Tuvan Throat Singing

Khoomei is overtone singing: by shaping the throat, tongue and lips a singer amplifies particular harmonics of a low fundamental so that a whistle-like melody is heard above a drone, and one person produces two or more distinct pitches at once. Tuvans distinguish several styles - sygyt, high and piercing; kargyraa, very low and rasping; borbangnadyr and others - and they are traditionally connected to herding, to imitating rivers, wind and animals, and to travelling long distances on horseback. It was sustained through the Soviet period and became internationally known from the 1990s, partly through the physicist Richard Feynman's well-documented obsession with reaching Tuva, and through groups like Huun-Huur-Tu touring abroad. The National Museum in Kyzyl holds Scythian gold from the Arzhan mounds; the Ustuu-Khuree festival and the Kyzyl symposium bring performers together in summer. Kyzyl also claims a monument at the geographic centre of Asia.

What you actually see

• Two pitches at once - a drone with a whistled overtone melody above it from one singer.
• The styles - sygyt, kargyraa and others, distinguished by technique and register.
• The summer festivals - Ustuu-Khuree and the throat singing symposium in Tuva.
• The Scythian gold - the Arzhan finds in the National Museum at Kyzyl.

When to go

June to September, when the festivals run. An evening for a concert; several days for a festival.

Honest expectations

Regular public performances outside festival season are limited and often arranged for groups. Tuva is hard to reach - a long road from Abakan or infrequent flights. Facilities in Kyzyl are basic. Recordings do not convey the sound in a room, and neither does a tourist show.

Nearby

The Yenisei begins at Kyzyl; the Arzhan burial mounds are in the Uyuk valley north.