Giovanni Battista Bortoluzzi is currently one of the leading experts of overtone singing in Italy, particularly appreciated for his teaching and performing skills.
Born in Treviso in 1987, his musical journey began with the Blues at the age of 19.
Studying electric bass, guitar and drums, he developed a passion for improvisation over the typical languages of Blues, Funk, Reggae and Jazz-Swing.
From a research on the style of the bassist Jaco Pastorius, he discovers the phenomenon of natural harmonics: thus begins the research that will lead him towards the vocalisms of Central Asia and the republic of Tuva.
Thus he begins to experiment on his own voice and, alongside the study of harmonic instruments such as jaw harps and flutes, he acquires the ability to recognize and control the overtones of the harmonics series.
This is followed by meetings with the ethnomusicologist and musician Raphael De Cock, with the vocal-coach Miroslav Grosser, with the musician Enkhjargal Dandaarvanchig, and with the Tuvan ensemble “Huun Huur Tu”: with each of whom Giovanni studies and expands his vocal and teaching skills.
In 2015, he created his own teaching method, called “4L’s Method”, which is a map of exercises subdivided in four categories: timbre, overtone amplification, melodies on single fundamental tone, and melodies with fundamental-tone-movements.
In 2017 he moved to Sardinia, the base from which he was able to study the analogies between Canto A Tenore and the traditional styles of tuvan Khöömei.
He dedicates himself to teaching overtone singing, traveling throughout Italy and abroad, and to concert activity with some traditional and experimental musical groups. In these years, he also mastered the jaw-harp (“sa trunfa”, in sardinian language).
He also took a role in the tour of the show “Joie de Vivre” created and directed by coreographer Simona Bertozzi, bringing the sounds of overtone singing and throat singing to theaters.
In the same period, he met Dr. Alfonso Gianluca Gucciardo, a world-famous phoniatrist from Agrigento. From this meeting Giovanni becomes an active part in the research fields of Overtone singing and Throat singing: the results of the first part of the research conducted by Dr.Gucciardo will then be presented at the “Pacific Voice Conference in Krakow”, with subsequent publication of an official article in “The Journal of the Voice”.
These researches, still ongoing and evolving, have seen Giovanni undergo studies of the phonatory apparatus through Magnetic Resonance in Real Time, Laryngostroboscopy, and electroglottography. Subsequently, Giovanni wrote a book “Singing overtones: the 4 L’s Method” which will be published in 2023.
Currently, Giovanni holds conferences, workshops and private lessons on overtone singing and throat singing all over Europe.
“Overtone singing is a way to feel part of nature, channeling those sounds that belong to nature itself, and to no one else.
This practice reminds us that the simple act of listening… is something that can be infinitely improved.”