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255where the former pearl diving boat crewmembers meet to sing their traditional songs withthe cups of tea and coffee. In 1978 there were 14 such “music houses” on Bahrain(Rovsing-Olsen, 2002a:89).There is a certain typological link between the vocal polyphony of Tuaregs andBahrain pearl divers. Most importantly they display (1) drone type of polyphony, whereone (or two) soloists sing against the group of singers who sing the drone, and (2) both ofthem display the obvious sings of the influence from the Middle Eastern monophonicmusic.Following the historical tendency of the disappearance of vocal polyphonictraditions in many cultures all over the world, I do not look seriously at the possibility ofthe independent and late “invention”, or evolution of vocal polyphony from the localmonophonic traditions on the Bahrain. Most likely the local drone is the survival of theancient practice of this region. In one of the later “case studies” we are going to discussthe possibility of the presence of vocal polyphony among Sumerians. The availableinformation about Sumerian music contains the earliest in human history notated piece ofarguably polyphonic (two and three-part) music.There are other possible survivals of the ancient drone polyphony from theMiddle Eastern region. Summarizing the available information on vocal drone in theMiddle East, Rovsing-Olsen mentions “Egyptian work songs and dance songs”, Suficeremonies from different countries, Bedouin double chorus song called ahalla, “Mawledsinging in Dubai”, and United Arab Emirates where the drone sometimes is above theleading melody (Rovsing-Olsen, 2002:93).Therefore, following the musical characteristics of the polyphonic singing ofBahrain, we should unite the vocal polyphony of pearl divers with the extended “WestEurasian-North African polyphonic family”.Case Study #12“I’ll Follow the Sun”:Round-the-World travel ticketor the vocal polyphony ofNative AmericansI always loved the idea of travel to faraway countries, and the globe is one of mymost favorite objects from my childhood. This was quite a fruitless passion for a person,born and raised in the Communist Soviet Union. My former compatriots would stillremember that any travel outside of the Soviet Union was almost a miracle. That’s whyuntil the Communist regime started to crumble from the second half of the 1980s, Itraveled outside of the Soviet Union only once – it was a two-week visit in Socialist atthe time Hungary in August 1977. It was still a miracle and my friends were not tired forlong months asking me to tell them about the life “outside of the wired fence”, as we