Music, dance and storytellingEuropeIndigenous and traditional
Tuvan throat singing
A style of singing from Tuva where one voice sounds a drone and a melody at once
A style of throat singing from Tuva, in Russia, in which a singer sounds a low drone and, at the same time, a melody drawn from its overtones. Herders, singers and, more recently, women keep it in Tuva, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Altay, and in 2009 UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage.
When is Tuvan throat singing kept?
Tuvan throat singing is kept on no fixed date: sung during daily work, and at gatherings and competitions.
Tuvan throat singing is a way of singing from Tuva, a region of Russia, in which one person makes more than one note at the same time. The singer holds a low drone and shapes a whistling melody above it with the mouth, tongue and throat. It grew out of the herding life and animist beliefs of the region, and people in Tuva, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Altay keep it today.
What it is
Throat singing of this kind belongs to the Turkic-speaking herders of Tuva. A singer holds one low note, called the fundamental, and at the same time brings out the higher notes above it. Those overtones are shaped into a tune. The mouth works as a filter, so small movements of the lips, tongue, jaw or throat decide which overtone is heard. The effect can sound like a whistle riding over a drone, and some techniques add a second, lower note instead. Outside the region the style is often called Mongolian throat singing. Inside Tuva, khoomei names the most common style and also serves as a general word for the whole art.
The main styles
Khoomei is the best known. Its drone sits in the low middle of the singer's range and two or three overtones ring above it. The sound is softer than the others, with less tension in the larynx. Kargyraa is deep and close to a growl. It uses the vocal folds and the vestibular folds, the false vocal cords, together, and can add a note an octave below the drone. Sygyt means whistling: the tongue seals near the gums and the sound comes out bright and flute-like. Kargyraa has two named forms, dag, the mountain kind, deeper, and xovu, the steppe kind, raspier and higher.
Sound, land and belief
Throat singing in Tuva is tied to place and to an animistic outlook. Ethnomusicologists treat khoomei as part of a pastoral animism that people still follow. In that view, natural things carry spirit not only in their shape or position but in the sound they make. Tuva's open country lets a voice travel a long way, which may help explain why the art took hold there. Singers look for settings that suit the sound, a river bank or a mountain slope. Range matters too: a drone usually sits near E or G below middle C, and the lower the drone, the easier the high overtones are to reach.
Women and change
Throat singing was long treated as men's work, and a belief held that a woman who sang this way would not be able to have children. Even so, women sang. Choldak-Kara Oyun sang while milking and while settling her children. In the 1960s a niece of Khunashtaar-ool performed khoomei in public, as did a daughter of Kombu in the 1940s or 1950s. Aldinsova Tortoyavna said the singing was in her from birth and kept it up after marriage and children; her sister stopped when others warned her. Valentina Salchak sang publicly in 1979, and Valentina Chuldum toured Europe in the early 1990s. Tyva Kyzy, Daughters of Tuva, founded in 1998 under Choduraa Tumat, is the only women's group in Tuva to perform every style.
Beyond Tuva
Outsiders met the sound late in the twentieth century. The physicist Richard Feynman tried to reach Tuva in the 1980s while gravely ill and never arrived; his daughter went in 2009 and met singers there. His friend Ralph Leighton wrote Tuva or Bust!, published in 1991, with a recording of the singing pressed into the book. Bands then carried the style abroad, among them Yat-Kha from 1991 under Albert Kuvezin, Huun-Huur-Tu from 1992, and Alash, formed at Kyzyl Arts College in 1999. Genghis Blues, a 1999 film about the blind American singer Paul Pena, won an audience award at Sundance.
How Tuvan throat singing is kept
A singer begins with a steady low note, the drone, and holds it while the overtones above it are drawn out and moved into a tune. The style chosen decides the sound: soft khoomei, the deep kargyraa growl, or the whistling sygyt. Effects are laid on top, such as a bird-like trill, a pulse like a horse's gait, or the nasal humming of dumchuktaar. Herders sing while they work, and others sing at gatherings and at competitions, including the International Symposium of Khoomei, where public performance opened up to women.
When and where
It has no set day or season. Singing belongs to daily work and to home life, and also to gatherings and competitions, among them the International Throat Singing Competition and the International Symposium of Khoomei. The style reaches back a long way in the region, though the sources give no single date for its beginning.
Tuva, a region of Russia, is its home, and the art is also kept among people in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Altay. The open country of Tuva, where sound carries a long way, is named as one reason the style developed there rather than elsewhere.
What Tuvan throat singing means
For the people of this region, the sound of a thing is part of its spirit. In that animistic view, a river or a mountain is not only a shape in a landscape; the noise it makes carries meaning as well. Khoomei is treated as belonging to that old pastoral belief, which is still followed. Singers look for a place whose sound suits the song, so the setting and the singing stay tied together.
Questions people ask about Tuvan throat singing
When is Tuvan throat singing kept?
Tuvan throat singing is kept on no fixed date: sung during daily work, and at gatherings and competitions.
What is Tuvan throat singing?
It is a way of singing in which one person sounds a low drone and a tune above it at the same time. The tune comes from the overtones of that drone, picked out by shaping the mouth, tongue and throat. It belongs to Tuva, in Russia, and to neighbouring regions.
Where is it kept?
In Tuva, a region of Russia, and among people in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Altay. Herders there have sung this way for a long time. Bands from Tuva have also carried it to audiences abroad since the 1990s.
Can women sing it?
Yes. A belief once held that a woman who sang this way would not be able to have children, and that discouraged many of them. Some women sang anyway. Since 1998 Tyva Kyzy, an all-female group, has performed every style, and women now sing in public at competitions.
How many styles are there?
Classifications differ. One scheme names three main styles, khoomei, kargyraa and sygyt, with several sub-styles. Another names five main styles, adding borbangnadyr and ezengileer. All the terms used are Tuvan.
Is it recognised anywhere outside Tuva?
Yes. In 2009 UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage. It has also travelled through touring bands, recordings and films, and it features in beatboxing under the name throat bass, which uses a closely related sound.
See also
LezginkaA fast dance of the North Caucasus, solo or in pairs, named for the Lezgin people
OvooA stone cairn on a peak or pass, circled by travellers and honoured in sky worship
ShagaiTraditional ankle bone games and fortune-telling played across Central Asia.
Hunting with eaglesThe Central Asian tradition of hunting foxes and hares from horseback with golden eagles.Good reading and sources
- Steppe change: how Mongolian rock band the Hu conquered the worldThe Guardian, Article
- Steppe change: how Mongolian rock band the Hu conquered the worldThe Guardian, Article
- Tuvan throat singing on WikipediaEncyclopedia
- More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
- Wikidata recordOpen data
The facts on this page come from the Wikipedia article "Tuvan throat singing", written by its contributors and used under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence, and from its Wikidata record (CC0). EveryParampara rewrote the text in its own words, with AI assistance, and compares every page with the article to make sure no passage is copied. It may be reused under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 licence with a link back.
It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.
More from Russia
All the traditions of Russia
🇷🇺 Russia and 1 moreLezginkaЛезгинка (Russian) · Лезги кьуьл (Lezgian)
A fast dance of the North Caucasus, solo or in pairs, named for the Lezgin peoplePerformance
🇲🇳 Mongolia and 5 moreThroat singing
Several deep, guttural singing styles, each named and kept by its own peoplePerformance
🇷🇺 Russia and 2 moreKhorovodхоровод
A Slavic circle dance with singing, danced with linked hands or little fingersPerformance
🇩🇪 Germany and 5 moreDelphic Games of the modern era
Global competitions and exhibitions across the arts, modelled on ancient Greek gamesPerformance
The same idea elsewhere
All of this kind
🇹🇷 Kayseri, Turkey and 4 moreHalay
A traditional line and circle folk dance kept across Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, and Syria.Performance
🇳🇿 Auckland, New ZealandPoi
A Māori performing art of swinging tethered weights in rhythmical patterns.Performance
🇵🇭 Philippines and 1 morePangalay
A traditional fingernail dance of the Tausūg and Bajau peoples in the Sulu Archipelago and Sabah.Performance