Tuvan Throat Singing

How does one go about explicating a song in another language from a part of the world most people in the United States wouldn’t even know exists? I wouldn’t know Tuva existed either had it not been for these YouTube videos. And as one watches this video it is immediately apparent that one is dealing with something that is millions of years and miles from our culture. But then again, ethnopoetics is about finding connections between distant social groups. It kind of necessitates going beyond our cultural comfort zone. We know that we can never wholly understand these foreign works of art but must be confident that we are not simply exploiting the cultures that created them.

Wikipedia tells me that Tuvan throat singing is related to the indigenous animism of the region. That is, their indigenous religion is centered around the belief that non-human objects, organisms, and forces have souls. In this belief system, humans are on a more-or-less equal footing with their natural surroundings and desire some form of unity with them. This is reflected in their throat singing. Wikipedia also tells me that the sounds in this style of music are made to mimic natural sounds. There is a long list of specific styles of throat singing and the natural sounds they correspond to but I won’t rely on it.

Let me start with the instrumentation. On this banjo-like little instrument the singer to the right repeats one “riff” throughout the song. The sound is clunky and choppy. It relies mostly on a straight thumping rhythm. However, the instrumentalist also plays trilled triplets that remind me of walking. The melody is melancholy in an obvious minor key. All of this, I think, suggests either a mood of tireless journeying or working.

Moving on. At first the singer on the right sings in a harsh sort of strained voice. This agrees with the mood of tireless journeying/working I mentioned earlier. Or it might possibly reflect the harshness of their surroundings during the winter. The singer on the left comes in with a deep, buzzing drone. It is almost overpowering. This kind of drone is ubiquitous in spiritual music – it is the same kind of drone one might hear in the playing of the Scottish bagpipe, Indian sitar, or Australian didgeridoo. It is representative of the overwhelming power of nature as well as a sort of unity between man and nature. In this particular instance the singer’s drone reminds me of fierce winter winds or thunderous crashing water (another possible link to the theme of the harshness of winter). But then the singer on the right comes in with a sung melody that sounds like a whistle. It is sometimes faint but manages to sing through the other singer’s roaring drone. And it immediately reminds one of bird singing. Furthermore, in contrast to the rest of the song it is happy sounding, in a major key. Imagine hearing a bird singing through the roaring sound of a waterfall in winter. This juxtaposition suggests the capability of humble living things to persevere and succeed through the overpowering forces that surround them.

One must also keep in mind that, as this is a video, the filmmaker is trying to make a point in the video as well. Look at the icy water flowing just behind the singers. And then the people ice fishing in front of an industrial background of power lines and buildings. This reinforces my theme as well as providing an extension of it: the will of indigenous peoples to survive in a suddenly new modern world.

This video is clearly ethnographic. The filmmaker brings an obscure cultural phenomenon to the attention of a wider audience. He allows the culture to represent itself and stays faithful to the style of music in its most authentic form. However, he also injects his own, foreign perspective in the staging of the video as well as providing context for the music by identifying the place and culture that created it.