David Hykes (born March 2, 1953, Taos, New Mexico) is a composer, singer, musician, author, and meditation teacher. He was one of the earliest modern western pioneers of so-called overtone singing, and has developed since 1975 a comprehensive approach to contemplative music which he calls Harmonic Chant (harmonic singing). After early research and trips studying Mongolian, Tibetan, and Middle Eastern singing forms, Hykes began a long series of collaborations with traditions and teachers of wisdom and sacred art, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Gyuto and Gyume monks.
Hykes founded the Harmonic Choir in 1975, and has performed and taught Harmonic Chant and the related Harmonic Presence work in America, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, Australia and many other countries. Of overtone singing and his own study of the form, music theorist Charles Madden writes, "David Hykes has done everything I had hoped to do, and more." His choir incorporates both basic overtone signing as well as additional advanced forms.
His work is organised within The Harmonic Presence Foundation.
His song "Rainbow Voice" is featured in the films "Blade: Trinity" (2004), "Blade" (1998), "Baraka" (1992), and "Dead Poets Society" (1989).
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“Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which it is destined to receive thence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)