who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

150(3) Five styles of overtone singing have been recorded in Mountain Altay.Overtone singing in known here under the term kai.(4) Three styles have been recorded among the Mountain Shoria. They arealso known under the term kai.(5) Khakassia has two styles of overtone singing, known as khai.(6) One style of overtone singing has been documented in Yakutia as well,under the name khabarga.(7) And finally, outside the Russian Federation, six styles of overtonesinging have been documented in western Mongolia (under the termkhoomei)Overtone singing is positioned ambiguously between the polyphonic andmonophonic singing traditions. From a musical point of view overtone singing ispolyphony, as two functionally completely different parts (drone and a pentatonicmelody) are heard simultaneously. From a social point of view, overtone singing is notpolyphony, as this singing style lacks crucial social element of the polyphonic singingtradition – active musical interaction between several (at least more than one) performers.The singer produces a sustained pitch using a specific tense sound, then, usingthis sustained sound as a drone, he changes the mouth cavity shape with his tongue, lipsand some other parts of the mouth to produce different harmonics (overtones) andconstruct melodies from these overtones. Interestingly, singers use only the selected setof overtones, carefully avoiding two overtones that do not fit the pentatonic scale (Levin,2002:982). So, if the drone is on “C”, the singer will be using the overtones from “G” tothe next “G”. This part of the overtones contain G, Bflat, C, D, E, F# and G. Out of theseovertones “B flat” and “F#” are carefully avoided. This fact suggests that singers do notfollow the naturally existing sound material. Instead they follow their aesthetic andcultural preferences. Overtone singing was traditionally performed by men only, but nowthere are women singers as well.There has been a diversity of opinion about the origins of overtone singing,ranging from the most archaic periods (30-40 000 years ago), the “pre-speecharticulation” epoch of human history (see, for example, Ikhtisamov, 1984:180-181) to thefirst millennia A.D. (Vainstain, 1980). I will discuss this interesting question in a separatesection (or “Case Study”) in the second part of this book.There has been a great deal of interest in the overtone singing style, and manysinging-loving westerners have learned this unique sound-production technique. Iremember myself sitting together with my Georgian friend and colleague, EdisherGarakanidze, under a big tree in Switzerland, near Geneva on September 26th, 1991,trying to learn the basics of overtone singing under the guidance of the brilliant performerof this style (and not only!) and ethnomusicologist Tran Quang Hai. After some time Icame to the conclusion that, although I managed to produce few audible overtones,singing Georgian polyphony was still much easier for me.Although Central Asia is justifiably known as a monophonic region, elements of“usual” polyphony (when polyphony is created by the group of singers) are present insome genres. I well remember the excitement among Soviet ethnomusicologists when anexample of vocal polyphonic music was found in Central Asia. This example of rare