Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Mongolian Concert


Tonight I went to a Mongolian concert in the northern suburbs, along the Mediterranean, at the beautiful Center of Arabic & Mediterranean Music, formerly the house of Baron d'Erlanger.

Baron d'Erlanger was a French painter & musicologist who specialized in Arabic music. He was instrumental in helping revive Tunisian ma'luf music & helped set up the 1932 Cairo Congress of Arab Music. Aside from helping foster and develop Arabic music, he also lived in a gorgeous palace in the town of Sidi Bou Saïd, outside of Tunis & named for a Sufi saint.

Mongolian music is famous for its overtone singing, also called throat singing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_singing) One of my teachers at Georgetown taught my choral class how to do this - it involves opening your mouth and throat very widely and singing one note until the sound resembles a flute or some other type of woodwind instrument.

Here is an example:






Sorry for the camera work, by the way, I was trying not to obstruct my neighbors' view. :)

And here is a beautiful one:



3 comments:

mom said...

i xould not tell which sound was the voice

mom said...

which sound was the human voice?

Laura said...

it sounds like a flute! isn't that amazing?