The melody swings up and down, undulating like grassland under the hoofs of a stallion.
The resonant murmur of kengirge, the great drum, rolls through the music hall and you can almost picture stars shimmering in lakes. The haunting, timeless sound of Tuvan throat singing, in which a single vocalist voices multiple sounds simultaneously, is difficult to describe, yet awesome to witness.
When it comes to Tuvan throat singing, Huun-Huur-Tu is the undisputed standout. They have performed thousands of concerts all over the world in the last 15 years. They were on the film soundtrack for Geronimo and have played with musicians such as the Chieftains, Frank Zappa and the Kronos Quartet.
And yet, in Russia, the four, deep-voiced musicians of Huun-Huur-Tu—Sayan Bapa, Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, Radik Tiuliush, and Alexei Saryglar—are not that well known. Tuvan throat singing may be 4000 years old, but it is far from widely popular in Russia. The four musicians from Uryanhai (as Tuvans call their homeland) sat down with Russian Life before a recent concert in Chelyabinsk.
In throat singing, a vocalist produces two or even three notes simultaneously, accompanying himself with his own voice, throat and chest. Is that right, that khoomei means “guttural” in Tuvan?
Sayan Bapa: Not quite. It’s not a literal translation.
Kaigal-ool Khovalyg: This is a general name for throat-singing.
Sayan: Exactly. We say khoomei the same way as we say “vocal singing.” Yet khoomei is also the name of one of the three general throat-singing styles; the other two are kargyraa and sygyt. There is also ezengileer, an additional style, and a number of sub-styles that are mixtures of the three main ones.
Do they differ from each other in singing technique?
Sayan: Yes, and there is also a difference in timbre, so khoomei is a middle timbre pitch, kargyraa is a low-sounding style, and sygyt, which means whistle, is a high one.
Throat singing is bound to landscape and uses mimesis, or an imitation of the sounds of nature. There is for example, the highland and steppe kargyraa. Would you say the diversity of styles is caused by the difference between the objects being imitated?
Sayan: Well, this is too literal. The highland kargyraa personifies a mountain—its power, force and volume, the air around and within it. And through all of these things together, the atmosphere of a sound imitates the spirit of the highlands. I wouldn’t say the mountain itself can sing.
Why then do the steppes sound high-pitched in Tuvan songs?
Sayan: It’s like a mirage. There’s a sound in the steppes, too, and it’s thin.
Kaigal-ool Khovalyg: This way, the manner of singing changes from one style to another.
Sayan: Right, the singing manner becomes more muted. Of course, the steppe sounds higher than the mountains.
What kind of animals do you mainly imitate? How about the horse, sacred to Tuvans?
Sayan: You can’t say a musician imitates any specific animal. Mixing his own voice with nature, he might sing for all the birds in the world at a time. It is his voice in the fauna. Being part of the cosmos, an ancient musician could not distinguish himself from nature. He lived within it, drinking the spirits of, say, this specific night or day. The result of this absorption was his own roulade, imitating not a specific bird, but its spirit.
Can anyone perform all of the throat-singing styles and sub-styles?
Sayan: Well, Kaigal-ool performs practically all of them.
What style would you call the most difficult to sing?
Sayan: It depends on how crazy you are. By this I mean not how deep a breath you take, or how long you hold your breath, but the beauty of a melody and the purity of spirit. The breath depends on how long you want to hold a tune, it is not the foundation of the melody. It only backs up the music and supports the aura of a sound.
Nevertheless, what kind of breathing exercises are used to train one’s respiratory system for throat singing?
Sayan: There are old songs. You can learn everything you need from them, because they are so well settled.
What are they about?
Sayan: Throat singing breathes with what a nomad sees: mountains, steppes and lakes. Huun-Huur-Tu performs the essence of Tuvan music, the two to three hundred year old songs, as we understand them. We travel the length and breadth of Tuva, collecting songs of our old men from different regions, from the steppes to the mountains.
Radik Tiuliush: While I learned the tunes from my relatives, the others went to Tsengel, the region in northern Mongolia. It is inhabited by uryanhaizy, the Tuvans who left Tuva even before the Revolution and could not return. They preserved the old melodies, because Tsengel did not experience as much repression as Soviet Tuva. Today it is much more difficult, though: the Mongolians want to unify their citizens’ ethnicity, so Tuvans have to keep themselves separate. For example, they don’t give their daughters in marriage to Mongolians.
How can one learn throat singing? By observing others?
Sayan: By listening to one another. There have been teachers and schools for about 10 years, but basically everyone listens to their fathers, grandfathers and uncles, from generation to generation. Having heard throat singing from their forefathers, all of my singing friends were produced by their families.
How did you start to learn throat singing?
Sayan: I began at the age of about 19-20, but proper training started later. You go out—in a corridor, in a field, that doesn’t really matter—and sing. We’ve got a poem in Tuva: “I need nothing. There is a pouch for me, and my throat.” It means there is a little sack in which I carry everything I need to live my life. That is why I can sing anywhere.
Does this mean you channel everything that is around you?
Sayan: Yes, that is a good way to describe it.
What is the best place to sing?
Sayan: Well, throat singing sounds more natural outside, but we try to create the same warmth with the help of acoustics and properly adjusted microphones.
Radik: I suppose the best place to sing is in a nomad’s tent.
Where does the sound come from?
Sayan: Let’s say from the heart, although of course we strain the diaphragm, steady our breath, stretch or relax the vocal chords, and learn to control them. We took part in research at Roosevelt Hospital in New York. Some cameras were placed in our throats and recorded the singing process. It was discovered there are so-called “false vocal chords” located about the normal ones. They don’t function while performing normal vocal singing, but if you can control them, it is possible to learn throat singing.
We know how to press the chords together so that they make a hole of merely two millimeters diameter. The air goes through it under pressure and, accompanied by tongue and lips, a wish comes: what melody should this be? So, you see, everything is set to perfect the sound. Our body is an instrument. Take igyl, for example: its lower part is the chest, its strings are vocal chords. Stretching or relaxing them, the musician makes igyl sing. At the same time, the instruments are organs, playing in tune with nature. Singing and playing are the same.
Metaphysically, what is the source of solo double-voiced singing?
Sayan: The melody comes from the thorax, from within your chest. We start singing and everything vibrates here and the entire organism resounds, because the tone itself is a vibration. Regulated, it forms a melody. So it all comes down to the melody anyway.
With what three words would you describe it?
Sayan: Wisdom. Eternity. Sadness. Courage.
Ok, let it be four.
Sayan: I heard once Hunashtar-ool, who is a good throat singer, and these emotions came to me even though I was listening to a recording. I felt courageous, wistful sadness. It is very beautiful, although choosing words for such things is rather difficult.
Would you agree that the world is energy and your sound is one if its expressions?
Sayan: But of course! The sound is vibration and vibration is energy.
Deeper into metaphysics then, how would you feel playing someone else’s musical instrument?
Sayan: It’s hard to tell. My instruments have been broken. I play them as long as I can.
Is it about that same little sack? There is “a pouch for you”?
Sayan: Exactly.
Who makes your instruments?
Sayan: Not many craftsmen still produce Tuvan musical instruments, but there are some young guys who are very good. Old men—I mean both musicians and instrument-makers—have sort of abruptly departed.
Is it correct that throat singing is usually performed solo and the founding of your ensemble, Huun-Huur-Tu, has changed that tradition?
Sayan: I would not say that. I can hardly imagine singing solo. Our people have been living in communes for ages, that’s why throat singing is basically a communal art. One Russian researcher even emphasized that fact at the beginning of the 1930’s. If a father or grandfather were gifted, wouldn’t he teach his son or grandchild? And if he did, wouldn’t they try to sing together? It’s a pile of rubbish, isn’t it? Everyone wants to see a well-known picture: one vocalist playing one string and singing. But I’ve traveled a lot and have seen musicians gathering, playing together and improvising. One theme, loads of variations. That could easily be called jazz!
Did you play jazz?
Sayan: Yes, I was in a jazz band. Like in jazz, there is always a certain standard in throat singing—words and themes—which develops. One theme can be used for decades, for 50 years even, and the culture itself is thousands of years old. Lots of musical instruments allow us to create an endless number of variations and our communal culture contributes to this. For example, we have many festivals where musicians can play together.
Radik: A great cattle festival called Naadym takes place in August, with horse races, different competitions and singing.
Sayan: There are four of us improvising, because we have formed together into a group. Yet we also perform solo.
What is closer to Tuvan throat singing, religious songs and ritual spells, or vocal folklore?
Sayan: The vocal folklore is closest, although throat singing was of course also used for religious purposes. Our shamans performed kargyraa, sygyt and played khomus, a mouth harp.
Is there distinction between musicians and singers in Tuvan throat singing?
Sayan: No, we’ve never had such distinctions and even now I would not like to make any. There are great singers in Tuva whose playing is also magnificent. They are self-sufficient, refusing to isolate themselves either as vocalists or instrumentalists. They try on different roles, exploring themselves, discovering more variations.
Speaking of self-exploration, is throat singing a gift or a polished skill, filled by something from within?
Sayan: Of course it is a gift. Who would listen to an ungifted singer?…
Is there any special training to perfect one’s throat singing?
Sayan: We avoid training and never rehearse. Well, we could polish some pieces if we totally understood them, which is doubtful. But there’s no sitting together, no insisting that we sing some piece of music one way and no other. We prefer to keep changing from performance to performance… Keep some space to improvise here and now, while at the same time retaining a certain core around which to weave the melody and singing.
Do you mean the melody keeps changing and you don’t know exactly what it will be like before any concert?
Sayan: But of course! If we had done such smooth throat singing, we would probably have long since ceased performing. There’s no interest in polishing performances with rehearsals. With each concert you make mental notes to remember the elusive, new creations that spring from inside you. Your inner core repeats it over and you think, “Remember that, it is yours, you did not take it from someone or steal it, it’s beautiful.” We also warm each other up, celebrating our discoveries, but, still, there is no persistence. No one has to keep their discoveries. This is freedom of self-expression, supported by the great variety of our instruments and our deep knowledge—insofar as possible—of texts and music. A theme from someone’s instrument might arise and you will respond with your own.
Does food affect the freedom of singing?
Sayan: It does, indeed. We are not picky, but we do stick to some rules. In the first place, the diaphragm must function, as is customary among all vocalists. Who could sing with his stomach full? What poems and emotions would come out? Naturally, food made by one’s wife is best, but wives are not everywhere. Traveling, we choose food we have been used to since childhood: meat, milk. We do not have peculiar tastes, but the stomach must be at ease or the spirit will grow heavy.
Radik: I’ve thought throat singing depended on food, but, in fact, it all comes down to traditions and your roots.
How far do you think throat singing has spread beyond the borders of where it began?
Sayan: There is throat singing practically throughout the entire world. Fans form their groups in Japan, Australia, in the United States, Europe, and Canada—well, they are really everywhere. Some sing for their own pleasure, to feel easy and cheerful. Others start teaching themselves. We have also contributed to it.
There is one misunderstanding, however: some musicians performing heavy metal have begun using throat-singing techniques, but this simply cannot last for long. These boys don’t know what they are dealing with. They could quite easily unscrew their heads or tear their vocal chords, although there’s a possibility their singing is so weak that they won’t suffer any injury. Anyway, we alerted our friends from Canada of the risks they were facing and then we saw vocal chords injured beyond recovery.
Still, we like rock music. Many of our friends perform rock and jazz, and we listen with pleasure to what they like. There is one exception, however: I now prefer harmonious melodies and instrumental music.
Huun-Huur-Tu has visited many festivals of ethnic music; you are constantly performing solo concerts. How is your music accepted around the world?
Sayan: Our melodies carry the smell of time and antiquity. It is a warm music that people respond to everywhere... RL
The name “Uryanhai” comes from when Tuva (previously known as Tannu-Tuva) was in Outer Mongolia and it is Mongolian for “previous ones,” meaning those that were here before the Mongols.
Huun-Huur-Tu’s Discography
2009 Eternal (with Carmen Rizzo)
2007 Live in Munich
2003 More live
2002 Spirits from Tuva
2001 BEST * LIVE
1999 Where Young Grass Grow
1998 If I’d Been Born An Eagle
1997 The Orphan’s Lament
1996 60 Horses In My Herd
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