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186told me, “I have started believing you are right – there are some traditions that might beclosely related to Georgian polyphonic singing”.A few years later, when “Perestroika” got stronger, the notorious “iron curtain”disappeared and contacts with the western countries became possible for Soviet citizens, Igot the recording of that amazing Corsican polyphonic singing tradition. It was veryinteresting to find out that in fact, Corsican polyphonic singing was on one hand veryclose to Georgian polyphony, but on the other hand, it was also clear that the Corsicantype of polyphonic singing does not exist anywhere in Georgia. Let me explain this. Asthe reader may remember from the discussions about Georgian singing traditions, thereare generally two – eastern and western Georgian singing styles. The eastern Georgianstyle is based on richly embellished melodic lines and free rhythm and metre, andwestern Georgian style is based on non-embellished melodic lines and precise rhythmand metre. These are both village singing traditions. Besides village traditions, there aretwo urban singing styles in Georgia as well – so called “eastern” and “western” styles.The eastern urban style is closely connected to Middle Eastern music with augmentedseconds and embellishments, and the western urban style is connected to the Europeanmajor-minor harmonic system and European-type chords. The Corsican polyphonic stylesounded like an interesting combination of eastern Georgian village melodic(embellished) style, mixed with the western Georgian urban (European) harmonicsystem. Despite the fact that this kind of singing style (“mixture” of the east Georgianvillage style with the “western” urban style) does not actually exist anywhere in Georgia,the Corsican singing manner, the timbre of their ensemble (male voices only), the openand slightly nasalized sound projection, in combination with the richly embellishedmelodic lines, was very close to the sound of the East Georgian polyphonic singingtradition. So, strictly speaking, the closeness of Georgian and Corsican polyphonictraditions was based first and foremost on a strong audio impression. At the same time,researching other polyphonic traditions, I came to the conclusion that some otherpolyphonic traditions (for example, Albanian polyphony from the Balkan region) werestylistically closer to Georgian polyphony than Corsican polyphony, although they didnot sound as similar to the Georgian sound as did Corsican polyphony.So, here is the question: what should be the basis for comparative research: (1)our audio impressions, or (2) the results of stylistic analyses? Of course, the musicalsubstance is sound, and as the brilliant Russian musicologist B Asafiev declaredfamously “the criteria by which music is measured is hearing” (Asafiev, 1971:207).Hearing is our first and foremost tool, there is no doubt about that, but we need toremember that our first audio impression can be very strong and very misleading at thesame time. As Iz aly Zemtsovsky once said to me, the fugue of J.S.Bach, performed onthe Kazakh traditional instrument, instantly sounded like a piece of Kazakh traditionalmusic. We must remember that if we want to analyze parallels between differentpolyphonic traditions, we should rest our research on the appropriate fundament ofstylistic analyses of the compared cultures.I am sure, for most of my colleagues this is something they already know. So,why do I need to repeat here the importance of the stylistic analyses as against the audioimpressions? Of course, very few (if any) ethnomusicologists would actually suggest thata comparative study should be based on audio impressions only, but still we shouldremember that our audio impressions profoundly affect our thinking. That’s why we still