AltaiKAI, a group of seven of the finest singers and musicians from the remote Altai
Mountains in Central Asia, perform one of the oldest and most striking vocal traditions of
mankind, that of ‘’throat singing.’’ Throat-singing is a unique method of overtone singing
that involves one person producing two or three notes of different pitches at the same
time – a low fundamental note along with a higher series of harmonic notes that can be
shaped into melodies with virtuosic skill. The effect is miraculous; nothing exists in
western vocal music that resembles this eerie and beautiful sound from central Asia. As
recently as 20 years ago, this extraordinary style of singing was virtually unknown
outside of Central Asia.
The mountainous Altai Republic of the Russia Federation sits at the heart of Central Asia,
on the southern edge of the taiga evergreen forests of Siberia and just north of the steppes
of Kazakhstan and the arid semi-deserts of Mongolia. Originally nomadic and more
recently agricultural, the ethnic Altai have kept their history and culture alive through a
tradition of orally-transmitted epic poetry and song. Kaichi, the epic narrators, continue
to serve as singing historians of the people. The epic repertoire includes not just
centuries-old history and folk narrative, but also the heroic mythology that developed in
the early 20th century as the charismatic religious movement Burkhanism arose as an
indigenous Altaian response to cultural incorporation within Soviet Russia. Traditional
Altaian song also celebrates the details of daily life in the mountains. Complex vocal
techniques have been developed over centuries to reproduce the sounds of the natural
world and to converse with the spirit world.
Altaian throat singing is called kai, and while it has similarities to the throat singing of
neighboring Tuva, which gained notice in the West beginning in the late 1980s, Altaian
kai has its own special blend of techniques. The low-pitched, guttural singing typically
used to relay epic texts is karkyra; the simultaneous production of this lower tone and
with an ethereal upper tone is called komei. Altaian kaichi also employ sygyt, a style
resembling whistling, and sybsysky, an overtone style combining the sygyt with a low
tone. The ensemble also performs on handmade string musical instruments and native
flutes.
Источник: lastfm.ru
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