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Norm Everett and Lynx Lightning practice throat singing at the Blue Dragon Caf‚. "When I'm trying to harmonize or just sing with something, I have to let myself go to get into it," says Everett, co-owner of the University Area cafe.

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Twice a month they huddle at the Blue Dragon Café. The builder, the ecologist, the artist, the student, the businessman.

They talk intently about pushing air from the diaphragm, constricting the throat, shifting the tongue and epiglottis, forming resonating chambers in the mouth and aligning the lips. They laugh; they share stories; they instruct.

Then they close their eyes and sing. A deep growl fills the room, above it floats a shimmering whistle.

Regulars of the Blue Dragon, a popular bohemian haunt near the University of New Mexico, don't bat a lash. Newcomers, on the other hand, pause, raise their eyebrows and listen to sounds like nothing they've heard before.

"It's so unique," says singer Lynx Lightning, a silk painter and mosaic artist. "It takes you to another place."

The singers are a motley crew brought together by a shared passion for a thousand-year-old practice called throat singing. The Albuquerque Throat Singing Support Group, numbering about 12, is one of many such groups springing up around the country to learn and practice the technique and bring it to a wider audience.

February is their month. Six throat singing events are planned in Albuquerque, including three concerts and three workshops by internationally known performers.

"It's a coming of age," says throat singer Michael Crofoot of Placitas, who does ecological restoration for a development company and whose gravelly voice earned him the nickname "Deep Throat." "We hope to develop a much stronger base and do more interesting things."

No one is quite sure where throat singing got its start, but one guess is Tuva, a region between Mongolia and Siberia, which has a rich tradition. The nomadic Tuvans used throat singing to tell stories and sing to the landscape - connect primally with nature while tending to herds. Many throat-singing sounds are referred to in such terms as mountain, babbling brook, horizon.

"The Tuvans tended to be animistic, believing their spirits were present in the sounds of nature," says Neal Copperman of AMP Concerts, who is bringing the acclaimed Tuvan group Chirgilchin to the Lobo Theater on Saturday night. "A lot of the vocal techniques of Tuva are animal and nature sounds. It's their way of interacting with the spirits of the natural world."

Tuvan monks, so the story goes, introduced throat singing to Tibetan monasteries, where it was used in meditative group chants to alter consciousness. It spread beyond Asia in both the folk-singing and spiritual forms.

Today the best throat singers are in Tuva; Tibet; Papua, New Guinea; Zhosa, South Africa; and Alaska, among the Inuits.

Describing throat singing doesn't do it justice; it has to be heard. Simply put, it's polyphonic. The singer lays down a base tone, and harmonic overtones, or echoes of that wavelength, form above it.

Masters can sing many tones at a time and, gracefully and effortlessly, draw out the harmonic so it becomes the primary tone even though it's resonating off a lower pitch.

"The really good singers can almost drop out the fundamental pitch and you'll hear a clear whistling series of notes come flying out over the top," Lightning says.

This is accomplished by pushing with the diaphragm, constricting the voice box and keeping the upper part of the throat open. The roof of the tongue is pulled back, making a chamber in the top of the mouth. As air flows through, a dry, buzzing sound emerges, and if the mouth is shaped just right, harmonics follow.

"The tongue is like a reed," says Norm Everett, co-owner of the Blue Dragon and an accomplished throat singer able to produce four tones at once. "You work to get the tongue to vibrate."

Lightning says throat singing is hard work. "It's really physical," she says. "You work up a sweat."

But, she says, done right, it gives a great sense of accomplishment.

"I practiced an hour last night and there were a couple of times when I got the shape just right and I could feel the overtones," she says. "They were stirring around, whirling around right there in the back of my mouth. The shape really happened."

The Albuquerque group works together on technique, and individuals get out and sing publicly when possible. Crofoot adds throat singing to the choir at Las Placitas Presbyterian Church. Everett performs at the Blue Dragon and joins bands at other venues.

Some were singers before taking up throat singing, others not. "You don't have to be a singer to do this," Everett says.

At a meeting this week, the group talked about how they were drawn to throat singing.

Cole Jenkins, a rock musician and student at Central New Mexico Community College, heard Everett perform at the Blue Dragon and came to a meeting. Now a group regular, he says he loves the challenge and believes the techniques, especially the growling sound, improve his rock vocals.

"It makes you laugh every time you do it," he says. "You make this strange, unearthly sound that shouldn't be coming out of a human mouth. My girlfriend's hating me right now."

Walter Snyder, who does home renovations, practices and teaches a variation on throat singing called harmonic intonation, or overtone singing, more associated with Mongolia and Tibet. Snyder says harmonics can produce a meditative state.

"The first time I heard it, 15 years ago, I just went, `Wow. This is what I have to learn,' " he says. "Harmonics reflect the mathematical principles upon which the universe is based. It's a great feeling of freedom. You're moving into a tone and exploring all the nuances within that tone."

Lightning says she went to a throat-singing concert 12 years ago in California that "knocked my socks off."

"I've been chasing it ever since," she says. "I'm getting closer. But I freak my cat out every time I practice. I have to practice in the kitchen now."