Extreme Voices

Whether it's an eye-wateringly high soprano or profoundly low bass, lightning quick rappers, the star castrati of the 18th century, the screamers, the growlers, the robots or the singers that can produce two notes at once - there are a lot of extreme voices out there. Tom Service takes a trip through the many purveyors of vocal pyrotechnics from Mozart and Rachmaninov to Stockhausen, Tom Waits and Daft Punk, has a lesson in throat singing from overtone singer Michael Ormiston, and finds out whether we're all extreme singers at heart.