When my editor asked me to write about “Tuvan throat singers,” I worried it was guys from Long Island who’d studied the method on YouTube. But no, this is the real deal; the Alash Ensemble are three citizens of Tuva (officially the Republic of Tyva), a part of Russia in southern Siberia. The group will perform at the Local in Saugerties on Saturday, March 15. For those interested in diving deeper into throat singing, there will be a workshop before the performance at 6:45pm.
“Throat singing” is a misnomer, though it’s the translation of a Tuvan word, khoomei. Musical notes typically reverberate in the head or chest, allowing the singer to produce overtones—usually two or three harmonics can be heard above the original note. In a sense, a single person can sing a chord. In addition, there are guttural growls, and a style called sygyt, which means “whistling,” and produces a sound like the high notes of a flute. Ethnomusicologists connect overtone singing with traditional animist religion. Vocalists often travel widely until they find the perfect river or mountain to sing to. The lyrics are difficult to translate, but often involve the speed of horses, the beauty of women, the benevolence of the night sky.
Throat singing is an ancient tradition, appearing in cultures around the world, including those of the Inuit, the Xosha of South Africa, the Bashkirs of eastern Russia. The effect is also heard in Sardinian folk music and Tibetan Buddhist chanting.
For some, the fascination of throat singing is purely musical. For others, it’s biological. How can the human body produce such tones? How can a person sound like a giant insect? One reason Tuvan songs are popular now is that some of their effects resemble elements of techno music and hip-hop. The latest sonic technology has allowed us to imitate the musicality of our tribal ancestors. Not surprisingly, Alash has performed with the rapper Rahzel, from the Roots.
The ensemble formed at the Kyzyl Arts College in 1999; it’s named after the Alash River in Tuva. The group began touring internationally in 2006. Alash has toured the US every year since. In 2008 they appeared on Jingle All the Way, an album by Bela Fleck and the Flecktones; later they joined that band on the road. Alash has also teamed up with the Sun Ra Arkestra.
This is acoustic music, with instruments rarely heard in Saugerties. The igil is a two-stringed, leaf-shaped chamber held between the legs and bowed like a cello. Often the scroll on its headstock is carved into the shape of a horse’s head. The three-stringed doshpuluur has been compared to the banjo. The xapchyk is a rattle fashioned from the dried scrotum of a bull. Inside are sheep knuckle bones that rattle when the instrument is shaken. The duyuglar are two horse’s hooves, clapped together to produce the sound of a galloping stallion. The amyrga is a wooden flute covered with animal gut, which imitates the call of the male red deer during mating season. Songs that extol nature are played on instruments made from trees and scrotums.
Though the method is ancient, it was first brought to the West fairly recently, by the documentary Genghis Blues (1999), in which the blues singer Paul Pena discovers Tuvan music on a shortwave radio, teaches himself throat singing, and eventually visits Tuva.
Alash’s music is associated with shamanic healing, so if your sinus condition improves after the concert, please send them a grateful email!
This article appears in March 2025.
