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

294Sounds of the Ancient Choir:Primordial Vocal PolyphonyAny reconstruction of a “primordial language” or a “primordial culture” is ahighly speculative business. Reconstruction of “primordial” polyphony is not muchdifferent. To reconstruct a phenomenon that according to my model existed manyhundred of thousands or even millions of years ago, we need hard evidence, which isunlikely to ever enter our knowledge. The only possibility for such a deep historicalreconstruction is to find some common features that characterize a big part of the livevocal polyphonic traditions from different parts of the world.When we look for common features, we need to remember that the phenomenonitself – vocal polyphony – is in a long process of decline and disappearance. Vocalpolyphony, for some evolutionary reasons once a much-needed phenomenon, lost its“survival value” at some point of human prehistory. Another interesting point is that,according to my model, some human populations started losing polyphony much earlier,while other populations kept it for a much longer period of time. As a result, in somepopulations the tradition of vocal polyphony is already lost (for example, East Asians andnative Australians), and other populations are on the same historical route as well. Wewill discuss the reasons behind this evolutionary “change of luck” of vocal polyphonyand the reasons why populations started loosing polyphony in different times later in thispart of the book.But let us take one problem at a time. The first in line is the reconstruction of thehypothetical “primordial polyphony” that could have been the common ancestor of all (orat least most) polyphonic traditions.Here is a list of the possible characteristic features that could be present in ourdistant ancestors. This list was compiled after a comparative study of vocal polyphonictraditions from different regions of the world, and particularly the singing traditions oftwo major polyphonic “families” – sub-Saharan African and European. We will be takinginto account the “primary” and “secondary” forms of vocal polyphony we discussed inthe second part of the book.• The choral singing of our distant ancestors was most likely based on theantiphonal and responsorial alternation of two groups, or of a soloist and a respondinggroup. This is a true universal feature for both polyphonic and even monophonic culturesand there is hardly a human musical culture on our planet without any elements of thedeep-rooted tradition of responsorial singing.• Choral singing must have included everyone, all layers of society. This featureis very characteristic for traditional polyphonic cultures, where everyone is expected toparticipate at some level and there are no formal listeners at all. For many representativesof polyphonic cultures even just listening to somebody else’s singing is not natural, andthey try to sing along (or tap along) together with the performers. Singing of women only(or men, or other social groups) seems to be a relatively late phenomenon.• The rhythm of choral singing must have been very precise and vigorous. Thisfeature is by no means universal for all surviving polyphonic traditions. For example,several Mediterranean polyphonic traditions that bear signs of the mixture of the old