Tsuur music is based on a combination of instrumental and vocal performance – a blending of sounds created simultaneously by both the musical instrument and the human throat. Tsuur music has an inseparable connection to the Uriankhai Mongolians of the Altai Region, and remains an integral part of their daily life. Its origins lie in an ancient practice of worshipping nature and its guardian spirits by emulating natural sounds.
The Tsuur is a vertical pipe-shaped wooden wind instrument with three finger holes. Simultaneously touching the mouthpiece of the pipe with one’s front teeth and applying one’s throat produces a unique timbre comprising a clear and gentle whistling sound and a drone. The Tsuur is traditionally played to ensure success for hunts, for benign weather, as a benediction for safe journeys or for weddings and other festivities.
The music reflects one’s inner feelings when traveling alone, connects a human to nature, and serves as a performing art. The Tsuur tradition has faded over recent decades as a consequence of negligence and disrespect of folk customs and religious faith, leaving many locales with no Tsuur performer and no families possessing a Tsuur.
The forty known pieces preserved among the Uriankhai Mongolians are transmitted exclusively through the memory of successive generations – a feature making this art highly vulnerable to the risk of disappearing.
Recommended recordings:
- Xoomii Music of Mongolia – Jargalant Altai (various artists) : (Pan Records Pan 2050CD) – recordings from the 1960’s to 1994
- Musique et Chants de tradition populaire Mongolie (various artists) (Grem G7511, 1985).
- B. Bold-Erdene – Khoomei, Khuur, Tsuur…
Author: World Music Central News Room
World music news from the editors at World Music Central
