• DocumentCode
    2642305
  • Title

    how to hum like a bumble BEE?

  • Author

    Prasad, Rajkishore ; Matsuno, Fumitoshi

  • Author_Institution
    Univ. of Electro-Commun., Chofu
  • fYear
    2007
  • fDate
    17-20 Sept. 2007
  • Firstpage
    2074
  • Lastpage
    2079
  • Abstract
    This paper is a part of scientific investigations on Bhramari Pranayama (BP), a yogic breathing exercise in which practitioners imitate humming sound of the bumble bee while exhaling strictly through nostrils. It is still undiscovered why the inventor (ancient Indian Yoga masters) instructed to hum like a bumble bee and not like a common bee or other insects. It is hypothesized that it is the humming sound and humgenic vibrations that are playing key role in bringing many of the claimed benefits of BP. The sound production system of the bumble bee and that of humans are different, however, due to inbuilt complexities and articulatory capacity human´s sound production system can produce variety of sound. Humans can produce humming sound like a bumble bee by sustaining pronunciations of nasal consonants /m/ or /n/ or /ng/ alone or as an aid for continuation of nasalization of vowels or others. The results presented in this paper show sustained pronunciation of /m/ is easier and very similar to that of bumble bee sound in the spectral content. The old texts on Yoga also suggest humming by sustaining /m/ part of the /om/ sound.
  • Keywords
    pneumodynamics; speech; vibrations; Bhramari Pranayama; bumble bee; exhaling; human sound production system; humgenic vibration; humming sound; nasal consonant pronunciation; nostrils; scientific investigations; vowel nasalization; yogic breathing exercise; Ear; Eyes; Humans; Insects; Mechanical engineering; Medical treatment; Neurofeedback; Production systems; Stress; Vibrations; Bhramari pranayama; Humming sound; bumble bee; nasalization; vibro-acoustics;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • Conference_Titel
    SICE, 2007 Annual Conference
  • Conference_Location
    Takamatsu
  • Print_ISBN
    978-4-907764-27-2
  • Electronic_ISBN
    978-4-907764-27-2
  • Type

    conf

  • DOI
    10.1109/SICE.2007.4421329
  • Filename
    4421329