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Mongolian art of singing Khoomei marks_1
  • Manage No, Sortation, Country, Writer ,Date, Copyright
    Manage No EE00001210
    Country Mongolia
    ICH Domain Performing Arts
    Address
    Khovd, Uvs, Bayan-Olgii, Ulaanbaatar
Description Khöömei is a wonder of culture created by nomadic Mongols, a unique phenomenon of Mongolian traditional music, an ancient art, the highest form of independent art of speaking organs and artistic discovery contributed by the Mongols to the music art of the world. Mongol khöömei lies in producing two or more pitches simultaneously, of which one is a fundamental pitch from the chest and the other is a higher pitch resonating to the hard palate or whistling khöömei. The melodies of khöömei are the music that only Mongol khöömei can describe as well as the sound of nature, mountain, water, wind, animal calls, correlation between nature and human and the inner world of human soul. khöömei is divided into two basic categories of “Kharkhiraa” or bass, fundamental pitch and “Isgeree or shingen” or “whistling or high pitch”.
Social and cultural significance Khoomei is the art of expelling air from the human lungs through the mouth, larynx, and thoracic cavity, causing echoes and vibrations, creating melodies and sounds. In other words, it’s turning the human respiratory and speech organs into a musical instrument. Mongolians have been able to use the human voice to the fullest extent in the art of the throat singing and develop it to the perfection of the “instrument” of art. The origins of throat singing are from Chandmani soum of Khovd.
Transmission method formal, academic and informal training/ apprenticeship training
Community Mongolian State University of Culture and Art prepared 37 professional khoomii artists through the 5 graduate generations on demand of provinces. Khöömei training is conducting in Ulaanbaatar capital and soums including all the soums of Khovd province. Movement to learn Khöömei is thriving in cultural centers of the soums, cultural palaces of the districts and in many secondary schools. At a national level, around 280 Khöömei practitioners in total and about 800 successor students were registered in the State Integrated Registration and Information Database of National Centre for Cultural Heritage as of 2017. In 2001, Mongolian throat singers joined the Mongolian Khuumei Association, a non-governmental organization that currently unites about 200 Mongolian and almost 100 foreign throat singers. Recently, bands such as “Altan Urag”, “Khusugtun”, “Khalil” and “Domog” have introduced Mongolian khuumei to modern music and introduced Mongolian folk art to the world.
Type of UNESCO List Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
Incribed year in UNESCO List 2010
Keyword
Information source
National Center for Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture of Mongolia
http://www.ncch.gov.mn

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