The Fifth International Symposium on Traditional Polyphony ...

<strong>The</strong> Meanings and Codes of the Amoebean Form of Singing in the Adyghe Traditional Culture
<strong>The</strong> ratio of the stanzas performed by the first and second soloists is given in the table:
Number of stanzas Order or alternation
2 first singer
1 second singer
1 first singer
2 second singer
1 first and second singers together
1 first singer
3 second singer
1 second singer
4 second singer
1 first and second singers together
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It is interesting to note that the singers perform the stanza together twice. It occurs when each singer
has sung two stanzas solo. Without a direct observation of the performing of the song, when any additional
information is lacking, the alternation of the soloists seems chaotic and unpredictable. However, the song
proper is constructed on the strict interchanging of the stanza-refrains, performed on the basis of the nonsemantic
vocabulary, which makes it resemble rondo. <strong>The</strong>refore, having “received the baton”, the singer
clearly realizes which stanza he must perform at the next moment – semantic or non-semantic. Apart from
that the rondo traits of the form allow the soloists to get ready for performing the semantic stanzas and sing
them as long as they can. It is possible that the singers have performed the song together more than once, and
the stanzas are passed on at definite moments, well known to both of them. However, there may be another
possibility, which also seems quite credible.
Alternate performing of stanzas may have occurred spontaneously with the help of definite signs
understandable to the soloists but not to the listeners. This conjecture is not groundless. As it is usually
known, in the group of those who joined in the zhyu-pashch (chief among the singers, leading zhyu) and
zhyu-kiashch (continuing zhyu, prolonging zhyu) could be distinguished 5 . Zhyu-pashch may have used some
hardly perceptible “conductor’s” gestures, indicating when the zhyu should start and finish performing (both
intermediate and final). He led all the members of his group, raising or lowering his index or little fingers.
During this procedure his land lay on his knee, and the movement of his finger could not be noticed by those
present or it might have seemed quite natural as an emotional-kinetic reaction to the song. In other cases, and
this can be heard in sound-recordings, the right to sing solo was announced aloud.
<strong>The</strong> first soloist, never stopping the song, in a definite manner asked another man to continue performing
it. <strong>The</strong> request may have been expressed by a single cue: Nokiue, Mikhamet – I’m passing it on to you,
Magomet (kaab.) 6 , or Kypydz, Mikhamet – Take, continue it, Magomet (Adyghe). Magomet, having performed
his stanzas, said, Nokiuezh – I’m giving it back to you, which meant that the first soloist was to continue the
song. For the listeners such a performance was like a game. It is possible that the singers did not always know
whose turn it would be to continue singing. Though the singers may have agreed beforehand at which stanza