Weekend Watching: Tuvan Throat-Singing

Something I’ve been particularly interested in recently is the variety throat-singing styles common in Tuva, a landlocked Central Asian nation which is a state of the Russian Federation. The throat-singing in this video is a type of overtone singing that forms part of the musical tradition of Central Asian countries, and it is simply amazing to watch and listen to. This video features the Tuvan ensemble Alash, and the music is from an album produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings; it’s also available on their website. For those of you interested in ‘world’ music — and I will explain in a separate post the need for inverted commas in that term — or, perhaps more accurately, folk music traditions, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival’s theme for 2019 is the social power of music, and it’s going to be an exciting year for ethnomusicologists and music educators.