In 2008, in a live performance in Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, California, “Huun-Huur-Tu” remained committed to their homeland’s centuries-old music style. The group exists for over a quarter-century, providing its fans with a lively, smooth, and warm sound. Their lyrics include the topics of nature, love stories, their homeland, sadness, and songs about life with a deep sense. Listening to the concert, one feels like being transported from the Californian land to the Central-Asian flowing grasses. The sound creates an emotional space with the whole spectrum of feelings and thoughts.
The group uses an old and striking vocal tradition – xöömei (throat-singing), originating from the Central Asian Republic Tuva. The Western musical world has nothing to oppose that ethereal and beautiful sound. Tuvan throat-singing began expanding across the globe only after the 1990s, integrating western conceptions of the human voice’s capacities, and rapidly became a sensation. The role of “Huun-Huur-Tu’s” four members in emerging this tradition out of Asian borders might be considered a central one. In frames of this culture, a note is referred to as a drone. In the process of throat singing, a singer produces both the drone’s overtones and the drone, so that up to three notes are heard simultaneously. Being solely provided by a human voice, each drone may sound identical to the bird, a whistle, a flute, and others.
“Huun-Huur-Tu” primarily uses native instruments like the igil, doshpuluur, khomus (Tuvan jaw harp), and dünggür (shaman drum). Nevertheless, during recent years, they began to integrate western instruments, for example, the guitar selectively. During the pauses between the songs, singers talk to the audience, explaining that their music is about closeness to the Earth, nature, and human unity. It is impossible not to be moved by such a piece of beautiful music. When this music flows, it seems like it comes out from the roots of human civilization.
Works Cited
“Huun-Huur-Tu – Live Berkely.” YouTube, uploaded JARO Medien GmbH – Bremen, 2012. Web.