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more enjoying the traditional ‘Honey-Vodka’, home-made by Kasiane Bersenadze. Asthe feasting reached its highest point, one of the guests, a professional opera singer,started singing, announcing beforehand that he was going to sing for us the aria of ‘Abdulthe Arab’ [from the opera ‘Tale of Shota Rustaveli’, by the Georgian composer DimitriAraqishvili]. Ilarion Sikharulidze [a well-respected Gurian traditional singer who was atthe table] waited for a while, and when he lost faith that the lone singer would besupported by any of his own friends or colleagues, he himself gave a supporting highharmony to his singing. Tele Iobishvili [another traditional Gurian singer who was at thefeast as well] supported the aria by the bass part. I should confess that the result was notbad at all, particularly considering that two out of the three performers had no idea of thesong they were singing. ‘This is an “aria” from the classical opera and should beperformed alone’, announced a professional singer with mild annoyance in his voice asthe song came to an end. ‘Well’, came the reply from Ilarion Sikharulidze, ‘as weGeorgians say, it is a pity for a man to be alone while eating, as for singing, I have neverheard of a song that has to be sung alone’” (Erkomaishvili, 1988:56).Georgia was widely known for its rich polyphonic traditions in the former SovietUnion. “Two Georgians and a bottle of red wine is already three-part singing” was apopular Russian saying. But of course, such stories of compulsory group participation tocomplement the harmony of a polyphonic song do not come from Georgia alone. Itwould be natural to expect that in most of the cultures with traditional polyphonicsinging, you would come across similar stories of people joining in singing tocomplement the harmony, sometimes in the most unusual circumstances. Our goodfriend, Bulgarian ethnomusicologist Boryana Alexandrova, told me a family story thattook place in the 1970, during the “Silver Wedding” of her own uncle, Mladen Angelov,an ardent singer of Bulgarian traditional songs. In the midst of the most sacred part of theceremony, while standing with his head leaning forward and covered with the sacral clothby the local priest, to the common laughter of everyone present at this memorablemoment, the “silver groom” suddenly started singing a drone to support the priest’srecitation (personal communication from December 27 th , 1987).I also vividly remember Dunia Rihtman, ethnomusicologist from Bosnia (now inIsrael), singing along quietly during the concert of Georgian polyphonic songs onNovember 14 th 1986 in Borjomi, Georgia, during the International Conference “Problemsof folk polyphony”. Conforming to the etiquette of a conventional performance, Duniawas trying not to be loud, but I was sitting next to her and I could clearly hear her droningalong to the unknown (for her) Georgian songs. By the way, I was droning as well.Exactly the same way as I was quietly harmonizing to the (unknown to me) Hungarianmonophonic melodies at the Kechkemet music festival in Hungary on August 27, 1977.Co-participation in a musical performance can happen without singing. As amatter of fact, singing along is not the most widely spread form of co-participation(particularly in western cultures). The most universal (and the most natural andeconomical) way to “join in” the musical flow must be joining the beat of a musical pieceby simply tapping, finger snapping or even just making a swinging movement using anypart of the body. This phenomenon is so widely spread in human societies that it oftenescapes our attention. Representatives of some cultures are particularly prone to the urgeof “joining the beat”. I remember how amazed was my friend, musicologist and singerIrina Bavkun from the Novosibirsk Conservatory, when she went to a concert of Russian9