Performers- Huun Huur Tu
Culture- A demonstration of the Sygyt style (one of three) of throat sining on American soil during a folk festival.
Instrumentation- Voice creating multi-phonics
This week's class discussion reminded me of throat sining, and specifically how it has spread across many cultures. In chorus last year, we performed a piece by an Australian composer that was called for a section of only throat sining. In the popular television show The Big Bang Theory, character Sheldon Cooper demonstrates his abilities to throat sing. And in the video above, the organizers of the Philadelphia Fold Festival found it appropriate to include throat sining on their program. This is just one very specific example of how music from one culture can be spread through many disciplines. Composers want to include the music of others in their compositions, festival organizers want to share the music with others, a pop culture is spreading the music almost unintentionally.
You raise a valid point about the spreading of cultures throughout the world. In this age of technology it is so easy to share something from another culture. This is something we as educators should keep in mind as we consider what is relevant to the classroom and our students.
ReplyDeleteAlso this is a crazy awesome video. The use of multi-phonics has always fascinated me. I know overtone singing uses multi-phonics as well, so is this kind of the same thing?
This video is really intriguing with regard to this week's readings as well. I'm sure it's common place to learn how to do sing like this in a free, almost improvisatory manner, learning techniques and then letting your ears and your body guide you. Adding this to a choral performance seems like it would take on a dramatically different light. especially in our culture it would probably be taught by rote and memorized or done with the desire to perfectly replicate the page versus doing so in a free manner.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious to whether or not throat singing is a type of music that developed in different countries independent of each other and then came together and found that they were all similar, or if all types of throat singing is stemmed from one type of throat singing that branched out as humanity spread across the world. I think this video and just this idea of global music brings up other sociological questions as well regarding to how information and cultures translate and whether or not something definitive of a culture only originated in that one country.
ReplyDeleteThroat singing is rarely this clear or has such consistency of tone - great example!
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