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144phenomenon of solo polyphony, or overtone singing (when one singer can produce twosounds simultaneously) is a fascinating vocal tradition of several Central Asian peoples.I am not going to discuss each Asian country separately (as I mostly did inEurope). Vocal polyphonic and monophonic traditions are interspersed in Europe andmost of the European countries have islands of live traditions of vocal polyphony.Historical sources reveal the presence of such traditions in the past in some othercountries (like in most of the northern Europe). This was the main reason for the detailedanalysis of polyphonic traditions in European countries. In Africa, by contrast, thepolyphonic and monophonic regions are not so interspersed, and this makes it possible todivide Africa into several big regions and to discuss vocal polyphonic traditionsaccording to these regions. Unlike Africa or Europe, the majority of regions of Asiancountries mostly practice monophonic singing with deep traditions of professionalism, amore important role for instrumental music, and elaborate theoretical works on theirmusic. We shall start our survey from the Middle Eastern region.Vocal Polyphony in the Middle EastThe region of the Middle East, according to the main elements of its musicalcultures, unites a vast region, which comprises parts of three continents: parts of westernand central Asia, northern Africa and a small part of Europe (the European part ofTurkey). Garland Encyclopedia frames the Middle East within the regions fromNorthwestern Africa (Morocco) up to Kazakhstan and Northwestern China.As imperfect as most generalizations are, we can characterize the Middle Easternregion as having the following features:‣ Vocal polyphony does not play an important role in most of the musicalcultures of this region;‣ Traditions of very developed instrumental polyphony (particularly of thestring instruments) are quite usual for many Middle Eastern musicalcultures;‣ Despite the absence of vocal polyphonic traditions, group singing(mostly in unison or in octaves, sometimes with heterophonic elements)is quite common in folk-singing traditions of this region;‣ The Middle East is one of the most advanced regions of the world interms of early professionalism and the role of the solo performer inmusical culture;‣ Although vocal music has primary importance in a musical culture (thisidea is clearly expressed in the classifications of one of the greatestthinkers of humanity Al-Farabi), musical instruments, and particularlystring instruments, play an important role. This idea is also clearlyexpressed in the writing of another great thinker of the Medieval MiddleEast – Ibn-Sina (Avicenna);‣ Following a great tradition of writing about music from Ancient Greece,many of Middle Eastern musical cultures have a great tradition oftheoretical works about music, with lengthy discussions ranging fromthe role of music in society to specific scales and melodic models. The