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WonderVocal tradition fact

In throat singing from Tuva, a Russian republic in southern Siberia, one singer produces two sounds at once: a low, steady hum and, above it, a high whistling melody. The singer makes it by shaping the mouth and throat to bring out overtones hidden in the voice.

Tuvan throat singing

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The story behind the card

Every sung note is really a bundle of tones: the main pitch plus fainter, higher ones called overtones, which give each voice its colour. Throat singers learn to move the tongue and lips so precisely that single overtones ring out as a separate melody. The general term is khöömei; sygyt is a whistling style and kargyraa a very deep, growling one. Tuvans, a Turkic-speaking people, link these sounds with the landscape of herding life, imitating wind, rivers and animals. Groups such as Huun-Huur-Tu took the music to world stages from the 1990s. The physicist Richard Feynman spent years trying to travel to Tuva, a quest told in the book Tuva or Bust!

Türkçe oku
Güney Sibirya'daki Tuva'nın gırtlak şarkıcıları aynı anda iki ses çıkarır: altta pes ve sürekli bir uğultu, üstte ıslığa benzeyen tiz bir ezgi. Tiz ezgi, ağzın ve boğazın biçimi değiştirilerek sesin içinde saklı doğuşkanların öne çıkarılmasıyla oluşur.

Söylenen her nota aslında bir ses demetidir: asıl perdenin yanında, her sese kendine özgü rengini veren daha hafif ve daha tiz sesler, yani doğuşkanlar (harmonikler) bulunur. Gırtlak şarkıcıları dillerini ve dudaklarını öyle ince ayarlarla oynatmayı öğrenir ki tek tek doğuşkanlar ayrı bir ezgi gibi çınlar. Genel adı höömey'dir; sıgıt ıslığa benzeyen bir üslup, kargıraa ise çok derin, hırıltılı bir üsluptur. Türk dillerinden birini konuşan Tuvalılar bu sesleri göçebe hayvancılığın manzarasıyla, rüzgârı, nehirleri ve hayvanları taklit etmekle ilişkilendirir. Huun-Huur-Tu gibi topluluklar bu müziği 1990'lardan itibaren dünya sahnelerine taşıdı. Fizikçi Richard Feynman da yıllarca Tuva'ya gitmenin yolunu aradı; bu çabası Tuva or Bust! adlı kitapta anlatılır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tuvan throat singing
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