Mongolian Singers

So I went to see a concert of Mongolian traditional singers. The type of singing they do has been designated a national treasure by UNESCO, so it was kind of a big deal. They were a very interesting expression of what "tradition" means in a global culture. They wore shockingly brightly colored silk robes. The men wore bright yellow and orange silk tunics that fell to their ankles. The tunics had the high collars and the cavalary style closure on the sides. The tunics were also heavily embroidered with swirls and had dark contrasting piping all round the garment. Around the tunics they wore huge six inch wide belts. One guy had turqoise studs all over his belt. Their boots were also heavily embroidered with swirls and were turned up at the toe like elf boots. When the men walked, one could see the blue jeans peeking out from the tops of the boots. The youngest of the musicians had black hair with yellow highlights and enough mousse to puff his hair out like a rock star. When he played the horse head fiddle he totally rocked out like he was on MTV, not a traditional music stage. He was the embodiment of cultural synchretism: a young man who clearly loved Hendrix (he clearly copied Hendrix guitar moves on the horse head fiddle) but who was a virtuoso at an ancient tradition of singing and fiddle playing. The one woman who was part of the group was a little person, which probably accounted for the knee high four inch heeled black boots she was wearing. Her silk dress came to just above her knees, and it was much more Chinese looking than the wild tunics the men wore. She wore heavy western makup that made her face very shiny in the stage lights. But when she sang, this little person put out a huge sound. She sang the Mongolian Long Song style which has a lot of ornamentation and tremendous dynamics going from a room filling opera sound to a soft sweet whisper in the same phrase. It was beautiful, but I was on the edge of my seat because I was afraid she would fall off her boots while she was singing, and it would have been a long fall!

The group of four singers had two instruments: a two stringed fiddle with an ornate horse head carved on the finial, and goose headed mandolin type two stringed instrument. the goose head had a bright red beak! It was sharp such that if the player really rocked out, he could put out an eye. Two of the men sang the two tone throat singing where the the singer sings two notes at the same time, an octave apart. That was another big sound, and it sounded almost super human. One of the singers seemed to be the throad singing specialist, and when he stood to sing, he was so relaxed. He hooked his thumbs into his wide leather belt and looked like he was just standing in line for a bank teller machine or something, but he was making this huge sound that resonated like a bagpipe!

They sang love songs, songs about missing one's home town, and songs about their national hero. All the same content as Irish traditional songs, really. When they played and sang they did not tap their feet, but in the Irish tradition, the musician always taps one foot to the beat, sometimes very loudly such that it is part of the tune. So there were these Mongolian people singing with motionless feet, and there was the Irish audience, tapping away with their feet.