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

191and possibly about the cultural and economic contacts between Georgia and the MiddleEast. The answer to the second question (how are they singing - in three parts, with thedrone) is informing us about the “main musical grammatical rules” of Georgian music.Every musical culture is able to receive songs and melodies from other cultures, and assoon as the intrinsic rules of the receiving culture are at work, the newly receivedmelodies will be naturally “absorbed” by the receiving culture. It is the tradition ofsinging in three parts (with the main melody in the middle part and the drone) that isstable in Georgian traditional music. This is the way Georgians sing Middle Eastern,Russian, Ukrainian, French, Gypsy, Italian, English and other melodies.(2) In the next case Georgia is not the “receiver” of the song. Now the song fromGeorgia traveled a long way to Central Africa. This case is particularly interesting as itinvolves the interaction of two polyphonic cultures.In a twist of history a Georgian doctor (physician) was sent by Soviet governmentto work in Central Africa in the beginning of the 1980s. Apparently being a good amateursinger of Georgian urban songs (which is not unusual for Georgians of totally differentprofessions) and a socially easygoing person, he taught his new African friends a fewGeorgian urban songs. This was not a case of performing an act of “musical therapy”, orat least, an intended case. After the Georgian doctor came back to Georgia, Georgian TVmade a documentary program about him and later broadcast this program on GeorgianTV. A couple of minutes of the program was a live recording of the singing of threeAfrican women, performing the well-known Georgian urban song “Zhuzhuna tsvimamovida” [lit: “Sparkly Spring Rain Came”]. Here are the choruses of both the originalGeorgian version and the Central African versions of the same song [Central Africanversion is transcribed from memory]:Fig. 11. “Zhuzhuna Tsvima”,Georgian version)Georgian urban song, chorus only (originalFig. 12. “Zhuzhuna Tsvima”, Georgian urban song, chorus only (CentralAfrican version)