Music of Mongolia - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

is an integral part of Mongolian culture

Culture of Mongolia

Mongolian culture has been heavily influenced by the Mongol nomadic way of life. Other important influences are from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, and from China. Since the 20th century, Russian and, via Russia, European culture have had a strong effect on Mongolia...

. Among the unique contributions of Mongolia

Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...

to the world's musical culture are the long songs, one of the greatest features of the Mongolian music, overtone singing

Overtone singing

Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the resonances created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to produce a melody.The partials of a sound wave made by the human voice can be...

and morin khuur

Morin khuur

The morin khuur is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the Mongolian nation. The morin khuur is one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity identified...

, the horse-headed fiddle. The music of Mongolia is also rich with varieties related to the various ethnic groups of the country: Oirats

Oirats

Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols who unified several tribes origin whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in the Republic of Kalmykia, a federal...

, Hotogoid, Tuvans

Tuvans

Tuvans or Tuvinians are Turkic peoples living in southern Siberia. They are historically known as one of the Uriankhai, from the Mongolian designation...

, Darhad, Buryats

Buryats

The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...

, Tsaatan

Tsaatan

The Dukha are a small culture of reindeer herders living in northern Khövsgöl Aimag of Mongolia.The North Taiga band was organized under the Qing Dynasty from 1755-1912 as part of Toja or Uriyankhai banner...

, Dariganga

Dariganga

The Dariganga are an eastern Mongol subgroup who mainly live in Dari Ovoo and Ganga Lake, Sukhbaatar Province.It is believed that the Dariganga were resettled by the Qing Dynasty from Chahar, Khalkha and Ööled to herd horses of the Emperor in the late 1690s.From 1912 on, a Ministry of Internal...

, Uzemchins, Barga, Kazakhs

Kazakhs

The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....

and Khalha.

Besides the traditional music, Western

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

and ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

flourished during the MPR. Among the most popular forms of modern music in Mongolia are Western pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

and rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

genres and the mass songs, which are written by modern authors in a form of folk songs.

The Mongolians are renowned for their love for music and singing. Any celebrations by the Mongolians always turn into a celebration of singing.

Long song

This genre is called "Long song" (Urtyn duu) because each syllable of text is extended for a long duration. A four-minute song may only consist of ten words. Lyrical themes vary depending on context; they can be philosophical, religious, romance, or celebratory, and often use horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

s as a symbol or theme repeated throughout the song. Eastern Mongols typically use a morin khuur
Morin khuur
The morin khuur is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the Mongolian nation. The morin khuur is one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity identified...

(horse-head fiddle) as accompaniment, sometimes with a type of indigenous flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

named limbe. Oirat groups of the Western Mongols typically sing long songs unaccompanied or accompanied with the igil

Igil

An igil is a two-stringed Tuvan musical instrument, played by bowing the strings. The neck and lute-shaped sound box are usually made of a solid piece of pine or larch. The top of the sound box may be covered with skin or a thin wooden plate...

Horse-head fiddle

The horse-head fiddle, or morin khuur, is a distinctively Mongolian instrument and is seen as a symbol of the country. The instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

has two strings. There is some controversy regarding the traditional carving of a horse on the upper end of the pegbox. Some scholars believe that this is proof that the instrument was originally a shamanistic instrument, as the staffs of shamans have a horse similarly carved on top; the horse is a much-revered animal in Mongolia.

Other traditional instruments

Other instruments used in Mongolian traditional music include shants (a three-stringed, long-necked, strummed lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

similar to the Japanese shamisen

Shamisen

The , also called is a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi. The Japanese pronunciation is usually "shamisen" but sometimes "jamisen" when used as a suffix . -Construction:The shamisen is a plucked stringed instrument...

), yoochin (a dulcimer

Hammered dulcimer

The hammered dulcimer is a stringed musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. Typically, the hammered dulcimer is set on a stand, at an angle, before the musician, who holds small mallet hammers in each hand to strike the strings...

), khuuchir (a bowed spike-fiddle), yatga

Yatga

The yatga is a traditional Mongolian plucked zither, related to the Chinese guzheng.Yatga may vary widely in size, tuning, and number of bridges and strings; The body is a long wooden box, one end of which is angled downward. The performer plucks the strings with the fingernails of the right...

, and bishhuur (a pipe similar in sound to a clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

Throat singing

Perhaps the best-known musical form of the Mongols is the throat singing tradition known as hoomii, extant among all or most Mongols though best known internationally from Tuva. Sung differently than traditional vocals. In Mongolia, the most famous throat-singers include Khalkhas like Gereltsogt

Gereltsogt

Gereltsogt is a noted Khalkhan practitioner of Khöömi, or Mongolian throat-singing. His brother Ganbold is also a renowned khöömiich. Gereltsogt is married to Oyuna.-External links:* * *...

and Sundui, while the Tuvan group Huun-Huur-Tu

Huun-Huur-Tu

Huun-Huur-Tu is a music group from Tuva, a Russian Federation republic situated on the Mongolian border....

has an international following. This unique type of singing involves the production of two distinctively audible pitches at the same time, including a low pedal note, or drone, derived from the fundamental frequency

Fundamental frequency

The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In terms of a superposition of sinusoids The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated f0, is defined as the...

of the vocal cord vibrations, and higher melodic notes that result when the singer's mouth acts as a filter, selecting one note at a time from among the drone's natural overtone series pitches.

Pop music

Largely unknown outside of Mongolia, there is a thriving popular music scene centred in the city of Ulaanbaatar

Ulaanbaatar

Ulan Bator or Ulaanbaatar is the capital and largest city of Mongolia. An independent municipality, the city is not part of any province, and its population as of 2008 is over one million....

. Actually, this is a mixture of various kinds of popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

. It is often subdivided into pop, Rock

Rock music

, hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

and alternative (consisting of alternative rock

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

and heavy metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

). The pop scene includes boy band

Boy band

A boy band is loosely defined as a popular music act consisting of only male singers. The members are expected to dance as well as sing, usually giving highly choreographed performances. More often than not, boy band members do not play musical instruments, either in recording sessions or on...

s like Camerton, Nomin Talst and Motive, girl group

Girl group

A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...

s like Kiwi

Kiwi (band)

Kiwi is a girl group from Mongolia. Their music varies between melodic pop songs, R&B, and pumping disco beats. They have received several prominent awards for their work and are very successful with the younger generation in Mongolia.- Awards :...

, Emotion, 3 ohin and Lipstick

Lipstick (Mongolian band)

Lipstick is a Mongolian girl band. Lipstick's music varies between melodic pop songs, R&B, and pumping disco beats. They were formed on March 1, 1999. The next year they won the Pentatonic award, a national rock and pop music award, as the best debut band...

and solo artists like Sarantuya

Sarantuya

Sarantuya Batmonkh , known simply as Saraa, is a Mongolian mezzo soprano singer who has been a major figure in the pop music scene of the Mongol races since the late 1980s. She is still very popular among the Mongolian population as of the queen of the Mongolian pop music...

, Serchmaa

Serchmaa

Serchmaa , is a Mongolian singer. She was born on 1982 and graduated from the National University of Mongolia. When Serchmaa was 6 years old started playing violin, however she started the career in singing. Serchmaa performed in conuntries such as and not limited to Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia,...

, Delgermörön, Bold, BX and the renowned Ariunaa, the alternative scene bands like Nisvanis, Night train and Lemons, the rock scene rock-n-roll like the Pilots and Soyol Erdene

Soyol Erdene

- Name :"Soyol Erdene" is the name of a melodious popular song of 1920s which the band played on an electric guitar. The approximate meaning is "Cultural jewel".- History :...

, folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...

like Altan Urag and hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

bands like Kharanga, Hurd

Hurd (band)

Hurd is a Mongolian heavy metal band. Formed in 1993 by drummer Dambyn Ganbayar in the wake of the democratic revolution in Mongolia, Hurd is considered the first band to have introduced the heavy metal genre into the mongolian music landscape...

and Niciton, and there are also some techno

Techno

Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

bands like Khar Sarnai. A few of the younger Mongolian popular artists are becoming increasingly well established internationally, mostly notably, the young female singer Nominjin

Nominjin

-Early life:Raised by her Mongolian biological mother and American stepfather, she has lived in Russia, Mongolia, India, and the Caribbean due to her parents' work; as a result, she speaks fluent English and Mongolian and several other languages including Russian and Malayalam...

(singing in 8 languages in a variety of genres) and Amarkhuu Borkhuu, a star of the Russian pop music.

Hip hop/Rap has gained considerable popularity in Mongolia. From early 1990s, Mongolian teenagers and youngsters formed dancing groups with anywhere between three to thirty members that started to compete in national tournaments. This was the beginning of the Mongolian hip hop movement. For some reason single rappers had never “made it” into the Mongolian hip hop scene.

Early bands include Har Tas and MC Boys. The later two groups represented the beginning of rap in Mongolia. Their songs mostly stressed on social issues, philosophy and rebellious ideas. A later generation consisted of bands like Dain Ba Enkh

Dain ba Enkh

Dain Ba Enkh is one of the first hip hop groups established in Mongolia in 1997. In its beginning, it consisted of Mcit, Mc Aav, Bizi, Ezi, Ikser and Khoron. Writing all their songs themselves and composing them of "highly necessary words", they engaged with political and social matters right...

, 2 Hüü, Erkh-Chölöö, Lumino

Lumino (band)

Lumino is a famous Hip-Hop band from Mongolia founded in 1996. Their music is dance-friendly and often melodic, with frequent contributions by external vocalists...

, Mon-Ta-Rap, Ice Top, Odko, Gee

Gee

Gee may refer to:In fiction:*Al Giardello , a fictional character on the television drama Homicide: Life on the StreetIn record labels:*Gee Records*Gee Street RecordsIn music:...

, Quiza

Quiza

Quiza is a Mongolian rap musician from Ulaanbaatar. His normal first name is Battsengel, while his complete name is not public. His video for the song "Hümüün törölhtön" won the price for the best video clip at the UBS Music Awards 2008 and his song "7 saryn 1" won the price for "Best idea" at...

, B.A.T and URMC. They continued with similar messages as their predecessors, but also came to include “soft” touches in their songs, which faced with strong resistance from hard core rap fans but welcomed by the general public.

Popular folk music

There is also a long established and distinctive "Mongolian pop" genre that occupies the same place on the musical spectrum as Japanese Enka

Enka

is a popular Japanese music genre considered to resemble traditional Japanese music stylistically. Modern enka, however, is a relatively recent musical form which arose in the context of such postwar expressions of modern Japanese nonmaterial nationalism as nihonjinron, while adopting a more...

music or Western soft-pop-oriented folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

or country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

. Classic singers from the late 20th and early 21st centuries include Vandan and Dulamsüren, Batsükh, Tömörkhuyag and Egschiglen

Egschiglen

Egschiglen are a Mongolian Folk band, formed in Ulan Bator in 1991. In English Egschiglen means "Beautiful Melody", and they are one of very few traditional Mongolian bands to have become popular in the rest of the World....

. Some of the repeatedly heard lyrical themes are very distinctive for Mongolia: heartfelt tributes to the songwriter's mother, for example, or paeans to great horses.

Mongolian popular folk music is not considered world music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

in the west and was long generally unavailable outside Mongolia, but can now be downloaded from various Mongolian websites. It may be filed under the designation Zohioliin Duu (Зохиoлын Дyy) (schlagers). In the Mongolian language, duu means song; and the genitive word zohioliin derives from the noun for a literary composition. A typical zohioliin duu may include three four-line stanzas and a refrain. The lyrics of zohioliin duu, like those of Mongolian folk poetry, tend to be alliterative. Often, the lines of a zohioliin duu share not only initial letters, but also initial syllables.

Classical music

Mongolia features a rich tradition of classical music

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

and ballet

Ballet

. The classical music owes its prosperity in the 2nd half of the 20th century to a patronage of then Socialist government that favoured Western and Russian/Soviet classical arts to Western pop culture. In addition, the Mongolian composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

s developed a rich diversity of national symphony and ballet.

List of Mongolian composers

E. Agvaantseren

Enkhtaivan Agvaantseren

Enkhtaivan Agvaantseren , is a Mongolian music composer and film maker who studied in Russia. He is the director of the film A Pearl in the Forest.-Filmography:*2003 Khan Khentii Mountain...

, (УГЗ

Meritorious Artist

Meritorious Artist , also translated as Merited Artist, Deserved Artist or Distinguished Artist or Honorary Artist or Honorable Actor) is an honorary title in the Soviet Union, Russian Federation, Union republics, and Autonomous republics, also in some other Eastern bloc states, as well as in a...

, People's Artist

People's Artist

People's Artist is a honorary title in the Soviet Union, Union republics, in some other Eastern bloc states , as well as in a number of post-Soviet states, modeled after the title of the People's Artist of the USSR....

)

Music for the film a Pearl in the Forest
A Pearl in the Forest
A Pearl in the Forest is a 2008 Mongolian historical film.This is a story about a young couple whose newly planned life was destroyed by the impact of the Great Purges of 1934–1938 in Mongolia....

Melodies of Mongolia

G. Altanhuyag, (УГЗ

Meritorious Artist

)

Symphonies

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

Mother Hoelun (Өэлүн эх дуурь)

Song The beauty of the Mongolian woman (Монгол бүсгүйн үзэсгэлэн)

L. Mördorj, (УГЗ

Meritorious Artist

)

National anthem

Music for film The golden yurt (Алтан өргөө)

Symphony The birds in spring (Хаврын шувууд)

Torghut
Torghut
The Torgut are one of the four major subgroups of the Four Oirats. The Torghut ruling dynasty traced its descent to the Kereit ruler Wang Khan's bodyguards....

dance (Торгууд бүжиг) won awards at the World Festival of Youth and Students

World Festival of Youth and Students

The World Festival of Youth and Students is an international event, organized by the World Federation of Democratic Youth , a left-wing youth organization, jointly with the International Union of Students since 1947....

in 1947

Dance Eerenceg (Ээрэнцэг бүжиг) won awards at the World Festival of Youth and Students

World Festival of Youth and Students

in 1947

Music for film Wish I had a horse (Морьтой ч болоосой)

Opera Namjil nicknamed cuckoo
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...

(Хөхөө Намжил)

Music for film Oh, these girls! (Энэ хүүхдүүд үү)

Symphony My motherland (Миний эх орон)

Song Steppe in four seasons (Дөрвөн цагийн тал)

B. Sharav

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

The sun over the wonderful Jambudvipa
Jambudvipa
Jambudvīpa is the dvipa of the terrestrial world, as envisioned in the cosmologies of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, which is the realm where ordinary human beings live...

(Уяхан замбутивийн нар)

Symphony Melody of the soul (Сэтгэлийн эгшиг)

Opera Genghis Khan (Чингис хаан дуурь)

J. Chuluun

Ballet The skillful master Has (Уран Хас)

Variation of two folk melodies (Ардын хоёр дууны вариац)

B. Damdinsuren

National anthem

Symphony In the upland of Hentei (Хэнтийн өндөр ууланд)

Opera The three tragic hills (Учиртай гурван толгой)

Opera The road to happiness (Жаргалын зам дуурь)

B. Smirnov

Opera The three tragic hills (Учиртай гурван толгой)

Song The lovely city Ulaanbaatar (Үйлсийн сайхан Улаанбаатар)

N. Jantsannorov, (Тєрийн шагналт)

Music for film Queen Manduhai the Wise (Мандухай Сэцэн Хатун)

Music for film Under the power of the eternal Heavens (Мөнх Тэнгэрийн Хүчин дор)

Symphonette

Symphony The white stupa
Stupa
A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....

(Цагаан суварга)

Symphony The eight bay horses (Найман шарга)

Ts. Namsraijav

Symphony The mountains Gobi Gurvan Saihan (Говь гурван сайхан)

Symphony Celebrity of magnificience (Баярын жавхаа)

Song The country in the heart (Халуун элгэн нутаг)

E. Choidog

Symphony The beautiful country of Mongolia (Монголын сайхан орон)

Dance The black ambler (Жалам хар)

Song Mother of mine (Миний ээж)

S. Gonchigsumlaa

Buryat
Buryats
The Buryats or Buriyads , numbering approximately 436,000, are the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia and are mainly concentrated in their homeland, the Buryat Republic, a federal subject of Russia...

dance (Буриад бүжиг)

Symphonies

Chinzorig (Тєрийн шагналт)

The tear of Lambugai (Ламбугайн нулимас)

Long song

Horse-head fiddle

Other traditional instruments

Throat singing

Pop music

Popular folk music

Classical music

List of Mongolian composers

See also