trying to figure out, "Man, how do I get these guys to sing higher?"

[music out]

Matt: And so what they discovered was that there was this weird kind of like ugly voice, what they called the "voce pharyngea,” or the pharyngeal voice, or the throaty voice, which just kind of sounds like “Ughhhh”

[clip: Guns ‘n’ Roses - Sweet Child O Mine]

Martin: But if you need to get even higher, you may need falsetto.

Matt: Whereas head voice, it's typically a fuller rounder sound, falsetto is a little bit thinner, it's just a little bit more hollow and kind of false sounding.

Martin: When most people sing falsetto, the vocal cords never completely close. And since there's always a little bit of air coming through, it sounds breathier.

Matt: So a great example of this kind of falsetto sound would be the song Reckoner by Radiohead.

[clip: Radiohead - Reckoner]

Martin: Some people say only men can sing falsetto, but Matt is not very impressed with that argument.

Matt: Remember falsetto is just a thinner closure of the vocal cords. And so these days, when we're seeing lots of modern female vocalists that are singing really breathy, I'm talking about Olivia Rodrigo…

[clip: Olivia Rodrigo - Deja Vu]

Matt: I'm talking about Billie Eilish.

[clip: Billie Eilish - Lovely]

Matt: I'm talking about Maggie Rogers.

[clip: Maggie Rogers - Alaska]

Matt: All these female singers are singing very, very lightly throughout their range and that falsetto is absolutely present there.

Martin: At the very top of the vocal range is the whistle register. That's what Mariah Carey is using in tracks like “Emotions.”

[clip: Mariah Carey - Emotions]

Martin: Whistle register isn't just limited to women. For instance, here's Adam Lopez using it in his song “O Sole Mio.”

[clip: Adam Lopez - O Sole Mio]

Martin: But the way that sound is produced is still a bit of a mystery.

[music in]

Matt: What scientists think is creating that is rather than the entire length of vocal cords vibrating together, they think it's just maybe the very, very front portion. And since it's just a very, very small portion of vibrating mass, the frequencies that you get off of that are incredibly high.

Matt: Whistle seems to be a bit easier for children. Part of that may be a cultural thing, that as kids, we're encouraged to kind of play with our voices a whole lot, and we just go and explore all the lengths of the human range.

Matt: Now an interesting thing about Mariah Carey's whistle is that she talks about in many interviews about how she was able to discover that part of her voice is that she was sick a lot as a kid.

Martin: Here's Mariah Carey talking about being sick as child on KBS in Korea.

Mariah Carey: And when I would wake up, I would always be like, "I couldn't speak, I would sound like this." And then I would also be like, "But I can talk nah nah nah nah." And I was in that range. And my mother was like, "Why are you talking like that? Like what are you doing?" And I was like, "I don't know."

[music out]

Martin: The whistle register takes us to the upper limit of the human voice. Brazilian Singer Georgia Brown holds the Guinness Record for the greatest vocal range by a female. Here she is demonstrating her incredible upper range. If you have dogs in the house, maybe cover their ears.

[clip: Georgia Brown whistle]

Now that we've reached the top of the vocal range, let's head down to the bottom.

[sfx: low and fried]

We are now entering the land of vocal fry.

Matt: Vocal fry is basically the lowest vocal register in the voice, and whereas with chest voice, you know, the vocal cords are kind of thick and they're vibrating, but they have some amount of tension to them. Vocal fry is like if I just let loose completely and just let air just kind of bubble through it, creating that “uhhhhhh,” kind of sound.

Martin: One performer who's especially known for vocal fry is Britney Spears.

Matt: Back in 1998, we heard Britney Spears singing, "Oh baby baby."

[clip: Britney Spears - Baby One More Time]

Martin: But this technique is extremely common, across genders. For example, in the chorus of “Hero” by Enrique Iglasias, he fries the start of each line.

[clip: Enrique Iglasias - Hero]

Martin: Using vocal fry, some singers can reach incredibly low notes. Vocalist Tim Storms holds the Guinness Record for the lowest note produced by a human being, as well as the widest overall vocal range. Here's a bit of that unbelievable low end.

[clip: Tim Storms]

But of course, there's more to vocal technique than just hitting high notes and low notes. Singing is also about conveying mood, tone, and emotion. And certain styles of singing were developed to convey extreme emotions like anger and despair.

Martin: Take growling, for example. That’s a vocal style that was popularized by vocalists like Chuck Schuldiner from the death metal band called, well, Death.

[clip: Death - Lack of Comprehension]

Martin: To achieve a sound like that, you need some help from some of the other muscles in your neck.

Matt: So outside of your pair of true vocal cords, there are a couple of muscles. And when you get those guys involved, you get a little bit of that "Ooh," where it sounds a little bit thicker, a little bit gruffer, tends to be used a whole lot more in metal music.

Martin: The rabbit hole of extreme metal vocals goes pretty deep, from the low guttural tones of death metal bands like Nile...

[clip: Nile - Sacrifice Unto Sebek]

Martin: To the mid range, almost goblin-like delivery of black metal bands like Gorgoroth...

[clip: Gorgoroth - Prayer]

Martin: To the high pitched shrieks of symphonic metal bands like Cradle of Filth...

[clip: Cradle of Filth - Nymphetamine Fix]

Now, when you combine a wide range of very precise vocal techniques into a single performance, you can get some truly mind blowing results. Here's a piece called Sing a Little Harmony, by the beatboxer D-low.

[clip: D-low - Sing a Little Harmony]

Matt: So in this specific performance , I think what would be super cool is if we could just see almost like an MRI [fx: servo + wider music] of all of the things that his throat, his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, everything is doing. And what you would see is an absolute insane view of the crazy machinery that makes up the voice in general.

Martin: But for me, there's one singing technique I've been fascinated with since I first heard it over 20 years ago. It's called throat singing or overtone singing. And perhaps the most famous tradition in the world is from Tuva, a republic of Russia that borders Mongolia.

[sfx: throat singing]

Martin: To understand this incredible vocal style, we spoke to one of its genuine superstars.

That’s coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL 1

[music in]

For a couple of fleshy curtains that stop our lungs from filling up with debris…

Martin: Food, twigs, small birds…

…our vocal cords are surprisingly versatile. They can create everything from head voice, to chest voice, to falsetto, and vocal fry… growling, whistling, screaming, and beyond.

[music out]

Martin: But none of these techniques fascinate me quite like the throat singing of Tuva.

[clip: Yat-Kha - Khemchim]

Albert: I am Albert Kuvezin. I am musician, singer, and the leader of Yat-Kha band.

Martin: Albert's band Yat-Kha have been recording and touring globally for over thirty years.

Albert: We are from Tuva, which is south of Siberia, just on the border with Mongolian People Republic.

[music in]

Martin: When Albert was growing up, Tuva was part of the Soviet Union. And in the USSR, Western pop culture was pretty much banned.

Albert: When I was young it was really only Russian language in radio and on TV too. It was so hard to find other music then offered by communist party.

Martin: To get around this, Albert and his friends started trading records they had bought on the black market.

Albert: Cassettes with western rock music, but also Soviet underground bands.

Martin: Albert wanted to make his own music, but he didn't have a very encouraging start.

Albert: I never was a good singer. And even once, I was thrown from the school choir because conductor said that I have no good ears. And I cannot sing with the other people.

[music out]

Martin: But Albert was undeterred. Luckily, the school band offered him a new way to make the music he loved.

Albert: In the school band, mostly we just being a kind of cover band for Deep Purple...

[clip: Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water]

Albert: Or Led Zeppelin...

[clip: Led Zeppelin - Kashmir]

Albert: Also some Soviet pop and rock music...

[clip: Alisa - Красное на чёрном]

Albert: Nothing new. (laughs)

[music in]

Martin: In the Soviet Union, Tuvan culture was basically ignored. The Tuvan language wasn't typically taught in school. And when Albert studied music in college, he learned about classical music from Europe and Russia...

Albert: And nothing from our own traditional music.

Martin: But as a young man, Albert connected with some throat singers who inspired him.

Albert: I met some guys from countryside who was great singers. And they said I could try myself Tuvan throat singing. And step by step, I just start to repeat their voices.

Martin: This meant learning the proper technique, which was a very different approach from the Western style he was used to.

Albert: It is totally opposite. Like, for example, opera singing, they must open the mouth very wide and make a resonator.

Martin: But in throat singing...

Albert: We must press muscles of the throat. And make in the mouth very narrow hole.

Martin: With practice, Albert developed his technique.

Albert: And suddenly I got the sound.

[music out]

Martin: There are three broad styles of Tuvan throat singing.

Albert: Kargyraa, which is very low, like a growling sound.

[clip: Kargyraa demonstration]

Martin: The second style, Khoomei, introduces a subtle whistling overtone on top of the low note.

[clip: Khoomei demonstration]

Martin: In the third style, Sygyt, that higher whistling note is much more prominent. Albert doesn't sing in this style, so here's a singer from the Alash Ensemble demonstrating it.

[clip: Alash Ensemble]

Martin: As Albert developed his throat singing, he realized that these techniques had something unique to offer rock music.

Albert: I got an idea that, for example, Jimi Hendrix spent a lot of money and time to find effects for guitar.

[clip: Jimi Hendrix effects montage]

Martin: But Albert realized he could make similar tones using just his voice.

Albert: I just got these effects in my throat.

[clip: Hendrix + Throat singing]

Martin: Soon after, Albert founded Yat-Kha, a band that blends Tuvan throat singing with rock, and other influences.

[clip: Yat-Kha - Karangailig Kara Hovaa]

Martin: These days, when he's not touring or recording, Albert will sometimes just sing those low notes as a way to relax. When he does this, he often sings with his mouth closed.

Albert: I use my nose holes and you can feel vibration in your body, especially in the chest and the head, and it is more like meditation.

Martin: He especially loves doing this in places with a great natural reverb, like a cave.

[clip: Demonstration in a cave]

Martin: To me, throat singing feels completely different from any kind of singing I have ever done. But Albert told me it's not that difficult to learn.

Albert: If you can sing like tenor, baritone, you can easy produce low throat singing style. You need to have good lungs, and good physical shape. It's nothing special.

Martin: And this technique isn't limited to one particular age group, or gender.

Albert: Even young boys and girls, they can do this low style, too.

Martin: Here's an all-female Tuvan group called Tyva Kyzy.

[clip: Tyva Kyzy - Borbak Karam Bodu Bodaar]

Martin: Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it's become much easier for people in Tuva to learn these traditions. Throat singing is now taught at music schools for children, and in music colleges. In 2003, the Tuvan National Orchestra was founded. Their performances often include multiple throat singers singing in unison.

[clip: Tuvan National Orchestra]

Martin: Tuva isn't the only place to have a tradition of throat singing. This is Lama Tashi from Tibet.

[clip: Lama Tashi clip]

Martin: And Mrs. Nowxayilethi Mbizweni from South Africa….

[clip: Nowxayilethi Mbizweni]

Martin: Northern Canada has a very different style of throat singing, practiced as a kind of competitive game between women as part of the Inuit culture. This tradition often involves making sound with the inhalations as well as the exhalations. Here's a demonstration by Inuk performer Tanya Tagaq.

[clip: Tanya Tagaq inhalation singing]

Martin: Tanya is also a recording artist, who blends throat singing with industrial and electronic sounds. Here's a clip of her song “Retribution.”

[clip: Tanya Tagaq - Retribution]

Martin: Albert Kuvezin and Tanya Tagaq aren't the only ones pushing throat singing in interesting new directions. For example, a Mongolian band called The Hu created a song for the game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, in which they sung in a fictional alien language.

[clip: The Hu - Sugaan Essena]

[music in]

Martin: There are so many ways that people use their voices to make music and express themselves. But how difficult are these techniques for people with very little vocal training? Well, we decided to put our money where our mouth is, quite literally, and let vocal coach Matt Ramsey put us through our paces.

That’s right, you will hear me sing…

Martin: And wherever you are, do feel free to sing along.

That’s coming up, after the break.

[music out]

MIDROLL 2

[music in]

Martin: Uh, well okay, where do you want to start?

Matt: So why don't we start at the very bottom? Let's just start off with vocal fry. So just pretend like you're just waking up first thing in the morning.

[sfx: alarm clock, birds chirping]

Matt: You feel a little groggy and you're just going to, “Ughhhh…”

Ughhh, another day, ughh, here we go again.

Matt: It's another day to be Dallas Taylor.

Ughhhh.

Martin: Ughhhh.

Matt: Cool. Beautiful gentlemen.

Martin: It’s a beautiful choir of vocal fry.

There's our promo, right there.

Matt: Good. Now let's, uh, make our next stop in the chest voice. So what we want to do is we want to just say a nice open, ugly, “Nah, nah nah,” like you're saying “nasty.”

Nah, nah, nah, nah.

Matt: There you go.

Nah.

Matt: Uh huh! Martin?

Martin: Nah nah naaaah.

Matt: You’ve got it. You got it. Now what's interesting about that sound is a lot of people when they start singing, is they're going to be very, very light. So they might go “Nanana.” But the issue with that is that if you start off “nanana” kind of light on the bottom, then as you go up higher and those vocal cords aren't closing as effectively, you're going to get even lighter. And it's very, very difficult to get access to those top notes.

“Sound bad." Matt Ramsey, vocal coach extraordinaire.

Matt: I would just add an addendum. "You have to sound bad in order to sound good."

There we go.

Matt: So let's take a look at the head voice now. Why don't we just try going for a nice, easy, “Foooooo.” So starting from a high note…

Foo?

Matt: ….on the word “foo” as in “food.” So high note down.

Foooooo.

Matt: Right! Now the reason that you had a break there was because you were starting in falsetto where those vocal cords really weren't closing all that much. And then when you came back to your chest voice at the very end, (claps) they snapped together again. And in fact, the break is actually a good thing. It means that you're actually going between the different registers in your voice. But of course, we don't want to stop there. We want to continue to train it until it's almost indistinguishable.

Matt: Foooooooo.

That’s impossible. That was black magic.

Matt: (laughs) Martin, why don’t you try?

Martin: Where am I starting on this? Foo – Oh, that sounds high! Foooo!

Matt: That was it. Now let's try to thicken that sound up a little bit and maybe even go towards a little bit more of this kind of belting sound. Now, can you say the word “nay” as in “neighbor,” like, “naaay.”

Naay. Ooh, there's a break up there.

Matt: Yeah, it is.

Naa – Ooh, nah, nah, ugh, I don't think I can go that high.

Matt: That's totally fine. This actually takes a really, really long time for people to learn how to do, to just go from “Nay nay nay” to that “Nay nay nay nay nay nay nay!” and having that really full sound at the top.

Longer than 22 seconds or so, you think?

Matt: Usually longer than 22 seconds.

Oh, okay.

Matt: Yes.

Alright.

Matt: Martin, you try now. (piano note).

Martin: Naay.

Matt: Lovely! Do you hear how there wasn’t really that big of a break on the way down there? So let's just experiment with belting for a second. Dallas, why don't we try this? Can you go “Naaatural.”

Nah. That pitch?

Matt: That pitch.

Why does it sound so high to me and not very high to you? Naah. Naah. You're right on my break. Naah.

Matt: Exactly! Exactly.

Naah.

Matt: So belting happens above the break, typically.

Oh, I'm on the break. Naaaatural.

Matt: There you go.

You hear that?

Matt: Yeah, I do. I do. But you have such a lovely voice, I wanna push you even a little bit further, Dallas.

You can tell how uncomfortable I am, thank you for that comment.

Matt: You're doing great, buddy. You're doing great. So (laughs) I’m not coddling you, I swear. Naatural!

Naaatural!

Matt: There you go buddy, now go “Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah!”

Na na na na na na na... tural.

Matt: “Na-tural!”

Matt: Well, let's finish our tour of the different vocal ranges at the very, very top, whistle register. Now, this may be very well, something that you do or don't have. Some days I have it, some days I don't, we'll see what happens today,

Matt: So you're waking up first thing in the morning, [sfx: morning sounds] and then you just kind of go like you're going to stretch, which brings your vocal cords together. And then you just kind of let the note whistle out like “Aaaah”

Martin: (chuckle + attempt)

Matt: Way to go, Martin.

There's nothing, not a thing.

Matt: There you go! There you go! There's something there, Dallas.

Squeak!

Matt: There you go, Dallas!

Okay. I can do it. I don't know if I can control that, but I'm sure as a very positive vocal coach, you'll be like, “You sure can.”

[music in]

Martin: Okay, so Dallas and I, we probably won't be covering Adam Lopez anytime soon. But while people like him and Tim Storms and Mariah Carey may seem to have an almost superhuman range, it's really important to remember how many hugely influential singers there are whose range is much, much smaller.

Matt: There is kind of an obsession with expanding vocal range. And I just want to make it very clear that that is not the point of vocal training. The point of vocal training is to sing songs better.

Matt: So I think of these different techniques as kind of like colors in your palette as a singer. You know, you can use a vocal fry to express emotion, not the entire song has to be in vocal fry, but if you look at the song “I'm Not the Only One” by Sam Smith, they sing, “You and me, we made a vow…”

[clip: Sam Smith - I'm Not the Only One]

Matt: So it's just those little tinges of that fry that kind of express that emotionality to it. And the same thing is true for belting.

[clip: Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On]

Matt: When you're belting for that high note… That's designed to elicit an emotion and to express what the singer is feeling.

[music in]

In fact, there are times when quote unquote "bad" singing might be the perfect way to express the emotions you're going for. Over the years, there have been plenty of famous singers who have pretty terrible, traditional vocal technique. But that doesn't make the music they create any less powerful.

Matt: You know, this is even more controversial, but I think Bob Dylan's a great singer.

[clip: Bob Dylan - Simple Twist of Fate]

Matt: I define good singing as people that make me feel something. And whenever I listen to Bob Dylan sing, I feel something, even if it's not great technique. So there's a difference between good technique vocalists, and great singers.

[music in]

Martin: Well you just can't really imagine “Twist and Shout” in falsetto, can you? It would just like…

Matt: You can’t.

Martin: It’d be a completely different sound.

Matt: Twist and shout!

Martin: It's just a bit too polite.

Matt: It's too polite. Yeah, exactly.

[music in]

Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defacto sound dot com.

Martin: This episode was written, produced and reported by Martin Zaltz Austwick.

It was story edited by Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Justin Hollis and Joel Boyter.

Thanks to our guests, Matt Ramsey and Albert Kuvezin. You can find Matt's online vocal lessons on his YouTube channel, which is Ramsey Voice Studio. And you can hear Albert's band Yat-Kha wherever you listen to music. You can find links to both in the show notes.

For another great music episode, check out episode 121. It’s called Progression Obsession, and it was also written by Martin. It's all about the chord progressions that get used over and over again in popular music.

I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.

[music out]

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