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23In this chapter I will discuss the distribution of the tradition of vocal polyphony indifferent parts of the world. No hypotheses and no theories, just what we know todayabout the worldwide distribution of vocal polyphony.Of course, it would be naïve to hope that all the existed regional styles oftraditional polyphony will be represented in this chapter. Despite the fact I have beenintensely interested in distribution of traditional polyphony for more than 25 years, havebeen organizing a number of special international conferences entirely dedicated to theproblems of traditional polyphony, had been preparing for the publications materials(abstracts, extended abstracts and the full papers) of these conferences and Symposia, andhave been it touch with number of leading experts of traditional polyphony from aroundthe world, the picture of the distribution of traditional polyphony on our planet is by nomeans complete. There is no doubt that there are still plenty of unknown traditions ofvocal polyphony in many regions of the world. I have few reasons for this belief:‣ There is a tendency in national scholarly traditions to be occupied with a“trademark” phenomenon of the certain musical cultures (like raga inIndia, gamelan in Bali, vocal polyphony in Georgia, or mugam inAzerbaijan). This tendency does create a convenient basis for the studyof these “trademark” traditions, but at the same time most of the “nonmainstream”cultural phenomena often fall into neglect. That’s why Iexpect that some pockets of traditional polyphony could be stillconcealed under the shadow of the stereotype of so-called “monophoniccultures”.‣ Big part of the ethnomusicological production is still published innational periodicals, and mostly in national languages. This factorseverely limits their accessibility to the Western reader (and not only).‣ Even if the results of the work of scholars from different countries reachthe Western reader, there is a chance that these results will not be easilycompatible with the other existing studies. Ethnomusicology is stillsuffering from the lack of unified methodology and terminology inmany areas, including traditional polyphony.Question of terminology and classificationBefore we start discussing polyphonic traditions of different parts of the world, Iwould like to discuss briefly the terminology that I am going to use in this book.Unfortunately, as in many other spheres, ethnomusicology does not have the commonlyaccepted set of terms in this field that everyone could follow easily without muchmisunderstanding.Quite a few different terms had been used in ethnomusicology to denote thephenomenon of singing in more than one part. “Polyphony” seems to be the most widely