Norovbanzad's Legacy: Contemporary Concert Long Song in Mongolia Gabrielle Giron

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2007 Norovbanzad's Legacy: Contemporary Concert Long Song in Mongolia Gabrielle Giron

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MUSIC

NOROVBANZAD’S LEGACY: CONTEMPORARY CONCERT LONG SONG IN MONGOLIA

Gabrielle Giron

A Thesis submitted to the College of Music In partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Music

Degree awarded Fall Semester 2007

The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Gabrielle Giron defended on August 22, 2007.

______Michael B. Bakan Professor Directing Thesis

______Jane Piper Clendinning Outside Committee Member

______Denise Von Glahn Committee Member

______Frank Gunderson Committee Member

Approved:

______Jeffrey T. Kite-Powell, Professor and Chair, Department of Musicology

______Seth Beckman, Professor, Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs, and Director of Graduate Studies.

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members

Figure 1. The Gentle Sun of the World. Mongolian artist Naiga renders in Mongolian calligraphy the text from Norovbanzad’s song in the shape of a sun.

iii

In memory of Marian Davis whose love for peace, justice, and beautiful music continues to light the world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have assisted me in the exciting process of learning and writing about concert long song. While it would be impossible to name everyone who has contributed to this thesis, there are several people I would like to mention specifically. First, my heartfelt appreciation goes to all the hospitable and skilled people with whom I worked during my summer of fieldwork in Mongolia. Altantsetseg, Batmend, Bayarerdene, Byambjargal, Chimedtseye, Chuluuntsetseg, Dashtsermaa, Delgermaa, Dondov, Dorjdavga, Enkhbat, Erdenetsetseg, Erkhembayar, Gombo, Jantsannorov, Khongorzul, Lkasuren, Nergui, Nominerdene, Sarantuya, Tumenjargal, and Tuvshinjargal, members of Mongolia’s music community, welcomed me to Mongolia and took the time to answer my many questions. Voice lessons provided by Chuluuntsetseg and Khongorzul were especially helpful in gaining a singer’s experience of long song. Ayasgalan, Bujigmaa, Ganaa, Naranzul, Narmandakh, Khaliuna, and Uranzaya assisted me not only by translating words, but also by teaching me about Mongolian culture and customs. Ethnomusicologists Peter Marsh and Erdenechimeg pointed me towards key sources and contacts in the field. Second, I am thankful for the innumerable opportunities afforded to me during my studies at Florida State University. My colleagues Benjamin Whiting and Trevor Harvey provided invaluable assistance in transmitting my music transcriptions to a computerized format, digitizing images, and converting field recordings into a set of accessible musical examples. The members of my thesis committee, Jane Piper Clendinning, Frank Gunderson, and Denise Von Glahn, gave patiently of their time and contributed invaluable expertise in diverse areas. Benjamin Koen offered expert assistance in issues surrounding the study of Central Asian music. Special thanks to my advisor, Michael Bakan, for working closely with me to enhance the writing process, and for giving me the right advice at the right time. Finally, thanks to Mom, Dad, and Felix for being their wonderful selves.

Ars gratia vivendi Art for the sake of the living John Miles Foley v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND CITATION ...... viii LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES...... ix LIST OF FIGURES ...... xi ABSTRACT...... xii

PART I. SUNRISE

1. Introduction...... 1 Sunrise...... 1 Thesis Statement ...... 3 Purpose and Significance...... 4 Background...... 5 Survey of Literature ...... 10 Theoretical Approach...... 12 Methodology...... 18 2. The Queen of Long Song ...... 21 Herdswoman ...... 21 Rising Star...... 25 Long Song Educator ...... 32 World Music Icon ...... 34

PART II. NOON

Nomadic Civilization in Song...... 38 3. Technique...... 42 The Long Song Instrument ...... 42 Voice Classification...... 43 Range and Registration...... 44 Shurankhai ...... 45 “Long Song is the Art of Breath” ...... 47 Vocal Exercises...... 48 Imagery ...... 49

4. Performance Practice ...... 51 Chimeglel...... 51 Transmission and Notation ...... 53 Repertory...... 54 Gutgeleg and Long Song Variation ...... 55 The Morin Khuur and Long Song Accompaniment ...... 57 Performing Mongolianness...... 60 5. Aesthetics...... 64 Nutag...... 65 Texts...... 70 Meta-Texts ...... 71

PART III. SUNSET 6. A Case Study Analysis of “The Gentle Sun of the World” ...... 77 Sound Structures ...... 78 Analysis Summary...... 81 Technique and Performance Practice...... 86 Aesthetics...... 88 6. Conclusion ...... 96 Long Song and the Landscape…………………………………………...96 Long Song Pathways…………………………………………………….98

APPENDIX A. Transcription Legend ...... 101 APPENDIX B. Long Song Vocalise “Ukhai” ...... 102 APPENDIX C. Norovbanzad’s “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran”...... 103 APPENDIX D. Copyright Permission...... 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 108 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 116

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NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION AND CITATION

In providing transliterations of Khalkha (Mongolian), I aim to provide the simplest and clearest approximations of Mongolian words and pronunciations possible. Therefore, I have eliminated a spectrum of diacritical markings often found in published English transliterations of Mongolian (in particular the “ö” symbol). The following key gives rough sound equivalents for the transliterated texts. If a vowel is repeated, it is a long vowel and is most likely also on a stressed syllable Consonants kh= combination of “k” and “h” – similar to “ch” as in “Bach” r=flipped as in Spanish, Italian, etc. l=front of mouth with a lot of air in it b, d, sh, ch, g, s, z, t, j, n, m, y as in English

Vowels

a=father i= feet e= bed ai=day o=boat oi=boy u= mostly as in clue, sometimes as in book ou= halfway between boat and clue

A significant amount of the information and ideas covered in this thesis comes from interviews with long song singers and scholars. The citation format for these interviews follows the practice in Carole Pegg’s book, Music, Dance, and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities (2001). Most citations for interviews are listed in parentheses after the sentence in which the information appears, e.g. (Sarantuya IN). If a speaker’s name is included in the text, “IN” in parentheses is placed immediately after the name in question, e.g. “Sarantuya (IN)”. Since minimal material on long song can be found in English articles and books, this thesis uses other types of secondary sources including a promotional video created by for the Norovbanzad Foundation and long song’s Candidature File for the UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (2004). While not works of formal scholarship, both sources were conceived and completed by people knowledgeable about Norovbanzad and long song. The UNESCO file, written under the direction of leading long song singers and scholars, is especially detailed and includes a bibliography of credible Mongolian, Tibetan, and Russian sources.

viii

LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Click on the box to play audio track, keeping the mouse positioned over the box. To pause play, move the cursor out of the area of the box. To resume play, move it back.

Except for the commercial recording of Norovbanzad’s signature song “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World), all musical examples were recorded in 2006 during interviews or voice lessons. Many of these songs were chosen by singers as songs of personal significance to them. All field recordings are sung a cappella, and since most interviews took place backstage in various venues or in singers’ apartments, conversation or other types of background noise can sometimes be heard.

Track 1. (p. 2 & 78) Norovbanzad sings “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World). From Norovbanzad’s long song anthology Taliin Morni Duu (Songs of the Steppe Horsemen) (2000), this cassette recording was copied by the anthology’s publisher from an archived recording of unspecified age, and contains a great deal of noise. Some measures have limited the amount of noise on the recording, but the recording has been left close to its original form in order to provide an accurate representation of Norovbanzad’s performance.

Track 2. (p. 6) Khongorzul sings the short song, “Zamdaa Mend” (Safe Road). In the home of her in-laws. Underkhan, 2006.

Track 3. (p. 7) Khongorzul sings the ancient long song “Zergentiin Shil” (The Crest of Zeergent Hill) a song about the Zergentiin grassland and two of Chinggis Khan’s zagal (white and one other color) horses. In her apartment. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 4. (p. 23) Dashtsermaa sings a Central Khalkha gingoo melody. In her apartment. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 5. (p. 49) Khongorzul demonstrates the common concert long song vocalize, ukhai. In the dressing room of the Khentii Aimag (province) Theatre. Underkhan, 2006.

Track 6. (p. 51) Erdenesetseg demonstrates how she learned to sing long song ornamentation in the countryside by listening to her grandmother and the sounds of animals. Translated by Bujigmaa. In the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 7. (p. 55) Erkhembayar sings the long song “Khoshuud Tsagaan Nutag,” (Khoshuud White Homeland) a song from the Western region of Mongolia. In his apartment. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 8. (p. 55 & 67) Batmend sings “Tsombon Turaitai Khuren” (Neat Brown Horse). In the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 9. (p. 67) Dashtsermaa sings “Kherlingiin Baria” (Kherlen River). The song alludes to “the river Kherlen flowing through Chinggis’s birthplace and the Borjigon homeland” (Pegg 2001, 23). In her apartment. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 10. (p. 55 & 67) Bayarerdene sings “Erdene Sekhiin Unaga” (Precious Beautiful Foal). In a backstage meeting hall at the National Drama Theatre. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

Track 11. (p. 68) Chuluuntsetseg sings “Saruul Talbai” (Spacious Field) In her office at the University of Culture and Arts. Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. The Gentle Sun of the World...... iii

Figure 2. The National Opera Theatre ...... 2

Figure 3. The Queen of Long Song, Tokyo 1978...... 21

Figure 4. The Rising Star...... 26

Figure 5. Norovbanzad with her daughters, 1962...... 28

Figure 6. Norovbanzad and Banzragch in Terelj, 1967...... 29

Figure 7. Norovbanzad with her students, 1997 ...... 32

Figure 8. Norovbanzad accepts the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, Japan 1992 ...... 34

Figure 9. Norovbanzad with members of Chinggis Khan, Ulaanbaatar 1994...... 36

Figure 10. Competitors in an Ulaanbaatar competition honoring Norovbanzad...... 37

Figure 11. Long song singers perform “Ertnii Saikhan,” Ulaanbaatar, 2006...... 38

Figure 12. Opening ceremony of the Ulaanbaatar Naadam, 2006...... 41

Figure 13. Common Mongol ornaments...... 52

Figure 14. A young morin khuurch performs, Ulaanbaatar, 2006...... 57

Figure 15. Urtiin duuchin and herder, Dondov, Ulaanbaatar, 2006 ...... 60

Figure 16. Chinggis Khan’s Court, Chinggis Khaan Rock Opera, 2006...... 62

Figure 17. The vast Mongolian landscape ...... 64

Figure 18. Erkhembayar sings in a competition honoring Norovbanzad ...... 70

Figure 19. Dashtsermaa sings in a competition honoring Norovbanzad ...... 70

Figure 20. The theatre at Ikh Gazrin Chuluu, Dundgov Aimag, 2006 ...... 77

Figure 21. The Cyclical Structure of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran”...... 79

Figure 22. The Phrase Structure of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” ...... 80

Figure 23. Translations of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” ...... 90

ABSTRACT

By looking at the life, career, and music of renowned female Mongolian long song singer Norovbanzad (1937-2003), surveying vocal principles espoused by her students, and analyzing a specific piece in the long song repertory, this thesis demonstrates how concert long song typifies traditional and modern Mongolian expressive values which forefront the Mongolian landscape. Concert long song (urtiin duu), referred to as “Mongolian classical music” by long song singers, is performed by trained, professional soloists who declaim lyric texts and improvise ornate melismas in free-rhythm, often accompanied by the morin khuur, the Mongolian “horse-head” fiddle. Despite concert long song’s rich history, musical complexity, and cultural significance, few scholars have completed research in English exploring concert long song’s many social and musical ramifications. This thesis, therefore, makes a significant contribution to the literature by providing a study of an important, uniquely Mongolian tradition that combines historically-rooted and modernist cultural values. Research methods for this study include archival research of Mongolian and English resources, participant observation by the author in long song voice lessons, interviews with over twenty members of the long song community, field recordings of selected long songs, photographs of various long song contexts, and music/ textual transcription and analysis. Investigation ultimately reveals how Norovbanzad negotiated and embodied continuity and change within fluctuating musical and social landscapes of her time to shape a twentieth-century Mongolian concert tradition. Urtiin duu performs ideas of nuudlin soyol irgenshil or “nomadic civilization,” a concept that pays homage to Mongol nomadic history and culture as well as modern concepts of nationalism. The current generation of long song singers continues to carry out the pivotal social function carved out by Norovbanzad. Concert long song technique and performance practice incorporate and transform multiple modern influences in order to serve longstanding Mongolian aesthetic values emphasizing sonic mimesis of the Mongolian landscape. Summarizing ideas on technique, performance practice, and aesthetics of concert long song, this work opens up myriad possibilities for creative research on the long song tradition and Mongolian music in general.

xii PART I: SUNRISE

1. INTRODUCTION

We begin with a walk at sunrise.

Ulaanbaatar 2006 The Magjid Janraisig (The Lord Who Looks in Every Direction) temple of Gandan monastery rises on a hill amidst the ger (round, felt tent) district on your left. The temple’s tall, white walls and terraced green roofs summon imagined sounds of temple khurals (rituals) - the low resonance of huge uher-burees (bull trumpets), the high-pitched ring of the khonkh (brass or copper bell), and the multiple tones of Tibetan chanting.1 Your feet scuff in the narrow dirt path that runs past Gandan, taking you to a high hill with green brush. At the top of the hill, you find an ovoo, a shamanic shrine made up of a cylinder of stones interspersed with blue scarves (khadags), vodka bottles, and other offerings. “Sain bain uu?”(How are you? ). “Sain, Sain” (Good, good). You join middle- aged Mongolian walkers in workout suits in three clockwise rotations around the ovoo. Cyclical sounds of feet crunching against the scrubby, rocky ground. Three separate rock offerings patter onto the pile. For a moment you are The Walker Who Listens in Every Direction. After winding through the ger districts that ring around the northern part of the city, you circle around until you are in the city center. On Peace Avenue, government and cultural buildings built by Japanese prisoners of war in the 1940s are juxtaposed with newer, sleek banks and businesses. Rush hour is in full swing. You hear conversations of people waiting for buses, business transactions at news and fruit stands, and the hurried scrapes, taps, and scuffs of dress and casual shoes as students, businessmen, policemen, government officials, street vendors, and tourists go about their daily business.

1 Mongolian Buddhism is a form of Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism, and therefore often employs Tibetan rather than Khalkha (Mongolian) during ceremonies.

1 Reaching Sukhbaatar Square, the heart of the city, you pause in front of the peach façade of the National Opera Theatre. Over white neoclassical columns hangs a huge banner with gold lettering advertising a concert entitiled “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World), a reference to a famous Mongolian long song of that name, the signature song of the great female singer and national icon Namjilyn Norovbanzad (1931-2003) (TRACK 1).

Fig. 2 The National Opera Theatre. A banner advertising the concert, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World) hangs prominently on the façade of the theatre, facing out onto Sukhbaatar Square.

Now, a new scene.

Xentii Province 2006 It is Naadam, Mongolia’s summer festival of archery, horse-racing, and wrestling. I am sitting in a circle with my teacher, Khongorzul,2 members of her family, and some of her friends. In most Mongolian celebrations, all comers are made welcome. After a festive day of camping, watching horse races, and bathing in the river with my new

2 Khongorzul is a young female long song singer known to the West by her participation in the Silk Road Ensemble under the direction of Yo-Yo Ma.

2 friends, I begin to think of myself as part of the group. We have just finished a thoroughly satisfying meal of roasted lamb and potatoes. Our fingers are greasy and our stomachs are full. We are ready to begin our after-dinner festivities. Khongorzul, as the most prominent singer of our gathering, is called upon to sing first. Her father-in-law hands her a cup of airag, a drink made of fermented mare’s milk. An expectant hush falls over the group. She stands, holding out her cup of airag, and sings. Jaa! Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Nar Jaa! The gentle sun of the world Ilkhen bukh delkhi dayakhnaaraa Lights all the earth Mukhdulgui mandsaar Never extinguishes, ever rises Baidag biluu dee Does it not? Ta minuu dee. My dear one, zee.

By this point in my research, I have heard this song several times. It is perhaps the most famous song in the concert long song repertory. Professional long song singers have told me about the important connection between long songs and the Mongolian landscape. Now, in this rural setting, as Khongorzul’s voice cuts across the vast steppe, I realize that I have not truly understood the depth of this connection. I feel like I am hearing Norovbanzad’s song for the first time.

THESIS STATEMENT This thesis explores the Mongolian concert long song tradition as established by Norovbanzad, renowned international representative of Mongolian long song.3 Besides being a performer and a recording artist, Norovbanzad initiated the long song curriculum at the University of Culture and Arts in Ulaanbaatar. Her recordings, performances, and pedagogical practices serve as a model for the current generation of concert long song singers. Concert long song, as it is performed today, is a Mongolian vocal genre performed by trained, professional soloists who declaim lyric texts and improvise ornate melismas in free rhythm. Concert long song style is characterized by disjunct, arching melodies sung with forward, focused resonance. Long song singers are often accompanied heterophonically by the morin khuur, a Mongolian spike fiddle with a carved horse-head scroll.

3 In 1973 a recording by Norovbanzad was registered as a world masterpiece by UNESCO, and in 1993, she won the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize for the body of her work.

3 By looking at Norovbanzad’s life, career, and music, surveying vocal principles espoused by her students, and analyzing a specific piece in the long song repertory, I will demonstrate how concert long song typifies traditional and modern Mongolian expressive values that forefront the Mongolian landscape. In the process, I will examine Norovbanzad’s significance as the pivotal figure in shaping a professional concert genre from diverse long song traditions.

PURPOSE AND SIGNIFICANCE This work will show how long song enacts a contemporary Mongolian dialogue between traditional and modern values by examining how Norovbanzad’s vocal principles shape the technique and expression of contemporary concert long song. Long song maintains continuity with its past through an aural mimesis that reflects Mongol nomads’ close relationship with the Mongolian landscape. At the same time, concert long song emphasizes modern Mongolian values by linking to legitimizing, modernist processes, including standardization, education, and professionalization. In examining long song as a synthesis of traditional and modern symbols and values, I intend to highlight its musical and cultural importance as a genre that reflects, embodies, and informs contemporary Mongolian identity. In Mongolia, concert long song has been called both “Mongolian classical music” (Badraa 1998; Pegg 2001; Jantsannorov IN) and “traditional” or “folk” music (Badraa 1998; UNESCO 2004); it holds a prominent place in Mongolian literature (Chimidtseye 1995; Badraa 1998, 2005; Jantsannorov 2005; Oyuntsetseg 2006; Saruulbuyan 2006; Erdenechimeg 2006). Despite concert long song’s rich history, musical complexity, and cultural significance, the genre has received minimal attention from Western scholars. This thesis will, therefore, make a significant contribution to the literature by providing a study of this important Mongolian tradition.

4 BACKGROUND

Definitions In Khalkha, the language of Mongolia’s ethnic majority and the national language of Mongolia, long song is called urtiin duu. I use the term “concert long song” to differentiate between this nationalized, concert hall genre of long song and related but distinct long song forms from various indigenous Mongol traditions. Within concert long song, there are three perceived levels of difficulty: besreg (small), sumin (intermediate) and aizam (large or free). Incorporating wide ranges and leaps and intricate decorations, aizam long songs are considered to be the show pieces of the long song repertory, and have become a true test of professional singers’ expertise. Besides concert long song, there are highly diverse regional long song traditions. Mongolian scholars separate these traditions into four categories: Eastern Mongolian, Western Mongolian, Borjigon, and Bayaanbaarat (Norovbanzad 2000, 9). Zuün aimgiin ayalguu or “Melody of the Eastern provinces” emphasizes beauty and harmony over power in vocal production. Baruun aimgiin ayalguu or “Melody of the Western provinces” encompasses wider leaps and powerful vocalization. Borjigon ayalguu or “Melody of the Borjigon people” displays a florid, but precise ornamentation. Baraatyn ayalguu (shav’ ayalguu, Baraat melody) or “Melody of the religious subjects” shows evidence of Buddhist chant in its more sustained, less florid style. The Tov Khalka ayalguu or “Central Khalkha melody” derives from combined aspects of these four regional traditions and is reputed to have originated during the reign of the Bogd Khan (1911-1921) (UNESCO 2004, 5, 16). 4 Within these regional traditions, long song is performed during nair, domestic celebrations in which specific seating, drinking, and singing rituals are observed. All participants sing during the course of these celebrations. Skilled long song specialists, however, have an important role to play in opening and closing the celebration, singing the most difficult songs, and adding gravitas to the proceedings. Concert long song takes on a high degree of cultural significance when considered within the context of a wealth of Mongol vocal genres. Short songs (bogin duu) are

4 Today’s aizam long songs descend from the consolidated Central Khalkha style.

5 rhythmically metered folk songs of a generally less serious nature than long songs (TRACK 2). Sub-categories of short songs include satirical songs, dialogue songs, and improvised, situational songs. Other types of folk songs include the magtaal, an improvised praise song; the ulger, “a musical narrative in alliterative verse”; the holboo, “connected verse,” which retells classical Chinese novels in an oral Mongolian form; the domog, a Mongolian legend accompanied by the morin khuur; the heroic epic, an oral story-telling tradition that uses low, guttural overtone-like vocal production; and khoomei (throat singing), the spectacular overtone singing style of Mongolia that receives a great deal of international recognition (Pegg 2001, 50-66). The zokhioliin duu (composed song) provides a link between Mongolian folk and Westernized popular vocal traditions. These songs, composed with a mixture of Western and Mongolian idioms, often accompany well-known films, and have become staples of social singing (Marsh 2006, 129). Mongolian folk idioms also appear in Mongolian pop, rock, and hip-hop music (Pegg 2001, 290-293, Marsh 2006). It is noteworthy that out of this immense variety of songs, long song has been chosen by Mongolian singers and scholars to be made into a concert, “classical” genre.

History Both in the concert hall and the countryside, long song texts idealize the nomadic lifestyle within Mongol expressive culture. Images center on animals, family, the weather, and natural surroundings. Horses are a recurrent theme in long songs. Some songs memorialize famous wrestlers or heroes. Often long songs accompany activities in the nomadic life cycle and song texts reflect their connection to life cycle events. Long songs mark the departure and return of hunters, the passing of seasons, the relocation of camp, and life transitions such as a child’s hair-cutting ceremony. Long songs commemorate Tsagaan Tsar (White Month), a holiday celebrating the beginning of the Mongolian lunar New Year, and accompany the opening, closing, and award ceremonies of the Naadam festival. Long songs are also performed during wedding celebrations (Pegg 2001).

6 The history of Mongolian long song is believed to date back to the time of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan, ca. 1206-1227 and his successors (Saruulbuyan 2006).5 After the fall of the Mongolian Empire (ca. 1400), little documentation on Mongolian music is available. The persistence of long song through hundreds of years without documentation indicates that the genre became a part of the life cycle of an increasingly decentralized nomadic population. The tradition continued during and following widespread conversion to Buddhism in the sixteenth century. The height of scholarship in Mongolian Buddhist monasteries (during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) coincided with a period of expansion of Mongolian folk song in general (Badraa 2005, 18). Long songs in Buddhist yatga (plucked zither) notation have subsequently been discovered from this time period (Erdenchimeg quoted in Pegg 2001, 150-152; Nominerdene IN). Today’s long song singers trace their history in four generations of outstanding vocal artists dating back to the mid-1800s (Norovbanzad 2000, 7; Badraa 2005, 124-301). Long song’s growth within the context of Buddhist monasteries indicates a literary as well as an oral history for the genre. At the same time, long song’s persistence throughout extended periods without documentation suggests that oral tradition carried on the genre. The central place skilled singers have within current nair further highlights the continuing and important role long song has played in Mongolia’s folk traditions. During the reign of the Bogd Khan (1911-1921), Mongolia’s spiritual and political leader after a long period of Manchu occupation, respected long song singers and musicians competed and performed during national religious festivals called danshig (UNESCO 2004, 5) and learned specialists of the long song tradition were increasingly perceived as purveyors of nationalized Mongol culture. The Communist period (1921- 1991) saw the appropriation of the long song tradition as a symbol of Soviet-Mongolian nationalism. The singer Dorjdavga (1904-1991) was a key figure linking the late nineteenth and early twentieth century pre-Soviet regional traditions to Soviet standardized traditions. He learned long song techniques and repertory from teachers of the Bogd Khan period and was a famous singer and teacher. Dorjdavga, who was

5 For example, the text of the long song “Zergentiin Shil” (The Crest of Zeegent Hill) preserves a thirteenth century Mongol literary work. Before the Communist period, the song was called, “Chinggisin Er Khoyor Zagal” (Chinggis’s Two Zagal Horses) (Pegg 2001, 23; UNESCO 2004, 11; TRACK 3).

7 Norovbanzad’s teacher, began a process of professionalization and consolidation of concert long song technique, performance practice, and aesthetics that culminated in the performances and teaching of Norovbanzad. Dorjdavga modified the tradition bequeathed to him by early twentieth century long song singers. Norovbanzad, in turn, transformed this long song into concert long song. Norovbanzad’s innovations and codifications of concert long song must be considered within the context of increased Soviet involvement in the genre. Indeed, long song underwent myriad changes during and after the Communist Era. Prior to the Communist era, long song could either be monophonic or heterophonic, accompanied or unaccompanied. Singing style and instrumentation varied according to specific ethnic groups and regions. Consolidating these diverse musics into a single, state-controlled tradition created a nationalized Mongolian music. The musical practices from Central Khalka and Borjigin traditions predominated in this nationalized genre. Soviet musicologists retuned and redesigned the Eastern Khalkha morin khuur to suit the Western concert hall. Soon, the instrument accompanied most types of concert long song. Khalkha long songs traditionally had four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, or sixty-four verses (Pegg 2001, 45). In the concert hall, vocalists became accustomed to singing one verse of each long song (UNESCO 2004, 21). Government priorities mandated that religious references be altered or removed from songs. Performers eschewed local practices in favor of nationalist revisions and a standard repertory of long songs that conformed to Soviet standards and ideological practices (Pegg 2001, 253-283). The degree to which Norovbanzad willingly or unwillingly participated in these changes cannot be ascertained from current sources. What is clear is that she brought a vital concert genre to the forefront of Mongolian national identity. While Western research has characterized the standardizations that took place in Mongolian long song as symptomatic of repressive Soviet initiatives (ibid., 3, 253-283, 298), it is important to recognize that concert long song formed amidst the structures of Mongolia’s educated elite. The elite of Mongolian society grew up in a social environment and an educational system dominated by Soviet priorities. Many Mongolian musicians and musicologists studied Russian language and culture. Tom Ginsberg

8 characterizes the priorities of Mongolia’s elite as the “continued national independence and modernization of society” (Ginsberg 1999, 248). While not college educated, Norovbanzad received formal training while performing with provincial and national ensembles and eventually became a part of the urban elite. The leaders and teachers of Mongolia’s arts organizations focused upon development and modernization of Mongolian culture. In this frame of reference, long songs of Mongolia’s countryside were perceived to be favorably transformed as a result of the advances of a common, standardized education. The new standards included Western-style notation and morin khuur tunings, voice lessons using the vocal exercise ukhai, a common repertory, and long song recordings. Norovbanzad, who first learned long song in the countryside, emphasized a strong connection to pre-concert, rural long song traditions. She taught her students to express the poetry of long song by envisioning Mongolian rural landscapes and nomadic traditions while singing. Today, her students say that a singer must have a strong sense for the Mongolian language and an ability to access ways of thinking rooted in Mongolia’s nomadic lifestyle (Tuvshinjargal IN). Most professional singers have come from the aimags (provinces) and are knowledgeable about regionally distinctive long song practices. Some singers, like Norovbanzad before them, have even learned the roots of long song in the countryside where wordless melodies are used to care for animals. The melodies imitate the sounds of herding animals such as sheep or camels and employ similar types of ornamentation to those used in long song (Enkhetsetseg IN; Dashtsermaa IN). In these ways, concert long song both moves away from and pays tribute to rural long song traditions. In the post-Communist era, the hybrid form of concert long song has been reimagined as “Mongolian classical music” (Badraa 1998; Jantsannorov IN; Pegg 2001, 281) and thus receives a great deal of recognition and support. While indigenous long song forms remain in rural areas, contemporary performances on television and during national celebrations frequently display concert long song. At times the standards and practices of concert long song can seem ubiquitous, a situation that may be explained by the high regard accorded skilled singers in Mongol public and private celebrations. In contrast to previous generations, today’s talented singers routinely study at urban

9 educational centers. But while their training and technique have been transformed, skilled singers continue to fulfill their traditional role as public celebrants within the Mongolian life cycle. Regional diversity and individual agency continue to be important parts of concert long song. Long song singers express a need to collect rare songs and styles from the countryside before tradition bearers pass away (UNESCO 2004; Dorjdavga IN; Enhketsetseg IN). In addition, standardized concert long song has been reinterpreted by scholars as a vehicle for individual expression (Erdenechimeg 2006). Long song idioms make up elements of syncretic Mongolian musical expressions. Quotations from concert long song melodies and texts have been used by Mongolian rock and classical musicians to assert Mongol identity (Pegg 2001, 292, 281; Marsh 2006; Erdenetsetseg IN; Altantsetseg IN). Ironically, the audience for this Mongolia-centered genre has increasingly become Western cultural tourists. While long song has over 800 years of oral history, most documented transformations of the genre have taken place since the eighteenth century. First, long song expanded as a learned tradition within Buddhist monasteries. Second, long song became increasingly nationalized during the Communist period. Third, under the direction of Norovbanzad, long song became established as a recognized concert tradition. In its present form, concert long song represents a blend of traditional and modern influences that collectively inscribe a multifaceted Mongolian-ness.

SURVEY OF LITERATURE One of the earliest Western sources on Mongolian music of the twentieth century is Haslund-Christensen’s The Music of the Mongols: Eastern Mongols ([1943] 1971). Written about Haslund’s research during Dr. Sven Hedin’s Sino-Tibetan expedition, the book includes Haslund’s impressions of the culture, translations of Mongol epics, a description of field recordings and instrumentation, and a large section of transcriptions by Ernst Emsheimer. Emsheimer (1961) eventually wrote an article about Mongolian music for Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Research on Mongolian music by Western scholars during the first three quarters of the century was limited due to state border restrictions.

10 During the late 1980s and early 1990s, relaxation of government controls allowed access to Mongolia for Western scholars. Andrea Nixon completed a dissertation surveying Mongolian music terminology from the thirteenth through the eighteenth century (1988). Alain Desjacques published an article on the taxonomy of Mongolian music (1990) and completed a dissertation on Mongolian song (1992). Carole Pegg published articles on Mongolian throat singing and bardic epics in 1992 and 1995 respectively. Then, in 2001, Pegg completed the most comprehensive study of Mongolian music to date, Mongolian Music, Dance, and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities. The book includes information on Mongolian vocal, instrumental, and dance repertories, the relationship of Mongolian religions and social functions to music, the resurgence of ethnically distinct musics, and the effect of globalization on Mongolian musics. Peter Marsh’s dissertation, “Moving the World Through Two Strings” (2002), discusses the consolidations that took place in Mongolian music during the Communist era and the subsequent reimagining of the morin khuur as a post-Soviet Mongolian national symbol. In the area of Mongolian vocal music, khoomei or throat/overtone singing has been the focus of a substantial amount of research (Walcott 1974; Pegg 1992; Van Tongeren 2004). While present in many performances of Mongolian folk music today, this type of vocal music is traditionally sung by ethnic groups in the northwest region of Mongolia and by Tuvans (see Van Tongeran 2004; Levin 2006). Sources on long song, a genre more widespread in Mongolian traditions, are less available in English. An early article by Vargyas lists several types of Mongolian song, centering on what he calls “long chant” (1968). Hamayon provides a brief description of long song in his article on Mongolian music for the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980). Sean Hinton has transcribed and analyzed three long songs (1990). Carole Pegg mentions long song in her articles for the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) and The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (2002). In addition, long song has a significant place in Pegg’s aforementioned book (2001). Her account of long song is integrated into explanations of Mongolia’s urban and rural rituals, celebrations, and festivals.

11 Recent examples of Mongolian scholarship on long song abound. Lectures have emphasized long song’s importance as a national symbol (Saruulbuyan 2006) and as vehicle for individual expression (Erdenechimeg 2006). Print resources place long song within the context of Mongolian music in general (Badraa 1998), discuss the history and meaning of long song texts (Chimidtseye 1995), define terminology (Jantsannorov 2005), and summarize the historical roots, cultural nuances, and musical structures of long song (Oyuntsetseg 2006). A series of annotated interviews between Mongolian musicologist Badraa, and the long song singer Dorjdavga provides an oral history and technical guide for long song (Badraa 2005). A recent UNESCO proposal centering on long song summarizes current ideas in Mongolian scholarship (2004). Norovbanzad herself contributed to long song scholarship. Before her death in 2003, she compiled a collection of texts, notations, and tapes of mostly Borjigin and Central Khalkha long songs entitled Taliin Morni Duu (Songs of the Steppe Horsemen) (2000). Norovbanzad’s autobiography, Duulin Khorvood Duulakh Gej Torson Mini (Born to Sing in the World), while not written in an academic style, provides significant information on her life and her general philosophies about long song singing (1997). Compared to the abundance of resources on concert long song available in Mongolia (and written in Mongolian), the English-language literature on the subject seems sparse. This thesis will begin the large task of filling the lacuna.

THEORETICAL APPROACH Concert long song, as solidified by Norovbanzad, carries out a dynamic conversation between traditional and modern Mongolian expressive values. My theoretical approach addresses this issue from three interrelated perspectives. First, I apply to long song concepts explored by ethnomusicologists John Blacking (1977) and Michael Bakan (2007). These concepts assert music’s capacity to evince both the traditional and the modern. Second, I employ Central Asian music specialist Ted Levin’s theories on sonic mimesis among Central Asian nomads to explain how long song performs traditional nomadic values connected to the landscape (Levin 2006). Levin’s concept of sonic mimesis suggests inspiration from Michael Taussig’s work on mimesis and alterity (1993), and Taussig’s ideas, therefore, significantly underpin this thesis.

12 Third and finally, I show how long song exploits modern practices in order to present itself as an empowered, elevated genre. For this explanation, I explore how the emergence of concert long song corresponds to R. Anderson Sutton’s model of a “crystallization” process in which music traditions absorb and transform outside influences to enhance existing musical structures (Sutton 1986). In the illustration of this process, I use both Mongolist ethnomusicologist Peter Marsh’s description of Mongolian musician’s “bi-cultural” Mongolian and Russian education and performing styles (2002, 72-76) and Mantle Hood’s concept of “bi-musicality” (1960, 55-59), creating a new term, “multi-musicality” to describe the multiple Mongol, Russian, and globalized aspects of contemporary long song. Employing Blacking’s theories on continuity and change in music shows that long song expresses core Mongolian social and cultural values while also including innovation. According to Blacking, music is a human activity that takes place at a cognitive level, and thus necessitates theories of change that take into account music’s particular structures and meanings. Music’s unique coding within human cognition is such that changes in the social context cannot wholly account for elements of continuity and change in music (1977, 1-2). Blacking asserts that the emotional and expressive power of music gives it social elasticity. “[M]usic,” he says, “… can explore the structures of emotion and express values that transcend and inform the passing scene of social events” (ibid., 3). In fact, the dialectic of continuity and change in music “is not the characteristic of musical change, but of music itself. Music is the art of flexible non- change” (ibid., 15). This dialectic of continuity and change is an important feature of contemporary concert long song. Throughout a period of virtuosic technical innovations by Norovbanzad and widespread acculturation of Western concert performance practices, long song has maintained strong aural and textual connections to the Mongolian landscape and centuries-old nomadic symbols and values. Given its strong association with nomadic expressive values, concert long song’s emotional and expressive power transcends and informs fluctuating social events. Concert long song not only upholds traditional core values, it also enables those core values to find meaning and expression in a modern, increasingly urbanized Mongolian nation. Michael Bakan’s idea of the traditional/modern dialectic is similar to

13 the dialectic of continuity and change proposed by Blacking. The dialogue between traditional and modern is “dialectically entwined and mutually reinforcing” (personal communication, 2006). Here, continuity and change are two essential components in a dynamic system. Traditional music becomes music of tradition. This framework allows long song to be conceived not as “traditional” but rather as a manifestation of tradition, with tradition itself conceived as “a process of transformation whose most remarkable feature is the continuity it nurtures and sustains” (Bakan 2007, 27). In this context, the sub-genre of concert long song can be interpreted as an enlivening transformation that supports and nourishes the long song tradition as a whole. Ted Levin’s theories on sound mimesis provide a way to explain concert long song’s powerful connection to Mongol nomadic lifeways. Levin asserts that Central Asian musical cultures stem from the herding life cycle. Herders’ reliance on animals and the land for their livelihood brings about complex interactions between human beings and nature. These interactions are aurally expressed in a technique called sound mimesis. Levin defines sound mimesis as: [T]he use of sound to represent and interact with the natural environment and the living creatures that inhabit it, and more broadly, the exploration of representational and narrative dimensions of sound-making (Levin 2006, 74).6

Levin explains mimesis as a deeply embedded structure of human cognition (ibid., 75). Songs from Tuva, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Khakasia, and Western Mongolia, he says, include mimetic representations of the natural sounds and landscapes. Concert long song demonstrates Levin’s conception of sound mimesis by the use of “sonic snapshots” and “mimetic narration.” During a sonic snapshot, points of view of the singer, the listener and the landscape are circumscribed by a lens of shifting perspective. Dynamic cartographies interweave human and natural landscapes (ibid., 94- 95). Such an interweaving of thes sonic map with the mapper and mapped, evokes the yielding by the Self to the Other Taussig describes as part of the process of mimesis (1993 25, 45-46). Because of this merging, long song cartographies are not literal,

6 Levin inserts this definition of sonic mimesis after using the example of Charles Darwin’s observations on the mimicry of the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego. This well-known example of during colonial times was also used by Taussig in Mimesis and Alterity in 1993. Levin does not discuss Taussig’s analysis of the example in the text. Rather, he places a quotation by Taussig in the endnotes of the book.

14 sequential mappings. They are, rather, stylized explorations and reflections. As Levin elaborates, The wealth of mimetic media at the nomad’s disposal--linguistic onomatopoeia, texted song, … whistling, instrumental music, gesture and the whole panorama of vocally produced sound effects--is far too rich and intertwined to yield simple one-to-one correspondences between natural sounds and mimetic representations (ibid.,115).

Norovbanzad’s performance of her signature song “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World) displays this “wealth of mimetic media.” Her long song melismas demonstrate a close association between nature and long song vocal aesthetics. She employs a wealth of stylized representations of the Mongolian landscape, and creates refined abstractions of natural sounds and animals with a variety of ornamentation such as sustained and aspirated tones, glottal movements, vibratos, and intervallic contours resembling mountains or hills (see Nakagawa 1980). In fact, Mongols use the terms “‘spacious,’ ‘wide,’ ‘long-lasting.’ ‘big,’ ‘free,’ and ‘of great size’” to describe long song singing (Pegg 2001, 45) and the feeling received by being in Mongolia’s vast, rolling steppes. For long song singers and their audiences, then, long song ornamentation is not only a reference to nature, but an evocation of the feelings inspired by nature. In addition, words closely associated with the qualities of natural surroundings are used by Mongols to describe vocal style. Long song displays another mimetic process outlined by Levin, mimetic narration (Levin 2006, 99-115). When mimesis occurs as cultural memory, narratives are constructed from imagined soundscapes/landscapes. The strength of these images in transmitting collective memory depends on their degree of “mimetic verisimilitude” (ibid., 118), meaning that the cultural significance of these mimetic narrations depend on how strongly they communicate imagined histories, rather than how directly or concretely they copy certain events or images. Such a viewpoint reflects the influence of Taussig, in that it correlates with his idea that “The Copy that is Not a Copy”; that copies derive their power not only through imitation, but also through contact with the body (52). In the case of mimetic narration in long song, this necessary contact is made through sound.

15 The mimetic narration of long song connects Mongolians to the landscape thus becomes a powerful tool of Mongolian cultural memory that allows long song to maintain its distinctively Mongolian core while encompassing modern influences. Erdenechimeg Luvsannorov, a Mongolian ethnomusicologist, notes that “Long songs… reflect the correlation of nature and the environment, [and] the ways of people’s thinking and self-expression” (Erdenechimeg 2006, 1). Her remarks connect nature to individual Mongolian expressions through the medium of long song and indicate that long song has a high degree of mimetic verisimilitude for Mongolians. While sound mimesis anchors concert long song to Mongolia’s landscape and nomadic lifeways, the genre also demonstrates a modernization process characterized as “crystallization” by R. Anderson Sutton. During the process of crystallization, marginalized music traditions adopt some elements of the other [empowered tradition] to legitimize their own. For musical traditions these elements may include authoritative texts, notation, terminology, theoretical writings, codification, distribution for the media, and formal transmission in an academic setting. (Sutton 1986, 115)

In the second half of the twentieth century, concert long song singers and teachers brought about a standardization of technique and performance practice through the adoption of modernist Russian elements such as notation, terminology, codification, and academic transmission. Marsh uses the term “bi-cultural” to describe Mongolian musicians’ dual education and capability in Mongolian and Russian musics (2002, 72- 76). His description parallels Hood’s notion of “bi-musicality,” proficiency in music from two cultures (1960). Norovbanzad’s summary of the pedagogical approach of her teacher, Dorjdavga, indicates that technique and performance of long song as transmitted to her in the late 1950s was indeed bi-cultural and bi-musical. Moreover, since long song techniques and performance practices consolidate diverse Mongol regional long song traditions and Russian vocal techniques, the term “multi-musicality” might be more apt. [Dorjdavga] always said that shouting with all of your voice … is not meant for a good singer. A long song singer must learn how to keep the breath and deliver it, and place the sound correctly in order to sing. High notes and shuurankhai [floating in the head voice] must be done well. He

16 also told us which songs should be sung in [Central] Khalkha or Borjigon style. (Norovbanzad 1997, 92-93)

Multi-musical techniques and performance practices taught by Dorjdavga to Norovbanzad include Mongol ornamentation, Central Khalkha and Borjigon repertory, and Russian-European vocal techniques of breathing and tone placement. Norovbanzad expanded upon and standardized these techniques to create contemporary, multi-musical, concert long song. After the transition to democracy and the privatization of arts organizations during the 1990s, globalization and commodification expanded multi- musical aspects of urtiin duu. Recent publications indicate an ongoing process of codification and multi- musicality. Authoritative texts have been written on long song technique (Badraa 2005). Collections of long song often include Western notation of long songs along with song texts (Norovbanzad 2000; Tuyatsetseg 2004). Long song terminology has been outlined in a book by Jantsannorov (2005), and Oyuntsetseg published a theoretical work on the history and structure of the genre (2006). Recording technology is a major contributing factor in the formation of a standard long song repertory and singing style. All singers interviewed in connection with this thesis (see Methodolgy section below) learned long songs from recordings, especially from respected singers like Norovbanzad and Dorjdavga (Erkhembayar IN; Dorjdavga IN). Singers often completed their own CD or DVD projects with songs from the standard repertory (Chuluuntsetseg IN; Khongorzul IN; Chimidtseye IN; Sarantuya IN; Erkhembayar IN). University music departments in Mongolia transmit this newly-created genre. The most notable of these universities is the University of Culture and Arts in Ulaanbaatar. Here, student long song singers undertake a five-year course in long song as established by Norovbanzad. The long song curriculum further underscores concert long song’s characteristic blend of tradition and modernity. Among other subjects, the curriculum includes voice lessons at the piano, studies of long song philosophy, Mongolian music history, and some Western music theory. Concert long song sustains a connection to its past by employing sound mimesis. This expressive process invokes Mongolian herders’ close relationship with the

17 landscape. Conversely, the adoption of modernized performance practices has facilitated the realization of a distinctively Mongolian genre that flourishes within an ever-changing Mongolian social sphere.

METHODOLOGY The high productivity of my two-month course of fieldwork in Mongolia (June 15 – August 17, 2006) was due to the confluence of three factors. First, hospitality and public respect for foreign visitors are highly valued in Mongolia. This worked to my advantage, paving the way for ready access to esteemed members of the concert long song community. Second, many young Mongolians, while respecting long song as an expression of Mongolian culture, prefer to listen to Western popular music. Thus, many long song singers, intent on preserving and promoting their art, gave generously of their time to speak with me because they recognized the role Western research can play in increasing the knowledge and the prestige of long song among younger Mongolians. Third, I arrived in Mongolia in the midst of an explosion of music performances and competitions and seminars in Mongolian culture and history commemorating the “800th Anniversary of the Great Mongolian State” (i.e. of the establishment of Chinggis Khan’s empire). The biggest challenge I faced as a researcher was figuring out how to make the most out of as many opportunities for relationship building and information gathering as I could within the relatively short period of two months of field research. Focusing on Norovbanzad connects concert long song to a larger, historical tradition and brings the wide-ranging information I gathered in the field into focus. Norovbanzad’s life, work, and legacy will be ascertained in this study through a variety of sources. Secondary resources include a commemorative lecture given by Norovbanzad upon her acceptance of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 1993; her autobiography, Duulin Khorvood Duulakh Gej Torson Mini (Born to Sing in the World) (1997); and a short promotional VCD put out by the Norovbanzad Foundation entitled World- Cherished Mongolian Treasure (2006). Primary resources include interviews with a diverse cross-section of professional singers from Ulaanbaatar’s long song community. Ten of the singers were women and

18 seven were men. Singers ranged in age from their early twenties to their sixties.7 Of the twenty-one professional long song singers interviewed, only one of them came from the capital city of Ulaanbaatar (Tumenjargal IN). The rest came from a variety of regions. Among the eight singers from Central Mongolia, four came from Dundgov Aimag, the province where Norovbanzad was born and raised. Because the great majority of those interviewed were either taught by Norovbanzad or one of her students, a summary of the long song principles they articulate will effectively pinpoint Norovbanzad’s technical and expressive legacy. These singers are among the most well-known and respected long song artists working today. They perform for the National Folk Song and Dance Academic Ensemble, the Tumen Ekh Song and Dance Ensemble, the Military Song and Dance Academic Ensemble, the Morin Khuur Ensemble, and other high-profile long song organizations. Interviews with Norovbanzad’s daughter, Delgermaa, and with the prominent composer, musicologist, and administrator Jantsannorov, add breadth to information given by the long song singers. My personal, musical experiences as a vocal student, both as a student of a United States university and as a nascent student of long song singing contribute a phenomenological angle to the fieldwork experience and to analysis of that experience. Such a reflexive approach has precedence in many contemporary ethnomusicological works (Limón 1991; Barz and Cooley 1997; Bakan 1999). Technical and performance practice issues discussed by the long song singers and taught to me by my teachers Chuluuntsetseg and Khongorzul include proper breathing techniques, the purposes of ukhai (long song vocalise based on a Mongol praise melody), variation, memorization, vowel clarity, production of vocal ornamentation, and the musical relationship between the voice and the morin khuur (horse-head spike fiddle). Aesthetic principles highlight the linkage between nutag (homeland and birthplace) and long song, textual connections to the landscape, underlying animist philosophies and nomadic concepts of space and time. An analysis of Norovbanzad’s signature masterpiece, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naraan,” shows how Norovbanzad’s methods of technique, performance practice, and

7 When tabulating age, Mongolians often count an extra year for the period of their mother’s pregnancy. Also, specific age information was not obtained for all interviewees. Therefore, age ranges are given here rather than definitive ages.

19 aesthetics play out in a specific recording of long song. The analysis uses two kinds of visual mapping with two distinct purposes. A musical transcription on a five-line staff expanding from a system of long song ornamentation symbols devised by ethnomusicologist Shin Nakagawa (1980) shows how the melismatic elements of long song work together. Comparing an analysis of literal and idiomatic text translations to the musical transcription illuminates the relationship between the text and the music. A prose dialogue discussing scalar and intervallic relationships and a conceptual framework of musical landmarks and regions further elucidates Norovbanzad’s artistry and the technical and expressive elements of concert long song in general. This thesis reflects the multitude of resources at my disposal during my fieldwork in Mongolia. Integrating archival research, interviews, ethnographic descriptions, and musical analysis, the work provides a multifaceted overview of Norovbanzad’s legacy as it is manifest in today’s dynamic concert long song tradition.

20 2. THE QUEEN OF LONG SONG

Fig, 3 The Queen of Long Song, Tokyo 1978 (Norovbanzad 1997, ii).

Mongolia’s “Queen of Long Song” (Enkhbat IN), Namjilyn Norovbanzad, embodies three eras of Mongolian history and culture. A herdswoman during her early years, she represents a pre-Communist, rural and nomadic Mongolia. A rising artistic star and pioneer educator of the Communist system during her middle years, she symbolizes a Communist-era urban and professionalized Mongolia. A world music icon during her later years, she epitomizes a post-Communist, globalized Mongolia. As such, Norovbanzad’s story tells the story of contemporary Mongolia, and her iconic, multifaceted identity epitomizes the multidimensional identity of present-day Mongolian society.

HERDSWOMAN Norovbanzad was born to a herder family on December 10, 1931, at a nomadic encampment near Sundertiin Ulaan Ovoo (Red Shrine of Shadow) in Dundgov Aimag, a province in the Central Gobi Desert. As a newborn, she nearly froze to death in the frigid

21 winter temperatures. A neighbor instructed Norovbanzad’s mother, Namjil to hold her baby close and feed her warm breast milk. After three days, Norovbanzad began to cry loudly. Her father, Damdin, asked a local Buddhist lama to foretell his daughter’s future. The lama said that she would become a good person, have many friends, live to an old age, and, above all, would love songs and feasts and meet hundreds of people. The lama named her Norovbanzad (“tree” in Tibetan) and predicted that she would go on many travels (Norovbanzad 1993, 2-6). Starkly beautiful grasslands surrounded Deren sum, a village near the ger camps where Norovbanzad grew up. Herds of wild horses roamed the steppe and flocks of birds flew in bright blue skies. Nearby, a pair of wells doled out precious, clear water. A local myth says that these two wells were created by Chinggis Khan’s two horses. Tsagaan Tsar (“White Month,” the lunar new year), the Naadam festival, and summer rains were times of celebration. In the Central Gobi, herders generally lived together in groups of three gers of closely related family members. Although it is not clear with whom Norovbanzad’s family camped, she indicates that her uncle’s and midwife’s families lived nearby. Seven people lived in Norovbanzad’s family ger. In addition to her mother and father, Norovbanzad had an older, adopted sister named Amarjargal, two younger brothers named Mangal and Tyansuren, and a younger sister named Sojinbumuu. Among her family she was known as “Myal Bogd,” meaning she was a quiet child who did not upset her mother (Norovbanzad 1997, 2-6). Norovbanzad liked to go out to the pasture with the sheep because she could sing by herself on the steppe. The first song that Norovbanzad sang was “Nogoon Morinii Tolgoid”: Nogoon morinii tolgoid On the head of the green horse Nogton zangia bonjino The halter of the horse is shaking Noyon Kharuuliin Gunjidmaa Lord Guard Gundidmaa Noir ni Khureed talimaarna Looking tenderly (Norovbanzad 1997, 7)

Like many Mongol herders, Norovbanzad sang songs while tending to her sheep. A common type of song encouraged mother lambs to accept their young. Animals were, in a sense, her first singing teachers. She knew that when she sang well, the animals would

22 respond to her. These first songs, consisting of animal-like sounds, laid the vocal and cultural foundations for the elaborate vocal effects for which she would later become known. Besides herding, Norovbanzad also enjoyed horse racing, and was reputed to be an excellent singer of gingoo (Pegg 2001; Norovbanzad Foundation 2006), wordless melodies sung by Mongol children to their horses before horse races (TRACK 4).8 Because of the melodies’ beauty, range and melismatic character, singing gingoo is often thought to be a precursor to singing long song. On at least one occasion, Norovbanzad auditioned a long song student by having her sing gingoo (Altantsetseg IN). Both of Norovbanzad’s parents enjoyed songs and feasts (nair). Namjil played the flute and told stories. Sometimes, her father, Damdin would bring Norovbanzad with him to the feasts so that she could listen to the songs. The feasts introduced Norovbanzad to the customs surrounding long song and conditioned her ear to the aesthetics of long song as a functional music genre. However, early twentieth-century recording technology highly influenced how Norovbanzad learned to sing long song and which repertory she chose to sing. For example, one of the first long songs she remembers is “Ider Jinchen.” She heard it on the “magic black box” (i.e. the radio), performed by the long song singer Dugarjav. Norovbanzad learned “Seruun Saikhan Khangai” (Cool Beautiful Khangai), the song that later launched her career, from a phonograph recording (ibid., 14-17). While living as a nomad probably sheltered Norovbanzad from some aspects of political upheaval, she could not have been completely detached from political realities of the times. Communism had taken hold in Mongolia by the 1930s. This period saw the ascendancy of Choibalsan, a despotic ruler handpicked by Stalin, who killed more than 20,000 monks and political rivals between 1937 and 1939 (Baabar 1999, 349-67). Meanwhile, in 1939, Mongolian and Soviet forces stopped an invasion by Japanese forces along the Chinese border (ibid., 382-390). A year after the thwarted invasion, Norovbanzad turned nine years old and began school in Delgertsogt. She earned the nickname Duuchin Shar (Yellow singer) from her classmates. At first she stayed in a dormitory, but her parents were worried about her

8 In Mongolia, jockeys are usually young children between the ages of five and seven.

23 being so far from them. While she was in the third grade, her father came to Delgertsogt so that he could look after her. Sadly, he passed away the following summer. Norovbanzad left school to work as a herder with her family (Norovbanzad 1997, 17-21). In 1944, Norovbanzad’s family moved to Bayanjargalan to avoid the aftermath of a drought, and then struggled through a bitterly cold winter. Many of the family’s livestock died. In the end, her uncle was forced to sell a prized saddle with five silver ornaments and a silver bridle. With the money from the sale, her family purchased two cows, and subsequently made enough milk products to last through the winter (ibid., 21- 25). By 1946, the war had ended, but harsh weather conditions and post-war scarcities made life precarious for Norovbanzad and her family. By this time, Norovbanzad was 15, and sang as a volunteer for provincial festivals. Her first trip to the capital city of Ulaanbaatar took place as a long song singer with an amateur group (Norovbanzad 1997, 25-29). Her singing career truly began in 1948 when she was invited to become a performer at the Cultural Palace in Mandalgov, the administrative center of Dundgov Aimag (Norovbanzad 1993, 1). Norovbanzad’s professional debut was not without its political difficulties. Prior to the Cultural Palace’s opening ceremony that winter, members of the province’s Communist Party came to inspect the performance (a process Norovbanzad calls “control”). The council changed some of the songs, so the performers had to schedule additional rehearsals. Five days later, Norovbanzad performed professionally for the first time. She sang two bogin duu (short songs). At the palace, Norovbanzad became known for her acting. Her first lead role was as Alimaa in the play Dalan Kudalch by Oidov (Norovbanzad, 1997, 34-45). In the spring of 1949, Norovbanzad went to visit her brother, Mangal, at the soum’s school. While picking up a letter from the director of the school, Lambatseren, she saw a man, Banzragch, with “a brown, round face, big eyes, black hair, white teeth, and handsome.” Three days later, Lambatseren gave Norovbanzad a letter from the young man. Norovbanzad and Banzragch met at a concert and he walked her home. They continued to write letters to each other and were married in the fall of 1949. At the

24 time, Banzragch worked at the aimag’s Central Police office as an investigator. Later, Banragch worked as an editor of the Mongolian newspaper, Choibalsanch (ibid. 31-34). Norovbanzad stayed home for a year to take care of her first daughter, Densmaa. In 1951, Bazragch began traveling for his work with the Provincial Communist Party. The couple moved briefly to Tov aimag, but soon moved back to Dundgov. With just Banzragch’s salary, finances were tight. Norovbanzad became a clerk for the aimag judge in 1952, and eventually became head of the document department.9 After a year, she became pregnant again, but lost her son to illness when he was just six months old (ibid., 44-51). Bazragch had always been interested in poetry and literature, and in 1953, his play, “Tsermaagyn Bayar” won second place and 6000 tugrics in a Cultural Ministry competition. Bazragch loaned several people money, and the prize money soon dwindled. Yet, the couple’s circumstances continued to improve. Salary from the production of his next play, “Eemeg” (1954), combined with his new position as deputy director of Dundgov Aimag’s cultural department, enabled the couple to buy a ger. Then, in 1955, their second daughter, Dedermaa, was born (ibid.).

RISING STAR The year 1957 represented a major turning point in Norovbanzad’s artistic career. That year, Norovbanzad was chosen to compete in the sixth World Student Festival in Moscow. Before competing in the festival, Norovbanzad trained in Ulaanbaatar with a number of other competitors. There, she began taking voice lessons with the renowned long song singer and teacher Dorjdavga. Artists preparing for the festival felt a great deal of pressure. Many competitors were told to leave because they had failed a battery of exams. Norovbanzad worried about when she would be told to leave until she read in a newspaper that she would participate in the festival with her song, “Seruun Saikhan Khangai” (Cool Beautiful Khangai)

9 In her Commemorative Address for the Fukuoka Culture Prize, Norovbanzad describes her job as “a secretarial position at the Prefectural Labor Union.” (1993)

Fig. 4 The Rising Star. Norovbanzad performs at a festival with morin khuur player, Dundgee, 1957 (Norovbanzad 1997, iv).

The festival participants performed their repertory in Ulaanbaatar, then traveled to Moscow for the Youth Festival (ibid., 52-59). Going to Moscow was the first time that Norovbanzad had traveled by train. She saw Lake Baikal and met people from Crasnoyarosk, Novosibirsk, and Sverdlovsk (ibid., 59-62). The lands and peoples she saw on the way to Moscow opened up her mind to a wider world. This marked the beginning of Norovbanzad’s transformation from a traditional Mongol herdswoman to a cultured member of Mongolia’s professional elite. Mongolia’s delegation arrived in Moscow on July 28, and commenced with ten full days of festival activities. The group performed in larger venues such as the Moscow Theatre and the Cultural Palace and also for outreach programs in kindergartens, parks, and schools. On the third day of the festival, there was a concert in the square (ibid., 63- 64). Norovbanzad sang “Seruun Saikhan Khangai” with morin khuurch (morin khuur player) Tseden accompanying: Seruun Saikhan Khangaid Clear rivers are flowing Tungalag us ursnaa minu zee In the cool, wonderful Khangai Setgelyn Dundaag todorkhoi My lovely darling is steadfast Minu negen aldrai minu zee In my heart

26 Magnai dundaa sartai Speckled moon on the forehead Khoorkhon borlog mori minu zee My lovely brown horse Many toloo zovinogch Always worry for me Mankhan buural aav minu zee My old father

Altai Khangagin gurgaldai Singing in the forest Arynkhaa modond jirgene minu zee The nightingale of Altai, Khangai Akhan duu nortaigaa khamt Enjoy with my brothers Tenuun saikhan zargama minu zee Forever and ever

Tetson gazryn tenger ni The sky of my birthplace is Tenuun bolood uujim minu zee Wide and broad Ter olon nokhod toigoo Together with many friends Tengeryn jargalangaar jargaya minu zee With the blessing of the Sky (ibid., 68)

Norovbanzad received thunderous applause for her performance. While ostensibly a forum for cultural exchange, the festival was politically- motivated and attempted to control or shape artists’ activities. On the evening of August 6th, the artists marched with torches in their hands to protest the bombing of Hiroshima by the United States (ibid, 65-66.). It is likely that this event, like the rest of the festival’s events, was planned in detail by party officials. In addition, of the three thousand people that participated, Norovbanzad suggests that 945 people received some kind of award (ibid.). Audiences hailed Norovbanzad’s performance and the gold medal she earned in Moscow launched her vocal career. After the festival, her career developed rapidly. First, Norovbanzad was asked to take part in the Labor Youth Festival in France. She spent two days alone in her hotel in Moscow before a singer picked her up so that she could practice with her morin khuurch. Then, she flew to France, another traveling first (ibid. 101-103). After a month of performances in France, Norovbanzad returned to Mongolia, whereupon officials informed her that she would participate in a tour to China. She asked to see her family, and was given a car for two days. Since journeys to Dundgov from Ulaanbaatar last up to eight hours, the amount of time she spent with her family was probably quite short (ibid. 104-106). Then, as instructed, she went to China.

27 Norovbanzad traveled with the artistic delegation for a month. She performed at venues all over China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjin, Tyanjing, and Inner Mongolia. While in Inner Mongolia, she sang with Byandelger, a famous singer from Inner Mongolia. She sang “Seruun Saikhan Khangai,” “Eejdee,” and “Khuren Tolgoin.” (ibid., 106). When she returned home in November of 1957, Norovbanzad was very happy to see her husband at the train station. Because of Norovbanzad’s time away, her younger daughter, Dedermaa did not recognize her and did not come to her straight away (Norovbanzad 1997, 69). But overall this was an exciting time for her and Bazragch. While she had been in China, it had been decided that Norovbanzad should become an actress in the National Folk Song and Dance Ensemble (Norovbanzad 1993, 1). Also, the Cultural Ministry had appointed Bazragch to head the newspaper, Culture and Literature. The young family moved to Ulaanbaatar and took their place among the city’s intelligentsia (Norovbanzad 1997, 70). In future years, famous musicians, writers, artists, painters, poets and wrestlers visited their home. Conversation was lively and there was always the possibility that new poems or songs might be premiered at their social gatherings (Delgermaa IN).

Fig. 5 Norovbanzad with her daughters, 1962. Densmaa is to Norovbanzad’s left and Dedermaa is to Norovbanzad’s right. Delgermaa sits in her mother’s lap (Norovbanzad 1997, iv).

Fig. 6 Norovbanzad and Banzragch in Terelj, 1967. This picture of the stylish young couple vacationing in the countryside clearly illustrates Nororvbanzad and Banzragch’s place within an elite, urbane milieu (ibid., viii).

Norovbanzad performed with the National Folk Song and Dance Ensemble for thirty-one years (1957-1988) (Norovbanzad 1993, 1), and trained in music, dance, singing, and stagecraft during her tenure (Norovbanzad 1997, 70-72). Instruction from her long song teacher, Dorjdavga, combined complex Mongolian melismas and vocal aesthetics with European-derived vocal classifications, breath support, and vowel placement. His amalgam of Mongolian and Western vocal techniques provided the foundation for Norovbanzad’s signature technique and artistry (ibid., 92). In addition, Dorjdavga taught Norovbanzad a repertory of long songs with which she eventually set the standard. Such songs include “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” “Tumen Ekh,” “Tsetsger Khurdan Sharga,” “Altan Bogdyn Sharga,” “Urikhan Khongor,” and “Ar Khovch” (ibid, 93.) From the beginning of her work as a professional long song singer, a tension existed between Mongolian and Western music priorities. For example, when Norovbanzad joined the ensemble, she could not read Western music notation. For that reason, one of her teachers, Davaadorj, recommended that she be fired. Rather than

29 letting her go, however, the director, Bangan, kept her on as an assistant artist at a smaller salary (ibid., 70). A month after she got the job, Norovbanzad toured the Eastern provinces with her first touring team (Norovbanzad ibid., 73). During the Communist era, teams of performing artists from the National Ensemble routinely toured the Mongolian countryside. Traveling together by bus, the teams gave full performances, which included dances, plays, and many songs. The performers would publicize and organize the performances according to the particular circumstances of the area they were visiting. The concerts were often presented outdoors with the supply truck used as a stage. The performances were first performed in Ulaanbaatar, and then taken out to the countryside (Delgermaa and Uranzaya IN). Norovbanzad’s first team arrived in the northeastern aimag of Khentii amidst frigid winter temperatures. When they reached their first sum (village), the team did not have fires to heat their rooms, but according to Norovbanzad, “We were young and full of energy so we did not notice the cold” (Norovbanzad 1997, 73). During her years in the ensemble, Norovbanzad traveled to the “four corners” of Mongolia. She saw the Khalkha river, Buir Lake, the Gobi desert, Khovsgol forest, Orkhon Selenge River, and the Altai mountains (ibid. 74) When traveling in the countryside, people often asked her to sing in their ger celebrations. In a newspaper interview she reminisced, “Once I went to Gobi-Altai and sang in thirteen family residences in Togrog sum” (Tsodool and Sonintogos 1994; quoted in Norovbanzad 1997, 210). Norovbanzad preferred singing in gers to singing in buildings. “A house is too little for long song,” she remarked (ibid., 208). Norovbanzad continued to acheive personal and professional successes throughout her first decade with the National Ensemble. In 1959, Norovbanzad attained the status of professional artist with a higher salary. That same year, she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Delgermaa. A month later, she traveled to Denmark for the 50th anniversary of Women’s Day with the head of the Mongolian Women’s Commission (Norovbanzad 1997, 75). A few examples illustrate Norovbanzad’s increasing political prominence and evolving status as national long song icon. For instance, she often sang for state

30 celebrations. On the fortieth anniversary of the Mongolian Communist revolution (1961), Norovbanzad sang her second signature song, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran.” The state named her a national merited actress for this performance. In all, she was named national actress a total of three times during her career (ibid.). She also performed regularly on Mongolian television and radio (Pegg 2001, 259). In addition, Norovbanzad frequently participated in labor union and women’s group activities. Moreover, she served in the Grand Khural, Mongolia’s legislative body, as a Congresswoman of the Mongolian Grand Committee, and as a Member of the People’s Congress from 1961- 1965 (Norovbanzad 1993, 2). During the 1970s and 1980s Norovbanzad secured her place as the consummate performer of Mongolian concert long song, and expanded her career as ambassador of Mongolian culture. Her legendary performance of “Seruun Saikhan Khangai” was registered in the UNESCO archive as a masterpiece of Mongolian long song in 1973 (Delgermaa IN; Norovbanzad Foundation 2006). In the second half of the twentieth-century, Japanese scholars and musical promoters showed a great deal of interest in the research and promotion of Asian cultures. Japan’s economic power and presence was felt in Mongolia and Norovbanzad began to represent Mongolian culture in Japan. She took part in the international symposium, “Voices of Asia” (1978). After the concert, Koji Ikoma, head of the Menon Association, asked Norovbanzad to participate in a month-long “Silk Road Journeys” concert tour in Japan. He offered her one million yen. He was surprised by her answer. “I can’t decide this alone. The government of Mongolia has the right to decide whether I should sing or not” (Norovbanzad 1997, 115-117). Norovbanzad and other Mongolian musicians eventually traveled to Japan for the “Silk Road Journeys” tour in 1987.10 When she arrived in Japan, Koji Ikoma said, “I have tried to invite you for ten years. You are a really famous singer and I respect you like my sister.” The tour lasted one month and went to 26 cities in Japan. In addition to her long song repertory, Norovbanzad sang the Japanese anthem, “Komora Magoita.” Her performances were enthusiastically received (ibid., 117-118). Besides these

10 This “Silk Road Journeys” was a tour of international artists in Japan and is a different enterprise than the international educational and performance project, “The Silk Road Project” initiated by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998.

31 appearances in Japan, Norovbanzad frequently traveled abroad with State Ensemble. Countries that she toured include the former Soviet Union, Denmark, France, Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland, Hungary, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, and China (Norovbanzad 1993, 1)

LONG SONG EDUCATOR

Fig. 7 Norovbanzad with her students, 1997. Immediately to Norovbanzad’s left are long song singers Nergui and Sarantuya, whose remarks about long song and Norovbanzad figure significantly in this thesis (Norovbanzad 1997, ii).

As Norovbanzad became established as an iconic figure in long song, she increasingly concerned with training future generations of long song singers. To that end, she asked the Cultural Ministry to open a long song school. The school opened in 1974 and gave a forty-five day intensive training for singers from all aimags and theatres (Norovbanzad 1997, 96; Delgermaa IN). Norovbanzad was the director of the school. The faculty included her teacher, Dorjdavga (Norovbanzad 1997, 96). At the end of the training, the singers received professional certificates (Delgermaa IN; Nergui IN). In the late 1980s, Norovbanzad started a long song course at the University of Culture and Arts (Norovbanzad 1993, 2; UNESCO 2004, 32). She created a five-year curriculum of study for long song singers that included private lessons and courses in music history and music theory.

32 Norovbanzad’s teaching methods stem from those taught to her by Dorjdavga. Along with the Mongolian ornamentations such as shurankhai, the general vocal aesthetics of the Khalkha and Borjigon regional styles, and the use of the distinctively Mongolian instrument, the morin khuur as an accompanying instrument, Norovbanzad, like Dorjdavga, taught European-derived vocal techniques. These techniques included breath support, tone placement, and Western voice classifications such as soprano, alto, tenor and bass. Norovbanzad’s approach differed significantly from Dorjdavga’s when it came to expanding the technique of female long song singers. Before her time, women singers did not sing three-octave long songs. To sing in three octaves, men used their falsetto voices in addition to their head and chest voices. Women’s voices, without a falsetto range, tended towards two octaves. Norovbanzad expanded her range up from her strong chest voice. Eventually, she was able to sing powerfully in high ranges. Norovbanzad taught this technique to her female students, especially those with rich chest voices. This technique was not to Dorjdavga’s liking because he thought the female singers were too loud (Jantsannorov IN). As a teacher, Norovbanzad was known to be both caring and demanding. Her first students were the female singers Chimedtseye, Sarantuya, and Nergui (Delgermaa IN). Among these and other female students she was known as a mother figure (Sarantuya IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Altantsetseg IN). Chuluuntsetseg explains that Norovbanzad’s personal approach contributed to her considerable charisma. She considered her students like her children. Besides teaching us long song, she always gave us very valuable advice on having a husband, children, and how to take care of them, and how to treat other people. She always paid a great attention to my family and my husband, and my children’s discipline. As a singer, she was recognized in the world…As a person, she was very heart felt (Chuluuntsetseg IN).

When one of her later students, Altantsetseg, had no place to stay, Norovbanzad invited the student to stay at her home (Altantsetseg IN). In addition to these nurturing qualities, Norovbanzad had the qualities of a taskmaster, expecting her students to be tough and hard-working. She told Sarantuya that she should be strong like a wrestler, i.e. that she must fight to win (Sarantuya IN).

WORLD MUSIC ICON

Fig. 8 Norovbanzad accepts the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, Japan 1992 (Norovbanzad 1997, x).

Norovbanzad finished her tenure with the State Ensemble in 1988, ushering in a new period in her life wherein she became a performer on the world stage. This career shift paralleled larger changes taking place in Mongolian society. During that time period the Soviet Union withdrew aid from Mongolia and loosened political controls. In 1989, swept along by revolutions among Soviet republics and Eastern Bloc countries, protesters filled Sukhbaatar Square and demanded reforms. Facing the inevitable, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party peacefully transitioned to a market economy and democratic government in the early 1990s (Rossabi 2005, 1-28). After the euphoria of the initial changes settled, Mongolians faced the consequences of severe free market policies. Government officials swiftly eradicated governmental controls that had propped up the economy for nearly three quarters of a century and sold off government businesses at wholesale prices. Unaccustomed to doing business in a market economy, Mongolian financial, medical, and educational sectors

34 declined. Unemployment and alcoholism soared and many people went hungry (ibid., 45- 49). In the aftermath of the transition, Norovbanzad used her iconic status to increase the profile of an independent Mongolia and to establish long song performance within the context of a globalized, market economy. Two competitions, held in 1989 and 1992, recruited new singers and promoted the status of long song singing. The first competition, held in her home aimag of Dundgov, honored Norovbanzad and the second competition, under the patronage of the President of Mongolia, Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat, invited performers from Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang (Norovbanzad 1997, 98). Norovbanzad’s work became more widely available to Western audiences with the 1990 publication of the The JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance: East Asia V (1990). On the video, Norovbanzad performs two long songs, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World) and Ulemjiiin Canar (Ulemjiin’s Features), originally recorded in 1978 for Asian Traditional Performing Arts (Fuji 1990, 104-105). In 1993, Mongolians participated in their first direct presidential election and Norovbanzad went on one of her many tours to Japan to accept the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize. The prize recognizes four people annually for superior work in Asian education, economy, science, and culture (www.city.fukuoka.jp/asiaprize).11 That same year, the German New Age music group Enigma digitally sampled Norovbanzad’s voice in their hit single “Carly’s Song, Carly’s Loneliness.” The song appeared on the soundtrack of Sliver, an American film starring Sharon Stone (www.enigmamusic.com). While Enigma’s continuing practice of sampling and de-contextualing uncopyrighted “world music” recordings has caused international controversy (Taylor 2003; van der Lee 1998, 60), Norovbanzad expressed little concern regarding the appropriation of her vocal talents by foreign artists. When asked by newspaper reporters about a foreign band using her recording on MTV, she responded that she had not heard the song and that “It is advertising Mongolia” (Tsodool and Sonintogos 1994; quoted in Norovbanzad 1997, 212). Her reaction suggests that Norovbanzad considered her iconic status, and long song’s popularity with foreign audiences, to be an important tool for raising global awareness about Mongolia, regardless of how the music was being transmitted.

11 Mongolian composer and musicologist Jantsannorov (IN) calls the award “The Asian Nobel Prize.”

35 Norovbanzad “retired” from the University of Culture and Arts in the mid-1990s. However, she kept up her activities representing Mongolia and long song and repeatedly toured Japan. She undertook a four month tour in Japan in 1994 to raise money for Mongolia’s school facilities. Among her other concert engagements in Japan were two “Melody of Asia” concerts in Tokyo. Norovbanzad even ventured into popular music by singing long song with the popular Mongolian rock band, Chinggis Khan during celebrations for the 355th anniversary of Ulaanbaatar in 1994.

Fig. 9 Norovbanzad with members of Chinggis Khan after their concert celebrating the 355th anniversary of Ulaanbaatar, 1994 (Norovbanzad 1997, xii).

During this time period she also produced a compact disc. The CD was subsequently released for wide distribution in 1996 with pictures and liner notes. A second disc was published in Germany. In the last years of her life, Norovbanzad continued to broaden her experience with new projects. She published two books: her autobiography, Duulin Khorvood Duulakh Gej Torson Mini (Born to Sing in the World) (1997), and the long song anthology, Talin Mortni Duu (Songs of the Steppe Horsemen) (2000). Talin Mortni Duu subsequently became an important resource for teaching young singers at the University of Culture and Arts.

36 In 2001 Norovbanzad made her first and only appearance in the United States, performing for the Mongolian Cultural Days in New York and Washington, D.C. By this time, she was seventy. An account by New York Times critic Ann Powers indicates that her voice and stage presence were still powerful and expressive: The star … was Namijilyn Norovbanzad, Mongolia's artistic treasure. At 70, she is formidably ladylike, a diva who would be comfortable on the stage of the Met. But her voice is another matter.

She sang the ''long songs'' of the steppes in a piercing wail meant to reach through vast empty space. Her tone was vociferous but rich, her high notes stunningly sharp. (Powers 2001)

When Norovbanzad passed away in 2003, she left a legacy of teaching and performance that continues to shape the technique, performance practice, and aesthetics of concert long song.

Fig. 10 Competitors in an Ulaanbaatar competition sing “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” in front of a backdrop with symbols honoring Norovbanzad including the sun from her signature song, a tree indicating the Tibetan meaning of her name, and a queenly headdress asserting her status as Mongolia’s queen of long song.

37 PART II: NOON

NOMADIC CIVILIZATION IN SONG

Fig. 12 Long song singers and morin khuur players perform “Ertnii Saikhan” (Ancient Melody). At the celebration, long song singers transmit Mongol cultural memory by singing a song thought to date back to the time of Chinggis Khan.

In 2004, long song artists, scholars, and administrators from Mongolia and Inner Mongolia submitted a grant proposal to the UNESCO’s Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The proposal, which was successful, includes a decree by then President of Mongolia, Bagabandi entitled “Concerning the transmission and propagation of the urtiin duu”: The Mongolian folk urtiin duu is a classic heritage property belonging to a unique folk song tradition, having grown out of the depths of the ancient history, herding and life of the Mongol nation, and having become enriched as the unique air of the beauty of Mongolian nature, which in terms of the singular characteristics if its wide-ranging melody, grand manner, fine coloratura, richly ornamented falsetto passages, and distinctive melody, preserves rare qualities encountered in the songs of no other people.

38 Supporting the ideas and wishes put forward time and again by public and non-profit organizations, scholars, and private citizens with regard to the preservation of the rich heritage, the extension of state protection and the honouring and dissemination of the urtiin duu, a unique product of Mongolian culture in terms of its full inclusion of the unusual discoveries, content, form, melody, poetry, and rhythm of the Mongolian civilization… (UNESCO 2004, 48)

In his decree, President Bagabandi not only expresses a high regard for the technical and aesthetic aspects of concert long song, but also describes a contemporary Mongolian genre that performs the modern, nationalist idea of nuudlin soyol irgenshil or “nomadic civilization.” Ulaanbaatar intellectuals use this concept to disseminate idealized histories of Mongol nomadic culture, to debunk past representations of nomadism as “barbaric” and “savage,” and to represent Mongolian culture positively in the international sphere (Enkhtuvshin 2003, 8). As the President alludes, long song narrates and enacts nomadic landscapes and concepts of nutag (birthplace or homeland). Evoking nutag and the glories of Chinggis Khan’s thirteenth-century empire, long song singers are effective bearers of Mongol cultural memory. Singing at government ceremonies and public celebrations, concert long song performances lend a powerful sense of cultural authenticity to Mongolian nationalism. Singers are conscious of their role as cultural narrators, and stress the importance of the revival and preservation of “lost” regional long song repertories (Tuvshinjargal IN; Sarantuya IN; Dorjdavga IN; Erdenetsetseg IN; Altantsetseg IN). These localized, rural-based styles provide necessary veracity for the urban, concert long song tradition. “Nomadic civilization” also connotes modernization in that this term is often used by Mongolian intellectuals to construct a narrative of Mongolian culture and history that represents Mongolia as a developed, independent nation. Expansions are made to existing nomadic traditions in order to elevate and refine them for competition on the world cultural stage. Long song singers wish both to preserve and to develop their tradition (Sarantuya IN; Nergui IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Byambjargal IN; Tumenjargal IN). Long song singers and scholars work to increase Western interest in long song research (Tuvshinjargal IN; Tumenjargal IN; Jantsannorov IN). Many professional long song singers, like Norovbanzad before them, have represented Mongolia abroad as cultural ambassadors, and regard the fostering of international recognition for long song as an

39 important priority (Tuvshinjargal IN; Sarantuya IN; Delgermaa IN; Batmend IN; Dorjdavga IN; Dashtsermaa IN; Byambajargal IN; Bayarerdene IN; Erkhembayar IN). It is not surprising, then, that President Bagabandi later refers to long song as the “calling card of the Mongolian nation” (UNESCO 2004, 48). The term “nomadic civilization” implies synchronous aspects of continuity and change in Mongolian culture. In the case of long song, preservation and respect for the past practices and aesthetics goes hand in hand with contemporary standardizations and additions. Mongolian speakers variously represent long song tradition as “classical” (songomol),12 “traditional” (ulamjlal),13 “folk” (ardin), and “national” (undesnii). In using these terms, members of the long song community describe different aspects of the same tradition. Long song as a “classical” or “national” art exhibits a high degree of development or modernism.14 Long song as a “traditional” or “folk” art signifies “ancient” roots of cultural authenticity (Badraa 1998; Pegg 2001, 281; Bayarerdene IN; Batmend IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Jantsannorov IN). In the second part of the thesis, Chapters 3 through 5, we explore how concert long song musically performs, facilitates, and demonstrates the dual traditional/modern concept of “nomadic civilization” by examining the technique, performance practice, and aesthetics taught by Norvbanzad and espoused by contemporary long song singers. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss how the technique and performance practice of concert long song have taken in modern multi-musical influences such as formalized training and terminology in order to serve traditional Mongol aesthetics that center upon the landscape. Chapter 5 outlines how concert long song aesthetics grounded in nomadic expressive practices represent the Mongolian countryside through aural mimesis. Together, these chapters illuminate concert long song’s role in providing continuity with past Mongolian culture and in negotiating the myriad changes that continue to take place in contemporary Mongolia.

12 This word also means “choice, select, chosen” (Bawden 1997, 302). 13 A recent English-Mongolian dictionary cites “ulamjilal” as both the translation for “classical” and “traditional” (Altangerel 2002, 68, 532), reinforcing the notion of related-ness between the meanings for “classical” and “traditional” in the Mongolian language. 14 Jantsannorov (IN) defines a “classical” tradition as a skilled tradition originating from a unique landscape and culture which artists from other cultures wish to learn. By describing long song as “classical,” he places long song on par with other regionally-identified vocal arts categorized internationally as “classical,” such as Italian opera.

Fig. 12 Opening ceremony of the Ulaanbaatar Naadam, 2006. This photograph was taken at the opening ceremonies of the Mongolian national Naadam (annual festival of archery, wrestling, and horse-racing) at the Naadam stadium in Ulaanbaatar. Here, long song singers clearly perform within the context of a nationalized concept of “nomadic civilization.” The celebration makes definite connections with the time of Chinggis Kkan as befits “The 800th Anniversary of the Great Mongolian State.” In the foreground, horses reminiscent of the Chinggis Khan’s pull cart containing a representation of Chinggis Khan’s ger. Chinggis Khan’s legendary standards fly on both sides of the ger. On an upraised platform, fokloric dancers depict a popular imaging of a shamanic ritual while in the field members of the National Ballet perform a militaristic dance suggestive of Chinggis Khan’s army. 800 long song singers and 800 morin khuur players ring the stadium. The ceremony promotes popular history within a framework of Mongolian nationalism. It takes place in a large, modern stadium with many foreign tourists, and includes several advertisements for Mongolian and international businesses.

41 3. TECHNIQUE

Nergui (IN), a renowned concert long song singer and one of Norovbanzad’s first students, emphasizes that “mastering” long song is impossible. Being a professional long song singer, she says, requires a lifetime of practice and improvement. The journey is never complete. But she paradoxically asserts that Norovbanzad did master long song technique. For Nergui and others, then, Norovbanzad’s techniques and performance practice represents an artistic ideal, one toward which other long song singers can only aspire. Chapter 3 summarizes concepts of vocal talent, voice classification, range and registration, shurankhai, breathing, vocal exercises, and imagery epitomized and promoted by Norovbanzad and carried out by her students. Special emphasis will be placed on how these techniques encompass traditional and modern or Mongol and Western aspects. In the process, the chapter will illustrate how concert long song singers use formalized concert techniques to support distinctively Mongol aesthetic principles.

THE LONG SONG INSTRUMENT The basic conception of the voice as long song instrument finds its source in Mongol, rather than Russian, influences. For the singers interviewed, long song ability derives from over 800 years of Mongol nomadic customs that focus upon the landscape. Following Norovbanzad, later singers emphasize that the prerequisite for technical proficiency is natural ability, and long song singing requires particular attributes in a singer. Many feel that these attributes are rare gifts and that even among Mongolian singers, cannot be taught (Batmend IN; Chimedtseye IN; Nergui IN; Erkhembayar IN, Bayarerdene IN). Long song singers link long song capability to life experience in the Mongolian countryside. For instance, Chimedtseye (IN) connects the precious long song talent with a divine, shamanic source. Singers, she says, “have a special destiny from the sky.” According to Chimedtseye, no foreigner could ever be able to sing long song like a Mongolian singer. She believes that someone not raised in Mongolian culture is only

42 capable of learning one song thoroughly. A foreigner’s ability to learn this song is contingent upon experiencing nomadic living in a full four-season cycle. She does not distinguish between expressive or technical ability in this regard. Sarantuya (IN), like most long song singers, considers long song ability to be a uniquely Mongol gift. She places this talent on an equal footing with Western “classical” vocal genre, opera. She specifically mentions that Mongolian long song and Western opera require a similar amount of strength: Everyone cannot sing long songs, especially aizam long song. I have a voice with which I can sing aizam long song. Aizam long song requires a very powerful voice and powerful body. Someone who is very tiny cannot make a very powerful voice. Usually long song and opera singers are people with big bodies.

Her statement is intriguing in that it shows both her exposure to a common stereotype of operatic talent and her appropriation of that stereotype to express her pride in long song’s technical demands. The perceived similarity in body types in opera and long song reinforces my speculation that Norovbanzad and other female professional long song singers possess vocal instruments similar to Western dramatic sopranos. Like an archetypal dramatic soprano, an ideal female long song singer posseses a strong physical instrument, rich chest voice, and a wide, powerful range. However, singers take care to differentiate between Mongolian long song and Western operatic technique (Dashtsermaa IN; Nergui IN; Khongorzul IN). In the end, since operatic singing is highly regarded in Mongolian high arts culture, comparing long song singers to opera singers, serves to express pride in the vocal power of Mongolia’s long song.

VOICE CLASSIFICATION Norovbanzad taught concepts of voice classification that mingled Western vocal terminology and Mongolian vocal aesthetics. Altantsetseg (IN), one of her later students, supports this idea: Most long song singers have soprano voices, because the most beautiful part of a long song is the high notes. So, teachers are interested in taking soprano long song singers. I had a particular kind of experience, being an alto in the long song repertory. Now in the university they have more and more altos. Before, Norovbanzad was an alto, and I really like Sharkhukhuun [a contemporary of Norovbanzad’s, still living] because

43 even though she is soprano she has this beautiful voice like a man’s voice. When she is singing it is just like she is standing on a mountain.

Altantsetseg, like other long song singers (also Khongorzul IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Dorjdavga IN), freely uses Western vocal classifications like soprano and alto, but her usage of the terms reflects a Mongol vocal aesthetic rather than a Western one. She demonstrates the difference when she evaluates Sharkhukhun’s tone quality by comparing it to an idealized conception of a male herder’s voice. Her preference for darker, male-associated tone quality, suggests long song’s starting place in pre-Soviet nomadic celebrations when men mostly sang aizam long songs, now the central repertory in concert long song. Furthermore, Altantsetseg pays Sharkhukhun a high compliment by saying that Sharkhukhun’s vocal quality gives the feeling that the performances take place on a mountain rather than in a concert hall. As will be discussed later, transporting the singer and listener from the concert hall to an imagined Mongolian countryside is an important expressive goal for long song singers. Thus, Mongolian long song singers appropriate and adjust Western vocal terminology to suit Mongol vocal aesthetics.

RANGE AND REGISTRATION The methodology for expanding vocal range that Norovbanzad employed in her teaching of members of the National Ensemble and at the University of Arts and Culture made it possible for more contemporary female vocalists to take the stage as professional concert long song singers. Traditionally, men sang aizam long songs. With their falsetto voices, they had the necessary range of two and half octaves to sing these these wide- ranging songs. To achieve the rich, dark tonality associated with male singing, and to expand her range to three octaves, Norovbanzad and her teacher, Dorjdavga, enhanced her lower, chest voice and brought out a powerful head voice on top of this strong foundation. The curriculum Norovbanzad devised for the long song course at the University of Arts and Culture follows this chest-to-head manner of expanding vocal range. Today, students learn long songs in three levels of difficulty, classified according to range and ornamentation style in a five-year curriculum. In their first year, students sing besreg duu, chest-dominated songs of a limited range. Students learn songs with an intermediate

44 range and ornamentation (sumin duu) their second year. During the final two years students study the wide-ranging aizam duu (Chuluuntsetseg IN; Batmend IN). The predominance of the chest voice during this process of range expansion, combined with the strong physicality of many long song singers, leads to extremely powerful vocal production.15 Among female singers, this kind of vocal production works best for those singers who, like Norovbanzad, naturally possess both rich, low tones, and a strong high register. The vocal demands of long song are such that some singers find it difficult to maintain their range throughout their career (Altantsetseg IN; Tumenjargal IN). Some singers refrain from singing other genres in order to avoid practicing undesired vocal habits (Nergui IN; Chimedtseye IN; Altantsetseg IN). The inclusion of women in a traditionally male genre and the inculcation of technique in a gradated university curriculum show the influence of modern social and educational priorities among contemporary singers. At the same time, the darker tone quality favored by Norovbanzad and her students shows how Mongol vocal aesthetics shape concert long song singers’ concepts of range and registration.

SHURANKHAI Shurankhai vocal effects were a part of regional long song traditions prior to the advent of the concert genre. Shurankhai technique underwent some changes when transferred from the ger to the stage. Still, shurankhai can be viewed as an innovation in the use of head voice produced in the context of Mongol aesthetics, and are therefore thought of as important markers of long song’s Mongol identity. During the twentieth century, the definition of shurankhai has encompassed changes due to modern influences. English speakers often translate shurankhai as falsetto passages in long song (Bawden 1994, 550). In the context of contemporary practices, this approximation only partially explains shurankhai. The Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music and Musicians defines falsetto as follows: The male voice above its normal range, the latter usually called full or chest voice. It entails a special method of voice production that is frequently used by tenors to extend the upper limits of their range…The

15 Erkhembayar (IN) emphatically maintains, however, that long song singing should not be screaming.

45 falsetto voice has a distinctly lighter quality and is less powerful than the full voice (Randel 1999, 211)

The above definition cites three particular aspects of falsetto that differ from shurankhai in concert long song. 1) Falsetto is produced by male voice only; 2) Falsetto is used to extend singers’ ranges beyond the range of their full voices; and 3) Falsetto is characterized by a “lighter” sound. Falsetto would be a better translation for shurankhai prior to women’s performance of aizam long song. In concert long song, Norovbanzad and other female long song singers have been noted for their skilled performances. While the customarily high tessitura of shurankhai is beyond the range of men’s full voices, it is not beyond the range of women’s full voices. Although women’s shurankhai has a floating, soft quality, the tessitura of shurankhai is located within a more comfortable range for women, and their shurankhai contains a stronger core of sound than their male counterparts. Women’s shurankhai has brought about changes in the aural aesthetics of long song as a whole, especially in terms of a higher dynamic level. In fact, Norovbanzad’s teacher, Dorjdavga, and other male musicians have criticized women long song singers for singing too loudly (Jantsannorov IN; Erkhembayar IN). While part of this perceived higher volume may be due to the commercial success of showy, powerful performances, this “loudness” may, in fact, have originated in the physical differences between the sexes. Women’s voices emphasize higher partials and often have greater carrying power resulting from higher frequencies. Shurankhai takes place in the most resonant part of female long song singers’ voices. Therefore, when women sing shurankhai (or in their higher range in general), audiences perceive a higher decibel level. In concert long song, shurankhai is the sustained use of pure head voice by both women and men. The preferred timbral effect of shurankhai derives from the male falsetto, but is created differently by men and women singers. Consequently, shurankhai may include ringing female tone qualities or lighter male tone qualities. Shurankhai serves a specific formal function in concert long song. Before the twentieth century, long songs did not have a finite, planned structure. The number of verses varied and singers improvised shurankhai and other vocal effects within open- ended performances. Nakagawa notes that shurankhai plays a unique role within the

46 structure of contemporary long songs. “Shurankhai generally appear twice or three times in the second half of an urtiin duu and consists of sustained notes. The emotional expression of a song reaches its height within the shurankhai” (1980, 153). The emotional arc that Nakagawa describes clearly happens in a finite, planned performance, and must therefore denote a new function for shurankhai among more structured concert hall performances. In concert long song, a singer’s skill in shurankhai indicates a level of technical virtuosity, and singers articulate a number of standards of shurankhai vocal production. Like Norovbanzad, singers enhance their lower octaves to provide a foundation for sustaining the voice in a higher tessitura (Sarantuya IN). Shurankhai singing highlights not only the difficulty of singing in a high range, but also the importance of a smooth, quick transition from louder singing in a lower tessitura to soft singing in a higher tessitura (Nergui IN; Dashtsermaa IN). To traverse these abrupt tessitura and dynamic changes, proper breathing technique must be maintained. If a singer does not manage his or her breath, an educated listener will be able to discern that the singer is not producing shurankhai correctly (Altantsetseg IN). Shurankhai, a Mongol-identified vocal effect, receives a central place in the expression of concert long song and has been restructured as a feat of technical virtuosity in the concert hall. In this manner, singing shurankhai enacts a dual purpose of incorporating modernist concert-hall priorities and enhancing Mongolianness in music.

“LONG SONG IS THE ART OF BREATH” 16 The derivation of long song breathing techniques is harder to examine because breath management comprises a fundamental aspect of many vocal traditions. Long song professionals characterize breathing as a basic technical challenge (Enkhbat IN; Sarantuya IN; Nergui IN; Dorjdavga IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Byambjargal IN; Bayarerdene IN) and attest that Norovbanzad often focused on breathing during lessons (Nergui IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN). My teacher, Khongorzul began my lessons with a basic breathing exercise. Starting with an open posture with my shoulders and back relaxed and feet slightly apart, I would expel any excess breath, take a deep, low breath and then let

16 (Sarantuya IN)

47 out a steady stream of air as slowly and consistently as possible. This fundamental breath exercise mirrors those I have undertaken in lessons in the United States. The similarity could mean that certain basic breathing ideas are basic to any type of skilled singing, but could also indicate the influence of Russian operatic training on concert long song pedagogy. The method for finding appropriate breathing places during performance also brings to mind a similar practice in European-derived vocal training. In long song, as in operatic training, selecting the place and the correct type of breath maintains textual and musical meaning. For instance, the basic structure of many long song phrases begins with the declamation of a portion of text followed by a flowing vocable extension. Sometimes when the musical phrase is finished, the textual phrase has not finished. In these cases, the singer takes a “hidden” breath between musical phrases to avoid interrupting the flow of the textual meaning. A singer may take an “open” breath when the end of a musical phrase coincides with the end of a textual phrase (Dorjdavga, in Badraa 2005, 46-56; Dorjdavga IN).17 Long song singers’ approaches to selecting where and how to breathe according to textual priorities parallels the relationship between large and “catch” breaths in Western vocal training.

VOCAL EXERCISES The routine of completing daily vocal exercises derives from systematic instruction within the National Ensemble and the University of Culture and Arts.18 By far the most common vocal exercise among professional long song singers is ukhai. The exercise known as ukhai comes from a wordless praise melody called ukhai that accompanies archery competitions (Pegg 2001, 223-226). According to Altantsetseg (IN), the ukhai exercise for professional long song originated with Norovbanzad’s teacher, Dorjdavga (see also Dorjdavga in Badraa 2005, 310-319). Norovbanzad, in turn, disseminated a standardized version of the exercise in which the teacher accompanies the student on the piano with harmonies of either fifths or minor triads while the student

17 The previous double citation includes a printed resource in which Dorjdavga, the renowned vocal teacher and singer explains this concept, and an interview I had with a University of Culture and Arts long song student named Dorjdavga. 18 Dondov, a herder, was the only singer to say that he did not use vocal exercises. He said that he conditioned his voice by living a healthy countryside lifestyle.

48 sings. Starting at the bottom of his or her range, the singer sings the uniform ukhai melody ascending by half steps to the top of the singer’s range. The teacher sings the melody with the student until the student is confident enough to sing the exercise correctly on their own (TRACK 5; See Appendix B on p. 102). A composite of urtiin duu technique, ukhai conditions and expands long song singers’ ability in breath management, range, ornamentation, tone placement, vowel clarity, and mouth formation (Altantsetseg IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN). Besides ukhai, vocal exercise takes the form of daily practice of the standard repertory and/or practice with a morin khuurch (morin khuur player). Long song singers may sing besreg duu rather than aizam duu at half voice to keep in shape without fatiguing their instruments (Tumenjargal IN). Although regular vocal exercise arose in conjunction with the organization of music education institutions in the second half of the twentieth century, the exercise of ukhai and other types of vocal excercises transmit a multi-musical sense of Mongolianness. On the one hand, Western music resources like the piano and the chromatic scale are used as tools in shaping concert long song technique. On the other hand, ukhai comes from and transmits a uniquely Mongolian vocal tradition.

IMAGERY Long song’s beginnings in rural nair are evident in the kinds of images Norovbanzad drew upon to facilitate technical proficiency in her students. Sarantuya (IN) recalls how Norovbanzad linked the topography of the Mongolian countryside with long song contour. When I first came from the countryside, I had to sing the song named Budarch Kharagdakh Khangai, the song with which I won the competition and entered into the [State] ensemble as a singer. This song starts from the lowest octave and then goes to the highest. My teacher asked me to imagine climbing a mountain to the peak and then descending. But first I could not imagine this view because I grew up on the steppe with no mountains.

Sarantuya does not question the efficacy of locating matters of vocal technique in the landscape. Rather, she explains her difficulty with the imagery as resulting from the fact that she came from an area of Mongolia that did not have mountains. Sarantuya

49 implicitly suggests that if she had grown up near mountains, then images of them would have had technical efficacy during her lessons.

Summary of Technique Long song vocal techniques, as transmitted by Norovbanzad, retain their conceptual and performative root in nomadic Mongol culture, despite the admittance of modernist concepts. Singers conceive of long song talent as a natural ability connected with Mongolian life cycle and spiritual connections to the landscape. The forefronting of physical strength among long song singers, while comparing to notions of body type in Western opera, asserts Mongolian pride in the power of long song. The appropriation of the Western terminology for voice classification serves a Mongol aesthetic emphasizing darker, male-based tone quality. Codified methods reference this culturally idealized tone when expanding women and men’s ranges within educational institutions. Frequently performed by women and occupying an expressive high point within a planned musical form, the Mongol vocal effect shurankhai nontheless remains an important aural component in the aesthetic identity of long song. Breathing continues to be a foundational concert long song technique regardless of whether aspects of the technique have been borrowed from other traditions. Vocal exercises use Western techniques to encourage Mongolian vocal standards. Moreover, visualizing the Mongolian landscape assists in the acquisition of long song technique during long song training.

50 4. PERFORMANCE PRACTICE

The performance practice of long song underwent many transformations in the process of transferring long song from the rural nair to the concert stage. Within these transformations, modernist and traditional and Mongolian and Western aspects converge and assist in the goal of preserving, transmitting, and elevating the genre. Chapter 4 looks at how the borrowing of Western educational and concert practices combine with Mongol practices and aesthetics in ornamentation, repertory, transmission, notation, variation, and accompaniment to create a versatile vocal Mongolianness.

CHIMEGLEL

In the spring, when the sheep gave birth, sometimes my grandmother would sing to the ewes so that they would accept their lambs… I listened to my grandmother sing, and then when I was on a horse, I would try to sing. At that time, I did not have the technique [of ornamentation] in my throat. I tried many different ways to do it until one day when I was teaching my [kindergarten] students two songs, and I learned the ornamentation just like that…It took me a very long time, but I listened to my grandmother, and tried to do the same… I would like to tell you something very interesting. What I would try to do is that I would imitate a little lamb or kid. I found out that while trying to imitate that kind of sound you can actually get the ornamentation of long song (Erdenetsetseg IN) (TRACK 6).

Erdentsetseg’s story illustrates the unique process by which she learned long song’s difficult melodic ornamentation. Unlike many professional concert singers, Erdentsetseg did not study with Norovbanzad or one of her contemporaries. Her narrative shows that learning long song ornamentation in a rural setting requires consistent listening, practice, and feedback, and reinforces the role that wordless melodies such as toig, gingoo, and ukhai have played in the rural soundscape within which long song ornamentation derived. (Pegg 2001, 225; Marsh 2002, 271). Chimeglel denotes the aesthetic concept of ornamentation in long song. Literally translated as “ornamentation,” “decoration,” or “embellishment,” chimeglel appears in print sources on Mongolian long song, language, and music terminology (Pegg 2001, 47;

51 Bawden 1997, 525; Jantsannorov, n.d., 135).19 Long song ornamentation comes out of a nomadic expressive culture that elevates the functional and the portable through vivid embellishment. The process of ornamentation is therefore a central aspect of long song aesthetic expression. Below are some examples of Mongol ornamental motives that appear on gers, clothing, and furniture.

Fig. 13 Common Mongol ornaments. Like vocal chimeglel, these motives are stylized patterns taken from nomadic lifeways (www.face-music.ch/bi_ bid/historyofart.html, accessed 10 June 2007). For instance, the symbols on the left and right corner of the top row indicate a Central Asian animal or horn pattern. The middle ornament of the row directly below is the ulzii, a symbol signifying long life (Thrift 2001, 51).

In addition to the ornamentation of traditional housing, dress, and furniture, the concept of ornamentation emerges in contemporary Mongolian naming systems. For instance, the root word “chimeg” (ornament) is a common component in Mongolian women’s names, such as that of the Mongolian ethnomusicologist Erdenechimeg. Her name can be broken down into the two words “erdene” (jewel) and “chimeg.” Like other types of Mongol ornamentation, long song chimeglel creates a distinctive expressive palette. Types of ornamentation include appoggiaturas, short

19 At present, it cannot be determined 1) how widely long song singers use this term; and 2) whether this term was created as a translation of or a response to Russian musical terms. In fact, a recent dictionary of long song terminology contains no listing for chimeglel. Another term for ornamentation, “nugalaa” has been mentioned in three sources as “fioritura,” “coloratura, melisma,” and “one type of chimeglel” respectively (UNESCO 2004, 14; Bawden 1997, 241; Jantsannorov 2006, 43). Chimeglel seems the more inclusive and wide-spread of the terms.

52 independent notes, figures of two or more notes, gulsuulax (portamenti), amsgaliin xudulguun (vibrato using an aspiratory movement), tuvuungiin xudulguun (trilled glottal movement), also known as togshilt,20 bundsgunux xudulguun (trilled vibratory movement), and shurankhai (Nakagawa 1980, 152). Each singer builds his or her own repertory of chimeglel from among these and other types of ornamentation, according to the unique qualities of his or her own voice and the expressive demands of the text (Erkhembayar IN; Erdenetsetseg IN). Choosing, interpreting, and producing chimeglel is a significant way for long song singers to create their vocal identities. Singers’ vocal production of chimeglel is highly individual and encompasses a variety of concepts. In contrast to Erdenetsetseg’s portrait of careful study in the countryside, a few singers construe long song chimeglel as a unique, inherited ability that cannot be taught. From this perspective, the singer knows instinctively which decorations to use according to the expressive needs of the phrase (Bayarerdene IN Batmend IN). Most other singers avow more deliberate methods of decorating long song. Nergui (IN) records and analyzes her performances and makes changes in ornamentation according to her analysis. Singers who learned long song ornamentation at the University of Culture and Arts say that daily practice, codified procedures, and text analysis are necessary in order to choose and execute embellishments correctly (Tumenjargal IN; Dorjdavga IN). Chimedtseye (IN) asserts that the correct approach to creating long song melismas employs a sense of integrity. She implies that her approach to creating melismas has changed over time, from a showier and less organic approach, to one that is more faithful to the original expressive aims of each long song.

TRANSMISSION AND NOTATION Norovbanzad’s use of recorded media in voice lessons constitutes the culmination of a twentieth-century transition in long song transmission from a person-to- person transmission processes to a cassette-to-person transmission process. Prior to the twentieth century, long song singers learned long song by living and studying with a master teacher in his ger (UNESCO 2004, 22). In in transmission, as in other aspects of

20 Literally “knocking or tapping” (Bawden 1997, 341).

53 long song performance practice, the introduction of modern educational and national priorities profoundly altered the process. Besides learning their songs directly from their teacher, Norovbanzad’s students listened to many recordings of famous singers. After a student learned a song from a cassette, Norovbanzad checked them for accuracy (Erkhembayar IN). Standard practices, such as those outlined in this chapter, soon emerged. Various forms of notation have been applied to long song, but in Ulaanbaatar’s long song community, notation is used primarily for historical research or codification, rather than transmission (Norovbanzad 2000; Badraa 2005; Tuyatsetseg 2006; Jantsannorov 2005; Oyuntsetseg 2006). Instances of written notation and recording technology aside, the important method of transmission for long song singers remains teacher demonstration, albeit greatly assisted by cassette recordings. The ability to memorize songs quickly from recordings constitutes an important skill that is initiated at the University of Culture and Arts and honed throughout singers’ careers.

REPERTORY The standard repertory of concert long song combines regional long song styles, and transmission within formal institutions of education. Today, most concert long song singers have repertories of between 40 and 50 songs (Altantsetseg IN; UNESCO 2004, 21). This repertory reflects a predominance of the Central Khalkha and Borjigon regional styles and is mostly acquired during training at the University of Culture and Arts. Professional singers continue to flesh out their repertories throughout their careers (Tumenjargal IN; Altantsetseg IN; Nergui IN; Erdentsetseg IN). Although long songs in anthologies often list several textual verses, it is customary for singers to sing one verse in the concert hall. One source maintains that because of this performance practice, many contemporary concert long song singers only know one verse of every song (UNESCO 2004, 21). Within these larger repertories, most singers have a subset of between four and six songs that are considered “their” songs. Singers acquire these signature songs through years of study. Interviewees’ core repertories display a predominance of Central Khalkha and Borjigon songs. Five of Norovbanzad’s female students cited core repertories very

54 similar to that of Norovbanzad, including songs such as “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” “Kherlingiin Baria,” “Seruun Saikhan Khangai,” “Domon,” and “Budarch Karandakh Khangai” (Dashstermaa IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN; Sarantuya IN; Nergui IN; Byambajargal IN). All five of these songs appear in Norovbanzad’s anthology, Taliin Morni Duu (Songs of the Steppe Horsemen). Men’s repertories also show a concentration of Central Khalkha or Borjigon songs (Bayarerdene IN; Dorjdavga IN). Singers sing favorite songs outside the common Central Khalkha and Borjigon repertory, especially if the songs come from their home region. Dorjdavga (IN), Bayarerdene (IN), and Erkhembayar (IN) are partial to Western regional songs such as “Erdene Sekhiin Unaga” (TRACK 10), “Khuren Tolga,” and “Khoshuud Tsagaan Nutag” (TRACK 7). Chimedtseye is known for “Jakhan Sharga,” a long song from her homeland in southeast Mongolia. Batmend (IN) enjoys singing “Tsombon Tuuraitai Khuren,” a song from his homeland in the Khangai Mountains (TRACK 8). While these artists perform Central Khalkha aizam duu beautifully during performances and competitions, they select songs from their homelands to convey their enthusiasm for singing long song.

GUTGELEG AND LONG SONG VARIATION As described above, Norovbanzad taught repertory primarily through the combination of cassette recordings and oral/aural transmission. What effect this processural alteration has had on the tradition of long song as a whole cannot be quantified. In the area of long song variation, however, a clear change has taken place in the manner and degree to which long songs vary from performance to performance and singer to singer. Since singers memorize long song from a common pool of recordings, fewer variations occur between long song performances. An examination of previous processes of variation will help to shed light on the cultural values that shape contemporary long song variation. The traditional process of variation in long song is called gutgeleg (Jantsannorov 2005, 22-25). Gutgeleg is a process of variation in which each person adds something new to a long song every time the song is performed in order “to make it more beautiful” (Dorjdavga IN). The process of variation before the introduction of cassettes and radio broadcasts thus included a conscious process of reinterpretation and variation with each performance.

55 A much different process of variation occurs among the current generation of singers. Today’s singers do not employ gutgeleg anymore, preferring to perform difficult songs like “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” within structures standardized and disseminated by Norovbanzad and other professional long song singers (Dorjdavga IN). Singers’ reluctance to engage in gutgeleg may arise from either a lack of exposure to traditional processes of variation or the propagation of standard, classicized forms through the use of recorded media. While the current generation of professional long song singers may not participate in traditional gutgeleg as a part of their creative process, they acknowledge that variation is a major component of the artistry of long song singing, especially in relation to chimeglel. In fact, recording technology can assist in a different process of variation. For example, Nergui (IN) records her own performances, analyzes the recordings at home, and then decides which ornaments to add or subtract during her next performance. Her process of variation, while relying upon memorization and planning, structurally bears some resemblance to gutgeleg, in that each of her long song performances includes new expressive additions unique to her interpretation of the song. Other singers espouse individualized notions of variation based upon their experiences within the context of concert hall performances. Altantsetseg (IN) comments that she makes alterations to her repertory and manner of performance by observing and learning from the strengths and weaknesses in other long song singers’ performances. In addition, she maintains that the emotional context of the song necessitates a different interpretation. Erkhembayar (IN) denies that there is any variation between his performances. He maintains, however, that since every voice has its own range and particularities, long song performances vary from singer to singer.

56 THE MORIN KHUUR AND LONG SONG ACCOMPANIMENT

Fig. 14 A young morin khuurch performs during a folkloric performance at the Temple of the Chojin Lama, Ulaanbaatar, 2006.

The morin khuur and the long song are connected. They are like one. When Mongolians hear long songs, it is like we can hear the morin khuur, and when we listen to the morin khuur, it is like we can hear long song (Nergui IN).

As Nergui suggests above, professional long song singers closely associate long song with the morin khuur, the customary accompanying instrument for concert long song. My observations strongly reinforce this perceived connection. In the summer of 2006, I can recall only two instances of a long song being accompanied by an instrument other than the morin khuur. The morin khuur, “horse head fiddle,” has a history firmly established role within Mongolian national symbolism. Shamanic beliefs among Eastern Khalkha communities attribute to the morin khuur the ability to speak a divine language of the animals and natural forces (Marsh 2002, 45).21 During the twentieth century, the instrument underwent a process of nationalization and standardization analogous to that of long

21 In Western Mongolian traditions, the two-stringed fiddle, called the ikil, is a more common accompanying instrument (ibid.; Pegg 2001, 12-13).

57 song. In the late 1960s, instrument makers redesigned several aspects of the morin khuur including the replacement of the customary hide face with a wooden face similar to European viols, the addition of European violincello bridges, the refinement of the lacquering process, and the insertion of f-holes. Professional morin khuur players preferred the newly-designed morin khuur for its ability to project sound and to hold its tuning (ibid., 91-92). In the process, the morin khuur, like long song became restructured to take its place on the concert stage. The relationship between the urtiin duuch (long song singer) and morin khuurch (horse-head fiddle player) plays a central role in the musical relationship between a long song and its morin khuur accompaniment. Because long song singers consider long song and the morin khuur to be “one,” they acknowledge the importance of creating strong creative partnerships with specific morin khuur players (Batmend IN; Sarantuya IN; Nergui IN; Erkhembayar IN). Ideally, long song singers and morin khuurches rehearse or perform together regularly. Finding a morin khuurch who enjoys long song accompaniment and supports the singer adequately is difficult (Erdentsetseg IN; Sarantuya IN; Erkhembayar IN). Norovbanzad reputedly turned away several morin khuurch as unsatisfactory (Sarantuya IN). A strong morin khuurch supports the singer during rehearsal and performance (Sarantuya IN; Bayarerdene IN; Tumenjargal IN; Erdentsetseg IN). The morin khuurch finds the best key and range for the singer, plays the singer’s first pitch, anticipates large leaps, and responds to the singer’s ornamentation (Tumenjargal IN; Erdentsetseg IN; Dorjdavga IN; Bayarerdene IN). The morin khuur plays the melody of the song in the same octave as and slightly later than the singer, (Nergui IN; Bayarerdene IN; Sarantuya IN; Dorjdavga IN; Erdentsetseg IN), constructing an out-of-phase heterophony similar to William Malm’s description of the “sliding door” effect produced during the performance of Japanese traditional music (2000, 60). Malm describes this effect in relationship to flute melody and drum accompaniment. Both the flute and drums are playing phrases of eight-beat lengths but, like Japanese sliding doors (fusuma) of equal length, when used they may not begin at the same place…. [Y]ou will feel the tension created by this deliberate out-of-phase timing. It is an important factor in giving the music a strong sense of moving forward.

58 In long song, it is not an eight-beat cycle that is the basis for the out-of-phase relationship, but the vocalists’ semi-improvised melody. The morin khuur plays the vocalist’s melody slightly later than the vocalist creating a kind of cannon without meter or defined patterns of imitation. This interwoven heterophony produces simultaneous interrelationship and contrast between the urtiin duuch and morin khuurch, and assists in the open-ended, flowing momentum of long song. Because the morin khuur mostly follows the singer, a clever morin khuurch may be able to improvise an accompaniment for a long song he or she does not know by following the singer’s melody and accessing their knowledge of the basic contours of long song melodies and pentatonic scales. Dorjdavga (IN) recounts an interaction between him and his morin khuurch during competition. I did not have time to prepare the first song, so I went to my morin khuurch… And he just said, “There is this kind of pentatonic mode. There is this kind of music, and let’s just go.” Actually, we were pretty successful and went to the second round. For the second round, and the second song, we just met each other very early in the morning and [ran through the song] a couple of times.

A good morin khuur accompanist, however, must know the long song repertory in order to provide responsive and supportive accompaniment for the singer and to create a cohesive artistic whole (Erkhembayar IN; Erdenetsetseg IN; Nergui IN). If the morin khuurch does not know the song before playing with a long song singer, he or she ends up merely following the singer and improvising on a pentatonic scale and is therefore unable to support the singer with appropriate transitional pitches or to respond and add to the singer’s expressive nuances and ornamentation. Some morin khuurch players, remarks Erdentsetseg (IN), “think playing urtiin duu is like a copying machine, but it is not.” While the morin khuur has become synonomous with long song accompaniment inside the concert hall, observations indicate that other practices prevail outside the concert hall. In a national long song competition in honor of Norovbanzad that included student, amateur, and professional singers, about four or five out of the approximately seventy competitors displayed singing styles and interactions with the morin khuurch that differed significantly from the practices disseminated by Norovbanzad. Two of the

59 singers were from the Western region and displayed the characteristically broad, sweeping intervals associated with that area of Mongolia, and the others appeared to be herders, by their dress of a brown goilin deel (dress robe). The singers and their professional morin khuurches showed entirely different conceptions of temporal organization and tonal centering. Each singer had a markedly idiosyncratic musical structure and pitch conception that did not cohere with the standardized tuning and style of the professional morin khuur. While I found myself wishing I could hear these singers in their accustomed contexts, their singing was an intriguing contrast to the standardized practices of concert long song.

Fig. 15 Urtiin duuch and herder, Dondov, Ulaanbaatar 2006. Dressed in his brown goilin deel, Dondov waits in the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre before a long song competition in honor of Norovbanzad.

PERFORMING MONGOLIANNESS Despite the ubiquity of the single morin khuur in solo long song, other types of instrumentation may be found alongside long song performances on concert hall stages. In these contexts, long song becomes a marker of Mongolianness. Long song singers regularly perform with The Morin Khuur Ensemble, a professional folkloric orchestra based in Ulaanbaatar that uses morin khuur to create orchestra sections similar to the

60 violin, viola, cello, and bass sections in a European orchestra. Other sections of the orchestra are fleshed out with other traditional instruments. This ensemble, created since the transition, doubly performs a sense of Mongolianness. First, by focusing upon the culturally evocative morin khuur and second, by having long song singers in full traditional costume perform with the ensemble. Long song often serves as the aural manifestation of historical Mongolianness within contemporary music groups. In this context, the mixture of long song with modern instruments of Western/ international popular music (e.g. electric guitar, drumset) emphasizes contemporary Mongolianness. Norovbanzad herself participated in this Western/Monoglian popular music projects. She sang long song along with the Chinggis Khan rock band (Norovbanzad 1997, xii). In a video of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” Norovbanzad’s voice is accompanied by synthesizer and orchestral sounds as audience members watch scenes of the sun rising in the Mongolian countryside. Contemporary long song singers continue to lend Mongolian identity to syncretic Mongolian. Altantsetseg (IN) incorporates long song into her participation with the award-winning hard rock group Khar Chono (Black Wolf). Erdentsetseg (IN) cultivates a unique approach to the long song tradition. As a member of the folk rock band Altan Urag (Golden Lineage), she tries various long song accompaniments such as digital samples of galloping of horses and African drums. While encompassing Western instrumentation and technology, these artists and groups share a clear aim of forwarding Mongolian history and symbolism. The groups’ names are a case in point. The black wolf is an animal symbol for Chinggis Khan and the name “Golden Lineage” emphasizes the importance of the family line in Mongol culture and the lineage of Chinggis Khan.

Fig. 16 Flyer depicting the court scene from Chinggis Khan Rock Opera at the Cultural Palace in Ulaanbaatar, 2006. Two long song singers in long white robes and tall headdresses flank Chinggis Khan’s throne. Long song blends with a modern representation of Mongolian history. The music of the opera combines orchestral accompaniment, a rock band, and long song, throat singing, opera, and popular vocals. Modern costumes feature contemporary images of Chinggis Khan, and the National Ballet perform energetic and militaristic ensemble numbers. The logo for “The 800th Anniversary of the Great Mongolian State” reinforces a sense of modern Mongolianness derived from popular history and modern technology and dramatic values. The opera was a collaboration between the Military Folk Song and Dance Ensemble, the State Ballet, and the Black Wolf rock band.

Summary of Performance Practice

Performance practices of concert long song balance transmission within urban educational institutions with individual and regionally-based concepts of Mongolianness. Long song repertory has undergone standardization as a result of university training. Learning repertory from recordings continually fosters this process, and Western notation codifies well-known recordings. Singers learn a standard repertory of 40 to 50 mostly Central Khalkha and Borjigon songs in formal educational institutions. Their core professional repertories, especially among women singers, often include long songs associated with Norovbanzad. Long song singers, however, maintain strong ties to their birthplaces and maintain personal repertories made from their home regions. Although long song singers do not

62 use gutgeleg, the traditional process of continual long song variation, they espouse the importance of individual processes of variation. While the consistent presence of the morin khuur on the concert stage is a departure from individualistic practices of rural singers, the morin khuur itself is an enduring symbol of Mongolianness in Mongolian society. Chimeglel, long song ornamentation, is a crucial aspect of the artistry and expression of long song associated with the sounds of animals, as well as with larger concepts of “ornamentation” among Mongol nomadic arts and naming systems.

63 5. AESTHETICS

Fig. 17 The vast Mongolian landscape. Dundgov Aimag (Puntsagiin 2006, 42).

I was born in Arkhangai aimag in the village of Khartung. Actually, I was born exactly in the countryside because when it was time for me to be born, my mother was not ready yet. They waited for one month and suddenly she started to hurt. My mother and father lived about 50 kilometers from the village. My parents were going by horse to the hospital at the village of Khartung. All of a sudden the horse tumbled. My mother fell, and I was born…

There are nine siblings in my family. I’m the eighth one. Everybody in my family is a nomad and they take care of livestock. My father used to sing long songs very beautifully...

I knew how to sing gingoo. The first time I went to meet Norovbanzad, she asked me if I knew any long songs. I said, “No, but I know gingoo.” Norovbanzad said, “Why don’t you sing one for me?” and that is how I started (Altantsetseg IN).

Altantsetseg’s personal biography illustrates the close connection that still exists in long song culture between the nomadic life cycle and urban long song singers. Born during a horseback journey and raised as a herder, Altantsetseg represents her life in a way that suggests that rural experiences enabled her to become a professional, urban singer.

64 As this chapter will show, concert long song singers directly relate experiences with the Mongolian landscape to long song aesthetics. Long song singers carry out a process ethnomusicologist Theodore Levin calls sonic mimesis (2006). In long song expression, a spectrum of aural mimesis exists, ranging from the concrete to the abstract. Such sonic constructions include individualized experiences of birthplace or nutag, aural realizations of texts about the landscape, philosophical manifestations of shamanism, and nomadic regionalizations of time and space.

NUTAG Urtiin duuch view the expression of long songs as an extension of their personal regionalization of the landscape. These individual relationships, in turn, are tied to a specific, localized geography called nutag. Anthropologist Christopher Kaplonski explains: Nutag means most commonly “birthplace” or “homeland”; it can also mean “pasture-land” in a more physical, material sense… [Nutag is] a link to the land, a specific place, whether an aimag (province) or even a particular valley within the aimag (2004, 19).

Chimedtseye (IN) specifically connects long song to nutag: “The song and the singer are the same as the homeland.” Like Norovbanzad before them, nearly every concert long song singer who spoke with me came from the countryside. Most singers’ first experiences with singing occurred within a rural context. Nergui, one of Norovbanzad’s first students, and a famous singer in her own right, learned long songs from her father while they were tending sheep. Other singers also mention singing while tending sheep (Nergui IN; Tuvshinjargal IN; Erdentsetseg IN; Batmend IN; Dondov IN). A few singers remember singing songs with onomatopoeic melodies called “toig” to ewes to encourage them to accept their new-born lambs (Chuluuntsetseg IN; Dashtsermaa IN; Erdenetsetseg IN), addressing gingoo to their horses before races (Altantsetseg IN; Dashtsermaa IN; Chuluuntsetseg IN), and listening to long songs during rural festivals and domestic celebrations (Batmend IN; Sarantuya IN; Erdenetsetseg IN).

65 Long song singers map the topography of nutag onto the contours of long song:

Batmend: People who are born in the Khangai mountains [north-central Mongolia] tend to become long song singers. In my homeland, there are many big, high mountains.

Sarantuya: My homeland has a very big steppe with only one mountain. Also, there are a lot of festivals, Naadams, and a lot of airag. [Many] long song singers are born there.

Chimedtseye: People who grow in the steppe, they sing like the steppe, and when they grow in Khovgsol or the northern [part of Mongolia] they sing like the tall mountains (Chimedtseye IN).

Erkhembayar: In the Altai, the Western part of Mongolia [a well-known mountainous region], singers sing higher…If the country is large, then you need to use a larger voice.

Such direct instances of sonic mimesis indicate a larger web of meanings relating long song to the Mongolian singers’ concepts of place and signify a common association of landscape with Mongolian long song. The commonly accepted five regional styles of long song -- Eastern, Western, Central, Borjigon, and Bayaanbaarat -- branch out from ideas of nutag. Because of this association of long song style with a home region and birthplace, professional singers, despite, or perhaps because of, their professional training, maintain that herders sing the most beautifully (Altantsetseg IN). Nergui (IN) explains the differences she makes between professionalism and meaningful expression: Of course on the professional side, the students that study at the university, they have a teacher, and they learned all the techniques professionally, the breathing and the other ornaments and so on. But for expression, I believe that the herders and the nomads, the kids that grew up in the countryside, feel the song more, and sing it with more expression.

In fact, people advised me that in order to truly understand long song, I would have to stay a full year in the countryside living the nomadic lifestyle. Chimedtseye (IN) resolutely claims that foreigners are not able to sing long song as well as Mongolians because of diverse accents and vocal instruments. She nonetheless allows that foreigners who wanted to sing long song could learn one song if they spent time in the countryside learning the meaning of the song. In addition, she prefers teaching rural Mongolian

66 students to teaching urban Mongolian students. She thus links interaction with the Monoglian landscape to the ability to sing long song meaningfully. Urtiin duuch at least partially estimate other singers’ skill in expressing the meaning of long song by the extent of their proximity to the Mongolian landscape and nomadic lifeways. Proximity to nutag also figures into the idea that singers are better able to understand long song philosophy when they are older. “People can understand the meaning when they get older because their homelands become very close to their heart and soul,” says Sarantuya (IN).

Imagining Nutag Because texts evoke the central idea of singers’ connection to their homeland, singers maintain that technical aspects derive from text expression (Batmend IN; Altantsetseg IN; Erdenetsetseg IN). For singers, communicating emotions inspired by the text is achieved by imagining the landscape while singing. The following examples contain singers’ performance of one turleg (verse) from a favorite long song followed by an explanation of what he or she imagined while singing the song: Batmend: (He sings) My father used to sing this song a lot. First time, I learned this song, Tsombon Tuuraitai Khuren (Neat Brown Horse)… When singing, I feel like riding a horse in the steppe. After I sang one long song, I felt like I ascended and descended a very tall mountain (TRACK 8).

Dashtsermaa: All long songs have different meanings. Some of them are about lifestyles and animals. Some of them are about homeland and regional areas. Some of them are about love. So, singers must think about the meaning of the song while singing. For example, “Kherlingiin Baria” is a song about river Kherlin in the Khentii province. Also, about the beautiful mountains of Khentii. About missing siblings and loving people from a far distance. So, the singer must express all this feeling of missing and the beauty and also must use techniques of long song while singing. Recently in Khentii I sang Kherlingiin Baria so sincerely I got first place… (She sings) (TRACK 9).

Bayarerdene: (He sings) This song is from Zasagt Khan aimag. Especially Zavkhan, Gobi- Altai, a Western song. The song title is Erdene Sekhiin Unaga…The turleg that I sang is about a horse and mother. The next turleg is about a horse and a father (TRACK 10).

67 Chuluuntsetseg: Saruul Talbai (Spacious Field) (She sings)…This song is about flat and open steppe. [Sometimes] there might be some mires on the steppe. So, this song says to be careful of mires. This means that life is not always happy. People's lives are not a smooth road. There are some difficulties and problems….I express this feeling by my soul mimicking my eyes (TRACK 11).

Embodying Nutag Remarking that her soul “mimicks” her eyes, Chuluuntsetseg alludes to a a common aesthetic concept. From the singers’ points of view, showing the Mongolian countryside “in their eyes” is of utmost importance. As singers visualize images from the text, they locate the countryside inside their eyes and evoke in song what they visualize. The audience, in turn, experiences the Mongolian countryside as transmitted through long song singers’ eyes and songs. Singers and their songs become an embodiment of the countryside, placing themselves and their audiences in their constructed soundscape. Two of the singers’ explanations elaborate upon this central concept. Nergui: The most important part is the eyes. When you are singing you should see what you are singing. Like if you are singing about the rivers or the mountains you should absolutely see it in your eyes. That way, the song will come out perfectly. Nowadays the young singers, they are singing, but you can see from their eyes that they do not see what they sing. That they just think you should use a lot of force to sing the long song, but actually it is not that. You must imagine what you are singing.

Nergui says that she cannot see the countryside in the eyes of singers from the current, urbanized generation of long song singers. By saying this, she suggests that the strength of singers’ personification of the countryside and the sensitivity of their long song interpretations depend upon the degree to which they have lived the Mongol nomadic lifestyle. Sarantuya, who has toured and lived briefly in the United States, tells this story: Sarantuya: The first time I had to sing Kherlingen Baria, I did not know how Americans would react to long song. But, I sang this song seeing my country in my eyes. Countryside life, animals, were in my eyes. Like a picture. After singing, I received a lot of applause. Long song is very close to the Mongolian lifestyle. Newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post wrote about me. They wrote that after listening to Mongolian long song, it became easier to understand Mongolian people’s soul and how the Mongolian steppe is very big.

68 As the above account illustrates, Sarantuya believes that she communicated the Mongolian landscape to a foreign audience by the strength of her vision and embodiment of it. Because singers endeavor to depict the countryside through their eyes and song, physical gestures are limited (Tumenjargal IN). A concert long singer should stand with eyes straight and not change his or her facial expressions. He or she should be “calm, gentle, related with the countryside” (Altantsetseg IN; also Nergui IN; Byambajargal IN). Women, especially, should convey a modest and gentle manner (Nergui IN; Byambajargal IN). In terms of deportment, singers should stand up straight with their weight evenly distributed between their two feet (Tumenjargal IN; Erdenetsetseg IN). Women stand with their elbows bent and hands inside the sleeves of their deels, while men stand with their hands held behind their backs (Bayarerdene IN). The manner, especially when singing aizam urtin duu, should be respectful and balanced (Dorjdavga IN; Tumenjargal IN). According to Erdenetsetseg (IN), maintaining a restrained demeanor is difficult for young people to cultivate because they are so full of emotions and want to be more physically demonstrative and communicative towards the audience. Nergui (IN) remarks that stage deportment is generally the same for long song singers as for any other singer, but that since women wear Mongolian costumes they should “feel the humbleness of a Mongolian woman” and place their hands in the sleeves of their deels. Thus, she suggests that women’s conventional singing postures arose out of a combined objective of finding the best posture to assist in concert vocal performance while at the same time recognizing the symbolic importance of the traditional Mongolian costume and long song itself. In this way, singers’ costumes also serve as an embodiment of an idealized nomadic culture and evoke an imagined Mongolian landscape.

Fig. 18 (left) Erkhembayar sings in a competition honoring Norovbanzad. He stands with his hands behind his back as is customary for male concert long song singers. At the National Dramatic Theatre in Ulaanbaatar, 2006. He won fifth place for his performance.

Fig. 19 (right) Dashtsermaa sings in a competition with her hands folded demurely in the sleeves of her goilin deel in keeping with standard practices for female long song singers. In a competition honoring Norovbanzad, Ikh Gazrin Chuluu, Dundgov Aimag, 2006. Later that day, she received first prize.

TEXTS Sonic mimesis, as present in long song, has been examined as an aural expression of Mongolian conceptions of regional identities. Long song texts express these identities by directly referencing the landscape. Long song melodies, in turn, expand from these texts within an expressive framework grounded in sonic mimesis of the landscape. Textual structures must be considered in greater detail. Long song poetry, ingrained in the nomadic life cycle, is a lyrical form that expresses individuals’ relationships to natural surroundings, family, animals, and Mongolian historical heroes, and sometimes expresses shamanic or Buddhist philosophies or blessings. The language of long song is an archaic form of Mongolian (Khalkha) and is related to the language of Mongolian script. Poetic conventions of long song poetry include alliteration, parallelism, similes, syllabic patterns, and rhyming.

70 During performance, these types of structures can be difficult to discern because vocables often extend textual phrases. Nakagawa contends that because melismatic elements of urtiin duu are so pronounced, textual forms are de-emphasized in the overall structure of long songs. Words, he asserts, become truncated (1980, 150-51). Carole Pegg concurs, “In performance of the aizam long song, melodic complexity and melismatic skill takes precedence over textual clarity for both performer and audience” (2001, 45). Long song ornamentation often emphasizes the freer structure of vowels more than the more fixed structure of consonants. Although melismas de-emphasize the fixed structures of specific words or phrases, musical priorities do not override textual meaning in long song. In fact, musical choices in long song singing are often determined because of textual needs. Singers choose the type and placement of their breath according to both musical and textual reasons. Furthermore, textual ideas can govern large-scale musical structures of long songs, as in the Sunrise-Noon-Sunset structure of Norovbanzad’s “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World). Claiming that texts are de-emphasized in long songs, Nakagawa still observes that long song texts are understood by Mongolian listeners (Nakagawa 1980, 151). Furthermore, Mongolian long song singers emphasize the beauty of long song texts, and the importance of understanding and expressing the text while singing. From this perspective, vocable extensions onto words and phrases are emotional additions onto important words or phrases. Rather than truncating texts as Nakagawa suggests (ibid.), melodic syllables expand meaning.

META-TEXTS Finally, we move from the concrete level of nutag and song texts to the abstract level of meta-text. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a meta-text is “A text lying outside another text, especially one describing or elucidating another” (2007). My conception of meta-texts in long song comprises ideas and contexts that exist “outside” or circumscribe long songs, helping to describe” and “elucidate” them in the process. Meta- texts that commonly contextualize long song include a variety of animist and shamanic philosophies and nomadic concepts of space and time.

71 Long Song Philosophy Anthropologist Ole Bruun observes that there is “a philosophical trend in everyday life and the importance of ritualized speech” among present-day Mongol nomads (2006, 209). Long song texts, originally conceived within the context of ritualized speech, have a reflective quality linked with the patterns of nomadic life. Themes surrounding long song stem from a range of larger philosophies connected to the landscape (Here, “philosophy” means a system of beliefs guiding questions of existence, spirituality, and communal values). Common themes emerge in long song philosophy, among them communication with the divine, harmony of cosmic forces, and nomadic values of peace and respect. Animist philosophies underpin many long song poems. Each long song poem is a part of a wider tradition of animist Mongolian oral poetry. Throughout his book on decoding the meaning of oral poetry, linguist John Miles Foley calls the web of genres and language patterns surrounding oral poetry traditions “ecosystems” (2002). In an ecosystem of oral poetry, each poem or poetic tradition is created within and interacts with a living system of words, ideas, and performances. Long song lives in an animist ecosystem in which ritualized textual and musical expressions enable nomads to communicate in the ikh khel, the unspoken language of animals and divine entities (Pegg 2001, 235-238). Other songs within this musical ecosystem are toig, magtaal, ukhai, and gingoo. The music of West Mongolian fiddle, ikil, and the Eastern Khalkha morin khuur are instrumental parts of the ecosystem. Many aspects of long song derive from the genre’s place within an animist ecosystem. Chimedtseye (IN) contends that long song singers receive their destiny from the Sky, the father god of the Mongols. Vocable extensions, like toig, magtaal, ukhai, and gingoo, create wordless melodies that suggest the ikh khel. Some texts contain shamanic or Buddhist blessings. In addition, shurankhai’s place at the emotional high-point of long songs and has been characterized as the “living spirit” of the songs (UNESCO 2004, 26). Other long song philosophies inculcate spiritual values influenced by a mixture of shamanic and Buddhist ideals such as social harmony, peace, good fortune, patience, and respect (ibid., 13). Musical and textual aspects of long songs depict the harmony created by complementary male (arga) and female (bilig) cosmic principles (Bawden 1997, 24,

72 50). This balanced interrelationship of opposites inspires a balance of joy and gravity in the performance of long song, expressing a profound appreciation for life while at the same time maintaining a sense of peace and respect (UNESCO 2004, 14).22 Dondov (IN), a long song singer and herder, says that he sings long songs because their melodies are gentle and they educate people to love each other. Professional long song singers value long song philosophies (Chuluuntsetseg IN; Tuvshinjargal IN; Chimedtseye IN). Tuvshinjargal (IN), a professional long song singer, perceives in the spirit of long song a way to negotiate the rapid changes taking place in Mongolian society. “Nowadays everything is developing quickly - computers and other technologies. People are confused about it and they feel very nervous. Long song gives you peace.” Currently, the University of Culture and Arts offers a course in long song philosophy in order to aquaint new generations of singers with these time-honored ideas.

Space Sonic mimesis in long song as demonstrated by the concepts of nutag (homeland), textual meanings, and animist philosophies portrays an empowered landscape and a strong sense of the local or “place” during long song performance. Philosopher Edward Casey defines “place” and “space” as follows. “‘Place’ implies finite locatedness and ‘space’ infinite or indefinite extension” (1997, 34). While previous examinations of long song expression suggest the “locatedness” Casey ascribes to “place,” long song also displays the “infinite or indefinite extension” of “space.” Often these qualities are attributed to nomads’ experience in vast steppe grasslands. Connected, extemporized vocal phrases interplay with the heterophonic morin khuur accompaniment in a following, “sliding doors” relationship. Long song melodies, made up of anhemitonic pentatonic collections, flow from one phrase or pitch center to another without the anchoring finality of a cadence. Long song thus “produces an entire, vast landscape” of continuous sound (UNESCO 2004, 14). Casey later employs the ideas of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari to explain the special quality of nomadic regions. “[A] characteristic nomadic space is an entire region

22 In the next chapter, this balance of opposite moods will be describe as it specifically relates to the poetry and music of Norovbanzad’s performance of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World).

73 – a steppe, a desert, a sea – that, despite its enormity, is not a strictly measurable space with definite borders” (1997, 304). Remarks by singers imply that they perceive expansiveness and boundlessness in long song. Norovbanzad remarked that she would rather sing in a ger because “a house is too small for long song” (Tsodoll and Sonintogos 1994; quoted in Norovbanzad 1997, 208). Other long song professionals contend that there is a large difference between singing long song in a ger and long song in the concert hall (Jantsannorov IN; Tumenjargal IN; Altantsetseg IN; Erdenetsetseg IN; Nergui IN). My experiences singing and living inside a ger during my Peace Corps service in Mongolia are consistent with these observations. My ger was approximately the size of a small, round, studio apartment and I could not enter the front door or occupy the outer edges of the ger without bending down. Yet, I never felt constrained inside a ger. The circular window (toono) at the apex of the ger poles let in sunshine during the day, and the window was entirely open on warm summer and fall days. The cloth “walls” of the ger allowed me to hear the sounds of animals and people, and the bluster of wind and rain. When I sang, the acoustics were the same as they were outside the ger. There were no hard, enclosing surfaces to create strong echoes or reverberations. Singing and living inside a ger gave me the sense of being both inside and outside. The inside/outside nature of singing in a ger correlates with Casey’s model of omnilocal nomadic regions in which “the nomad is spread throughout the whole region he or she inhabits, as much there as here, always on the way between places of this region” (1997, 304). A long song singer, like a herder, is potentially inside, outside, or anywhere in his or her region of sound. And, like my experience of being surrounded by natural sounds, in long song there is a “polylocality of directions” (ibid.). Sound comes and goes from many directions that are, in turn, oriented according to a roaming singer or herder’s changing points of reference.

Time Concert long song singers did not focus upon rhythm or time as it related to long song technique, performance or expression. This lack of emphasis on temporal organization suggests that professional long song singers, like Mongol nomads, may have “a greater preoccupation with movement in space than movement in time” (Bruun 2006,

74 144). Time, as it applies to long song, is collapsed or interwoven into singers’ concepts of space. Bruun maintains that time among Mongol herders is tied to natural cycles such as the weather, seasons, and events in the life cycle such as moving the camp, breeding and labor cycles and the turning of generations (ibid; See also Empson 2006, 185-186). His metaphor for nomadic time resembles the open-endedness of space in long song. [T]ime is like a boundless expanse you move through, with almost unlimited choices of campsites in which to settle down…Thus, the day is like a landscape you move through, with ascending and descending territory, nice hilltops, places to settle, but without any compulsion to reach out in one direction (ibid., 150).

According to Bruun, time for nomads is “activity-bound,” disappearing during periods of cyclical inactivity and reappearing during periods of cyclical activity (ibid., 144). These active periods are “Lumps of significant time … reference points for navigation quite similar to monasteries, town centers, or ovoos [shrines on the summits of hills or mountains] in the physical landscape” (ibid., 150-151). Understanding time in long song requires a similar conception of segments of “significant” time tied to the cycles of the landscape. Textural structures and concepts may influence the temporal organization of the music, but for the most part, temporal energy ebbs and flows through significant events (i.e. landmarks) within a limitless region of sound.

Landmarks and Regions: Meta-Texts of Space and Time in Long Song An expressive framework of “landmarks” and “regions” in long song takes into account textual and musical aspects of long song while also foregrounding nomadic conceptions of space and time. Textual and melodic events create “landmarks” in an overall long song “region.” Landmarks in long song encompass the finite and the infinite, the fixed and the free. Some musical landmarks, like a white ger in the midst of the steppe, provide small, less permanent marks within a greater region of song. Common “free” landmarks are improvised ornamentation and melodic flourishes. Some landmarks, like a temple, are larger and more permanent than others. Such landmarks include beginning and ending pitches and well-known texts. These landmarks, in turn, occupy a vast region of continous sound provided by the intertwining heterophony of the

75 long song singer and the morin khuurch, and the unanchored intervallic stream of the anhemitonic pentatonic scale.

Summary of Aesthetics In concert long song, sonic mimesis takes place on many levels. Singers connect the physical geography of their homelands (nutag) to long song melodies, expressing a modern, national identity aurally connected to historically localized identities. Long song texts explore themes common to the nomadic experience such as nature, family, and Mongolian heroes. Shamanic philosophies contained in the texts ascribe divine powers to the landscape and instill Mongol values of peace and respect. Space in long song connotes free-flowing nomadic regionalization, expressing the infinite qualities of omnidirectionality, omnilocality, and boundlessness while also conveying the finite quality of localization. Conceptions of time in long song are closely associated with concepts of space, and derive from the cyclical rhythms of the seasons, as manifest in the landscape. Ultimately, the musical structure of long song exhibits landmarks and regions similar to those found on the Mongolian landscape.

76 PART III: SUNSET

6. A CASE STUDY ANALYSIS OF “THE GENTLE SUN OF THE WORLD”

I heard “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World) in a variety of contexts during my fieldwork in 2006. The song comprised the focal point of two long song competitions that I attended. The first competition was held at the National Dramatic Theatre in Ulaanbaatar and culminated in a concert at the National Opera Theatre entitled “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran.” The concert began with a unison performance of the song by all the competitors. The second competition took place at a theatre constructed out the natural rock formations of Ikh Gazrin Chuluu in Norovbanzad’s home province of Dundgov Aimag. In the theatre, a sun symbol hangs prominently on the rocky backdrop. The theatre, a statue etched with the text of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” in Mongolian script, and a tourist ger camp were all built in this location to honor Norovbanzad.

Fig. 20 The theatre in honor of Norovbanzad at Ikh Gazrin Chuluu, Dundgov Aimag, 2006. Norovbanzad’s sun hangs in the rocks above a modern stage and sound equipment built into natural rock formations.

77 My internalization of the song was such that by the time Khongorzul gave an informal performance of it for friends and family in the Khentii countryside, I was able, at least in part, to perceive the strength of concert long song’s connection to the Mongolian landscape and nomadic lifeways. This song, the quintessence of Norovbanzad’s concert legacy, took on new threads of meaning in this congenial gathering by the river.23 By conducting a thorough musical and textual analysis of one of Norovbanzad’s recordings of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” this chapter will show how vocal technique, performance practice, and aesthetics work together during concert long song performance. The specific recording used for the analysis is one chosen by Norovbanzad for her long song anthology/textbook Taliin Morni Duu (Songs of the Steppe Horsemen) (2000), and is therefore an excellent model for analyzing her artistic legacy (TRACK 1).

SOUND STRUCTURES

Scales, Pitch Center, and Interval The specific pitch collection used in Norovbanzad’s performance is an anhemitonic pentatonic minor scale (e.g. B-D-E-F#-A).24 An ascent or descent along the collection results in tonal rivalries and hierarchies. Home pitches fluctuate between B and D although the piece is generally centered in the area of B. E, an equidistant P4 between B and A, becomes important as a mediating pitch between the two centers. Not surprisingly, major 2nds are the most common interval in the piece, with minor thirds being the second most common interval. These smaller intervals are especially common during ornamentation. Repeated pitches prevail during text declamation. The less common P4 is an important interval in providing registration/tessitura contrast, blurring pitch centers and marking transitions. One M7 and M6 each are used to provide tessitura/registration contrasts during text declamation. There are no P5 intervals between consecutive pitches.

23 Besides the song’s strong association with Norovbanzad, its documented history is comparatively long. A previous incarnation entitled “Zambuu Tiv” was found during the 1990s in eighteenth-century Buddhist notation (Pegg 2001, 151). 24 The transcription and analysis lists the pitches as one half step higher than the recording.

Forms Dorjdavga, a student of Norovbanzad’s student Chuluuntsetseg, outlines a three- part form of “Ikh Zambuu Tiv,” a predecessor to “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” based on the rising and setting of the sun. The song is made in three parts... In the first part you can see the sun starting to come up, and the second part, the shurankhai ... That is how you can see that the sun is on top. In the third part, the sun will go back down again. It is the sunset.

These three points in the sun’s cycle can also be perceived in cycle of intensity in Norovbanzad’s recording of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” with the three points of Sunrise, Noon, and Sunset as points of intensity within the cycle.

Noon 1:33

Sunrise 0:00 Sunset 2:37

Fig. 21 The Cyclical Structure of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran”

Looking at the form of the piece as a sun cycle conveys not only tri-partite positions of energy, but also the textual meaning of the piece and the sense of continuousness at the heart of long song aesthetics of time and space. This three-point, cyclical arrangement also encompasses a sectional, possibly Western-influenced, framed structure that includes a beginning, middle, and end. Both the cyclical and framed structures of Norovbanzad’s concert performance differ from traditional nair performances. In contrast to traditional Khalkha performances that used solo strophic variation followed by the choral response “Ta minu zee” (“My dear one, zee), the recording includes only one verse of text. Norovbanzad incorporates “Ta minu zee” into the soloistic conception of the piece and inserts a new

79 chorus between melodic interludes to create the element of return necessary to frame each section. Within these larger forms, the song also exhibits phrase structures. For the purposes of this analysis, phrase is defined as a unified, completed musical idea between two points of repose. In the particular case of this recording, these points of repose coincide with Norovbanzad’s larger, “open” breaths. Often phrases end with a long ornamented pitch on one vowel. Overall, phrases can be more melismatic or more syllabic depending upon whether there are vocables or words. Individual phrases are often characterized by a crescendo to the summit of the phrase and a decrescendo to the end of the phrase. Some phrases are connected into macro-phrases by shared pitches (i.e. those pitches that end one phrase and begin another), dynamic levels, or other larger textual or musical ideas. Shurankhai passages begin with smaller, “hidden” breaths, display little in the way of shaped, completed contour, and act as phraselet attachments onto larger phrases. The chart below summarizes how the phrases fall under both the cyclical and sectional frameworks. The beginning, peak, and ending pitches of each phrase are included as are shared pitches between phrases. Macro-phrases are connected to each other in the figure using the symbol “+.”

Fig. 22 The Phrase Structure of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran”

Sunrise - Introduction

Phrase 1 0:00 (F#4-D5-B4) + shared B4 + phrase 2 0:14 (B4-F#-D3)

Chorus a, 0:31 (B3-B4-E4)

Section A

Phrase 3 0:41 (F#4-A5-E5) + shared E5 + phrase 4 0:57 (E5-A5-B4) + shared B4 + phrase 5 1:12 (B4-E5-E4)

Chorus b 1:21 (B3-B4-E4)

Noon - Section B

Phrase 6 1:33 (F#4-F#-E5) Phrase 7 1:49 (B4-F#-D5/E5 ornament) + shurankhai a 2:01 (A5-B5-F#5) + shared F#5 + Phrase 8 2:11 (F#5-A5-E5) + shurankhai b 2:25 (A5-B5-F#5-B5)

Sunset -Section C

Phrase 9 2:37 (F#4-D5-B4) + shared B4 + Phrase 10 2:49 (B4-F#5-B4) Phrase 11 2:59 (F#4-D5-D4)

Chorus c 3:10 (B3-B4-E4)

Conclusion

Phrase 12 3:21 (F#4-F#5-D5) + Phrase 13 3:34 (B4-B5-B4)

Fig. 22 (continued) The Phrase Structure of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran”

The chart shows three points of intensity from the introductory (sunrise) section to the shurankhai/Noon apex and then onto the Sunset section. B, F#, and E also emerge as important pitch centers. B and F# generally frame a B center whereas E acts as a mediator, allowing for the smooth alternation between B and D centers (for transcription, see Appendix C, p. 103).

ANALYSIS SUMMARY

Sunrise Introduction (0:00) A moment-by-moment description will flesh out the larger structures previously delineated. The recording begins with the morin khuur giving the first pitch (F#4). Norovbanzad enters in the same octave, but the rich tone of the morin khuur provides a contrasting timbre to the brilliance of Norovbanzad’s female voice. In phrase 1 (0:00), the voice ascends the scale on the introductory vocable “Jaa!” starting on F#4 going to D5, tracing a D major triad in first inversion, concluding the phrase with a minor 3rd descent to B4. The morin khuur follows in a sliding door configuration, underscoring the minor 3rd descent in the vocal line with subtle glissando from D5 to B4. The morin khuur continues to play the ending B4 through Norovbanzad’s breath, and then gives a bow stroke on B4 to initiate momentum for the new phrase. Phrase 2 (0:14) starts with a B minor triad, descending from F#5 with two descending 4ths, E5-B4 and B4-F#4. A minor third upper figuration (B4-D5-B4) between the two 4ths creates a “terraced” descent connected “mi-re-do” pattern leading to

81 a D center. The morin khuur plays pitches in straight tone throughout Norovbanzad’s trills and vibratos on D5, E5, B4, and F#4 and follows the minor 3rd creating an interwoven texture with Norovbanzad’s vocal line. The Sunrise section concludes with the first statement of the chorus (0:31) that is more firmly centered in B. The morin khuur synchronizes the beginning pitch of B3 and begins the decoration of the second pitch (D4). Thereafter, the voice leads the morin khuur in a sliding door relationship up the pentatonic scale to B4. Descent from B4 forms a terraced structure using an appoggiatura (F#4-A#), ending on the E mediator. The Sunrise ends with an open, continuous feeling leading into the next part.

Section A (0:41) The morin khuur begins a transition to Section A by making an accented bow stroke on E4 while Norovbanzad is singing the last E4 of the previous phrase. The morin khuur plays with straight tone throughout the period of Norovbanzad’s breath, and then takes a “breath” with the singer to begin the next section in unison on F#4. The text of the song begins in phrase 3 (0:41). Text setting is marked by a declamatory, chant-like style, using repeated pitches in a middle voice. This particular line of text alternates between F# and B repeated pitches. Norovbanzad continues to lead the morin khuur in the alternating heterophony. A vocable extension of the text begins on the syllable “-ra,” ascending from F#4 to D5. Norovbanzad’s decoration of D5 enhances a D center, and the subsequent ascending flourish to high A5 on the penultimate pitch of the phrase. The vocal line descends from A5 to the mediating pitch of E5. The vocal intensity of the A5 is such that the morin khuur is momentarily inaudible. The morin khuur continues, however, with the E5 past the end of phrase 3, and initiates a new phrase beginning on E5 with a bow stroke, and then phrase 4 starts on E5 (0:57). This “sharing” of pitches between the end of phrase 3 and the beginning of phrase 4, combined with the maintenance of intensity- level from the previous phrase, shows that phrase 4 is continuing the vocable extension begun in phrase 3. This is further evidenced by the return to A5 in a minor 3rd upper alternating figure early on in the phrase, followed by a gradual, terraced descent to the “home” pitch of B4. The morin khuur anticipates the voice’s vibrato on the second pitch

82 of the phrase (F#5) with a trilled decoration. Thereafter, the voice and morin khuur maintain their sliding door effect until the morin khuur subtly glissandos from the penultimate pitch (D5) to the final pitch (B4). The morin khuur sustains the final B4 pitch and begins a new stroke on B4 to commence phrase 5. Phrase 5 (1:12) starts on B4 with a declamatory statement of text interrupted by a P4 interval. Further variation and contrast is provided by a M7 descent from E5 to F#4 (“khen” to “bukh”). The rest of the text is vocalized in declamatory, repeated pitches in the middle voice. A stepwise descent from F#4-E4 concludes the linked phrases 3, 4, and 5 on the mediating pitch (E). The importance of this pitch is emphasized by a final, major second upper figuration starting on D4. The morin khuur’s close following of the vocal line allows for clarity of this comparatively extended text passage (Ilkhen bukh delkhi dayakh nar or “clear, worldwide sun”). A glissando by the morin khuur provides impetus for the concluding ornament and a mood shift to the second chorus. The return of the chorus (1:21) provides an element of return and delineation between the first two section of the piece and reinforces the B center with its span from B3 to B4. Norovbanzad provides melodic variation by placing a major 2nd ornament on the 3rd pitch (E4) and a vibrato ornamentation on the final pitch (E4). This sets up the melodic structure to lead into the next section. The morin khuur also enhances continuity by retaining the E4 through the vocal breath and bowing an anticipatory stroke on E4 indicating an impending change to a new pitch and section.

Noon Section B 1:33 Section B begins with a unison statement of F# 4 in the voice and morin khuur (1:33). Then, the voice declaims text (mukhdulgui or “not to perish”) on repeated F#4s and the morin khuur begins a sliding door accompaniment. Vocable extension starts immediately after the voicing of this one word with a quick ascent to D5. The voice and morin khuur trade trills and decorations of this pitch, extending and heightening the intensity of the phrase. Prepared by the ascent to a higher tessitura in phrase 6, phrases 7 and 8 and their similar shurankhai passages form a unit of heightened intensity that achieves the “noon”

83 of the piece. Norovbanzad and the morin khuur begin phrase 7 (1:49) together on B4 with repeated pitch- enunciation of text (mandsaaraa or “rise or flourish”) with sliding door-style accompaniment. After the statement of the text, the melody quickly ascends to F#5 decorated with glottal attacks, trills, and an ending decoration on the mediating E5. Phrase 7, then, builds upon the increased intensity and pitch of phrase 6 in preparation for shurankhai a. Shurankhai a (2:01) begins with a soft, but concentrated vocalization on a high A (a perfect fourth above the previous E5). The passage provides textural and dynamic contrast, made up of two lengthy ornaments, the first alternating a M2 between A5 and B5 and the second fluctuating a m3 between F#5 and A5. The final F#5 is trilled to emphasize the end of the phrase. The morin khuur plays nearly in phase with Norovbanzad, and is carefully blended with Norovbanzad’s voice so as to be almost indiscernible. In this higher tessitura, Norovbanzad begins to go slightly sharp, and the morin khuur smoothly adjusts to this tuning.25 The morin khuur amplifies the energy level between Norovbanzad’s phrases by bowing twice on F#5, maintaining the momentum into phrase 8. As in most text phrases, phrase 8 (2:11) begins with text on repeated F#s, but since the phrase is centered in the pivotal shurankhai section, the energy of the text is enhanced by being an octave higher. In addition, Norovbanzad enunciates the text much more forcefully with the morin khuur following her in a forceful sliding door pattern. In the vocable extension, a high tessitura emphasizes and maintains intensified nature of the shurankhai/Noon section as a whole. The phrase comes to a pinnacle in A5 in full voice descending again to an embellishment emphasizing the major second between D5 and E5. Shurankhai b (2:25) is a close variation of Shurankhai a. As in the previous shurankhai passage, the first pitch is A5, a perfect fourth above the previous pitch and juxtaposes a M2 alternating A5/B5 ornament with a m3 F#5/A5 ornament. This time, however, the passage ends in the emotional high-point of the piece, a sustained B5 in shurankhai ornamented by a vibrato. As in shurankhai a, the morin khuur matches the tuning and dynamic levels of the voice, but this time, the sliding door relationship is even

25 Whether this sharpness is intentional in order to widen the contrast between full-voiced, lower pitches and high, shurankhai pitches is not clear.

84 more emphasized, elaborating upon the highly-active, intensified atmosphere created by the voice.

Sunset Section C 2:37 In Section C the sun is working its way around the cycle, and a variation of the Introduction (or Sunrise) frames one phrase of text. Before phrase 9, the morin khuur gives a barely perceptible anticipation of the F#4. The melody line begins an interval of an eleventh from the ending pitch of the shurankhai section (2:37). As in phrase 1, phrase 9 ascends the scale from F#4 to D5 in a first inversion D major triad followed by a minor 3rd descent to B4. The morin khuur maintains the B4 at the end of Phrase 9 and initiates the beginning of phrase 10. Phrase 10 (2:49), begins like phrase 2 and includes a similar descent to B4, but does not continue down to D. Rather, the phrase begins and ends with B4, strongly emphasizing the B center. Phrase 11 declaims the text, “Medes khigee biluu dee” or “knows, does it not?” (2:59) The phrase ascends from D up the pentatonic scale with a B minor descent similar to the first half of Phrases 1 and 9. Phrase 11 differs from Phrases 1, 2, and 9, however, in that it includes text, and thus requires repeated pitches. After Phrase 11, the morin khuur gives a hollow glissando similar to a vocal breath in order to anticipate and coordinate the unison B3 at the beginning of Chorus c. The basic pitch structure of the previous choruses is retained in Chorus c (3:10). The chorus re-establishes the dominance of the B starting by a rising scalar passage from B4 to B5 and ending on E4. The importance of the E4 mediating pitch is again indicated by the vibrato emphases of E4 on the third and final pitches of the phrase. Moving towards the conclusion of the piece, the chorus drives a bit more. Besides Norovbanzad’s commanding vocalizations, the morin khuur bows in a broad and accented fashion, extending Norovbanzad’s phrase by playing a trill on E4 after Norovbanzad concludes her vocal phrase. The morin khuur then changes bows again on E4 to anticipate a unison change to F#4 in the concluding section.

85 Conclusion 3:21 The concluding section of the song comprises a reforming of the traditional “ta minu zee” choral/audience response into a texted conclusion (3:21). Norovbanzad embellishes “Ta” on F#4 with a vibrato and turn passage immediately launching into a vocable extension, ascending up the scale to F#5 and ending the phrase on D5. She decorates the line with vibratos and trills, as well as an upper neighbor figuration and a portamento. The morin khuur plays in the familiar sliding door configuration and elongates Norovbanzad’s ending D5 through her breath, and provides impetus for the next phrase. Phrase 13 (3:34) concludes the piece in a firm B center, beginning the final phrase ascending from B4 to a high point of B5 in full voice, also providing a contrast in B5 registration from earlier shurankhai B5s. The piece ends with a simpler, more declamatory statement of “la minu zee” in a stepwise, lightly ornamented descent. Morin khuur maintains an understated accompaniment throughout the final phrase. Norovbanzad and the morin khuur decrescendo in unison on the final syllable (“zee” and pitch B4)

TECHNIQUE AND PERFORMANCE PRACTICE

The Morin Khuur The morin khuur accompaniment in this recording strongly supports Norovbanzad’s solo voice. Throughout, the morin khuurch follows Norovbanzad’s interpretation with understated, responsive playing. The morin khuur gives Norovbanzad her initial pitch, anticipates large leaps, helps with tonal centering in higher passages, follows Norovbanzad in a sliding door relationship, adds minimal, tasteful glissandos and ornamentation to the vocal line, and maintains a sense of continuousness by playing through ends of phrases, during vocal breaths, and anticipating the beginnings of phrases. The timbre of the morin khuur variously blends and contrasts with Norovbanzad’s voice. Playing in the same octave as Norovbanzad’s voice, the rich, low timbre of the morin khuur often provides an instrumental analog of the male voice contrasting with Norovbanzad’s female timbre. At the same time, the morin khuur is capable of playing quite softly and subtly in a higher tessitura.

Voice: Classificiation, Range, Registration, and Tessitura As performed, the song spans two octaves (B3 to B5) and frequently shifts between lower, middle, and high vocal registers. Higher tessituras are often used to express emotional intensity both in full soprano voice and in lighter, condensed shurankhai passages. Norovbanzad usually declaims the text in middle, voice of chant- like repeated pitches. Contrasting tessituras add drama to Norovbanzad’s performance. The song begins with an introductory section in middle voice, then shifts down to the low voice for the first chorus. The three choruses begin on B3 the lowest pitch in the melody, spanning from low to middle voice (B4), centering the piece in B and adding elements of return and tessitura contrast. Sections A and C include declamatory sections in the middle range usually starting on F#4. Leaps of a perfect fourth or more are often used to inspire more excitement within declamatory passages. Vocable extensions often employ wide leaps combined with ornamentation. Section B (or “Noon), the climax of the piece, takes place mostly in a higher tessitura (above D5) and uses shurankhai registration. The song ends a fourth above the beginning of the piece, descending an octave from a B5 in full voice.

Breathing This nuanced vocal performance requires skilled and steady breath management from Norovbanzad. Phrases are quite long and difficult, including many instances of register/tessitura changes, ornamentation, sustained passages, a spectrum of dynamics, and gradations of tone between straight tone, vibrato, and trills. She uses “hidden” breaths before shurankhai passages to facilitate tessitura/registration changes and to provide enough power to “float” softly on decorative passages centering around high A5 and B5 pitches. Mostly she takes “open” breaths between longer phrases.

Chimeglel Emphasis on larger structures, as demonstrated above, is important in elucidating the musical framework for Norovbanzad’s performance. Stressing pitch and formal structures may, however, give a disproportionate impression of their aesthetic importance

87 for concert long song. Such overt structures as exist in long song serve as a canvas upon which concert long song singers display their individual compositions of ornamental timbres. In these complex timbral admixtures of technically difficult vocal effects, long song achieves its distinctiveness and virtuosity. In this recording of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran,” the unique identity of Norovbanzad’s artistry comes forth in her use of dramatic and commanding ornamentation. Often these ornaments occur on “pillar” pitches, pitches significant to the architecture of the melodic contour. Such pitches may be the beginning, peak, nadir, or ending pitches of a melisma or phrase. Norovbanzad also employs ornamentation to stretch time or energy between these pillar pitches or to extend by musical means (i.e. vocable extension) the meaning of a textual passage. Her vocabulary of chimeglel spans many of the categories discussed in Chapter 3. Decorations made of individual or grouped pitches add dimension to text declamation. Aspiratory vibrato (amsgaliin xudulguun), glottal trills (tuvuungiin xudulguun or togshilt), and straight tones are found on longer, sustained pitches. Single glottals emphasize the highest point of large leaps. Portamenti (gulsuulax) often also accompany large leaps, especially from the penultimate to the ultimate pitch of a phrase. Appoggiaturas embellish high notes and also decorate the penultimate pitch of the chorus (A4), leading into an ascent of a perfect fourth to the E4 mediator. Upper or lower alternating figures composed of either major seconds or minor thirds elongate pillar pitches and strengthen the drama of shurankhai passages.

AESTHETICS

Nutag and Nomadic Civilization Norovbanzad’s performance reflects a dual sense of nutag. Self-identified as Borjigon, her singing displays the dense ornamentation associated with that regional style of singing. Nevertheless, she employs the expansive intervals and range commonly attributed to Central Khalkha style. While retaining a traditional sense of continuity and flow between phrases, Norovbanzad uses a sectional form framed by a returning chorus. She sings one verse of the four-verse text and improvises ornamentation suited to

88 expressive needs. The recording thus exemplifies the standardization of regional styles begun during the Bogd Khan’s reign (1911-1921), appropriated and modified into a national style during the Communist Period (1921-1991), and reclaimed as a treasure of “nomadic civilization” during the post-Communist period (1991-present). She vocally fuses traditional, local sensibility with a modern, national identity.

Text In her performance, Norovbanzad uses one verse of text to depict a whole cycle of the sun. The long song poem, however, takes four verses to complete the cycle. In the poem, the sun symbolizes cosmic truth illuminating the inevitable brevity of human life. The cycle of the rising and setting of the sun correlates with the rise and fall of human beings. The brightness of the sun represents youth, vigor, and the light of wisdom. While Norovbanzad sings only one verse of the poem in her recording,26 her depiction of the sun evokes the cyclical theme of the entire poem, and reveals the philosophies that underpin the poem and the song as a whole. Analysis of the text includes the patterns and ideas contained in all four verses, and comprises information gleaned from the recording, the staff transcription, and the figure seen below. The literal column is a word-by-word translation checked against Charles Bawden’s Mongolian-English Dictionary (1997). This translation conveys the word structure and core meanings of the text and assists in correlating the specific words of Norovbanzad’s recording with the musical events that occur in conjunction with them. The idiomatic translation combines two previous translations by my translator Uranzaya and by the writers of the UNESCO grant proposal (2004) and compares the translations with the core meanings contained in the literal translation. The idiomatic translation gives a contextual, lyrical, and performative meaning of the text. It is a line-by-line translation that interprets the meaning of each line of the literal translation. Between the literal and idiomatic translations, a column shows the number of syllables in each line.

26 As related in Chapter 3, the practice of singing one verse of text is common in concert long song performances.

89 Fig. 23 Translations of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tivin Naran”

Literal Translation Syllables Idiomatic Translation

0:00 Jaa. 0:41 Uyakhan Zambuutiviin Nar 8 Jaa! The gentle sun of the world Jaa. Gentle world’s sun

1:12 Ilkhen bukh delkhi dayakhnaaraa 7 or 8 Lights all the earth Clear worldwide travelling sun

1:33 Mukhdulgui 1:49 mandsaar baikhi 7 Never extinguishes, ever rises Not to perish rise, flourish is

2:59 Medes khiigee biluu dee 7 Does it not? Knows does it not

3:21 Ta minu zee My dear one, zee. You mine zee II

Jaa. Ter lugaa adil 5 Jaa. In a similar way Jaa. This like

Olon tumnii min yeruul 7 The blessing of my people Mass (of people) mine blessing

Unen setgeltai bukhnig 7 With a true spirit Truth beloved all

Yalgalgui asarsaar baidag l biluu dee 11 Takes care of everyone, does it No different takes care all is it not? not?

Ta minu zee My dear one, zee You mine zee

III

Jaa. Ulen chuluunii nar met 7 Jaa. Like the sun free of clouds Jaa. Cloud free sun like

Uchuukhen ene yavakh nasaa 8 This unimportant life goes Unimportant this goes life

Unen munkh dor bar’j 7 Held by eternal truth Truth eternal under holds

Ugui muukhaigaar khuurtdag shuu dee 9 Not deceived by ugliness Not by ugliness are deceived emphasis additive

Ta minu zee My dear one, zee You mine zee

90 IV

Jaa. Ider tsovoo saruul sergelen nasandaa 9 or 10 Jaa. If, in this young, cheerful, Jaa. Young cheerful bright clever life bright, clever, life

Es sursan erdem nomig 7 We do not learn wisdom Not learn wisdom (of books)

Utulj khar’san khoinoo 6 or 7 After growing old and returning Grows old returns home following home

Ergej sursan gedeg mash berkh bish uu dee 11 It is difficult to learn, is it not? Turning learns called very difficult. Not is? additive

Ta minu zee My dear one, zee You mine zee

Fig. 23 Translations of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World). In the figure, a literal word-by-word translation of each poetic line is followed by a column indicating the number of syllables in the line, and its idiomatic translation. Time markings inserted into the first verse of text indicate how the text is distributed throughout Norovbanzad’s performance. The vocal syllables “Jaa!” and “zee” cannot be translated. They have been included when counting the syllables for each line.

Poetic Structures The poem demonstrates several structural devices of Mongol poetry. Alliteration occurs in the first and fourth verse, underlining central ideas about the sun as it covers the world (“delkhi dayakhnaar”), continues to rise (“mukhdulgui mandsaar”), and shines brightly and cheerfully (“saruul sergelen”). Verses I, II, and IV consist of three related rhetorical questions, with similar endings meaning “Is it not?” This similarity in meaning and structure creates strong parallelism between verses. Similes comprise the main poetic device used in verses II and III. In verse II, the inextinguishable, eternal sun is likened to all-embracing, everlasting truth. Then, in verse III, sunlight unencumbered by clouds is related to life unblemished with deceit. Lines comprised of an odd number of syllables (i.e. 5, 7, 9, and 11) predominate. Seven is by far the most prevalent number of syllables for a line. Of the 16 lines of verse there are nine with 7-syllable lines. The two 8-syllable lines may show a tendency to create lines conducive to 7-syllable text setting, in that song text syllables can sometimes be musically elided or extended to suit a specific melody or ornament. Thus, a possible 11 lines out of the 16 lines of verse are in the 7 region. Eleven, the largest number of syllables in a line, occurs at the end of verses II and IV.

91 Repetitive devices provide connecting the verses to each other and provide unity. The question, “Is it not?” (“baidag biluu dee”) ends verses I and II, creating a strong comparison between the verses. The beginning vocable, “Jaa!” and the chorus, “Ta minu zee,” frame each verse. The last two syllables of each verse rhyme with each other (i.e. “-luu dee,” “shuu dee,” and “uu dee”) and the last two syllables of each chorus (“-nu zee”).

Vocable extensions The relation between text declamation and vocable extensions is one of clearly delineated regions of text surrounded by a landscape of free vocables. I found no instances of truncated words in Norovbanzad’s recording. In fact, melismas never appear in the middle of her words. Rather, she delivers text first in a more declamatory style before extending into open-ended melodic vocables. In her performance, musical space encircles words or phrases similar to the way in which the steppe surrounds people, animals, and gers in the countryside. This encircling of text is especially apparent where vocable phrases elongate important words. For instance, in the third line of verse I, phrases 6 (1:33), 7 (1:49), and 8 (2:11), vocable endings and shurankhai phrases surround the text by extending, separating, and emphasizing the words “mukhdulgui” (not to perish), “mandsaar” (rise), and “baikhi” (is or exists).

Meta-Text The museful, rhetorical quality of the questions structuring verses I, II, and IV communicate the philosophical nature of the text. Whether the singer-poet addresses his or herself or speaks to an audience is not clear. Complementary dualities analogous to the cosmic male (arga) and female (bilig) principles harmonize in the poem. Life and death, light and darkness, wisdom and ignorance, truth and deceit, balance one another. Reflecting these coexisting opposities, Norovbanzad’s singing is happy and serious, energetic and calm. The overall impression is of peaceful joy in life and calm acceptance of its transience. The last verse of the poem reflects on the first three verses and teaches a lesson:

92 If, in this young, cheerful, bright, clever life We do not learn wisdom After growing old and returning home It is difficult to learn, is it not?

On the surface, the speaker says to learn wisdom when young because later in life it will be difficult. The phrase “After growing old and returning home” hints at an unavoidable, underlying truth. Namely, when a person ages, he or she eventually dies, returning to his or her first and fundamental home, the earth. Truth must be cherished because once a person returns to the earth he or she can no longer do so. Connecting nature to the eternal, the poem presents an empowered, animist landscape, in which the sun illuminates and transcends human life.

Landmarks and Regions Norovbanzad’s “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” is structured in aural landmarks and regions with physical analogs in the Mongolian landscape. Landmarks in the landscape range in permanence from more fixed ovoos and wells to freer gers and khaashas (fences). Correspondingly, Norovbanzad’s song contains a spectrum of fixed and free musical structures. Fixedness is most apparent by Norovbanzad’s use of a large-scale sectional form (Introduction, A-B-C, Conclusion). Here, the return of the melodic Chorus separates the larger space of the song into smaller regions. At the same time, the return of the Chorus reminds the listener that one section has ended and another has begun. Thus, the Chorus also acts as a significant marker of time, telling the listener “where” (and “when”) they are in the recording. Text declamation serves as another relatively fixed temporal structure. When text is declaimed, the line is free of melismatic extemporization and syllabic accents and rhythms create temporary meter-like moments in the song. Spatial landmarks tend to connect natural phenomena with melodic contour. Common pillar pitches act as spatial landmarks, defining extreme points in the song’s characteristic hill-contour. The song’s momentum builds during the ascent up the scale, releases in a burst of energy in an ornamented summit, and dissipates down the scale in wafting sub-peaks.27

27 Hill-contour in Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naraan is discussed in more detail by Nakagawa (1980).

93 Word painting creates a spatial and sonic topography, relating the text to the contour of the melody. For example, when Norovbanzad sings the third line of the poem’s text “mukhdulgui, mansaar” (Never extinguishing, ever rising), the sun ascends to its highest point, and the melody accordingly rises to its highest tessitura and intensity level. After Norovbanzad vocalizes the word “mukhdulgui” (not to perish), the line immediately rises in a vocable extension from F4 to D5, remaining in a high tessitura throughout the phrase. She begins the next phrase in the tessitura established by the previous phrase. Following the declamation of the word “mandsaar” (rise or flourish), the melody rises yet again. In subsequent phrases (shurankhai a, phrase 8, and shurankhai b), the line continues to rise until the song reaches its philosophical, physical, and proportional highpoint on the last pitch (B5) of the second shurankhai. The shurankhai phrases generate a dual sense of fixedness and freedom, showing that permanence and impermanence, as present in the song, are coexisting and relational. Norovbanzad’s shurankhai phrases are fixed in that, as the center of the song, they have been incorporated in a preconceived spatial and temporal plan. The phrases are also free because their contrast of register, dynamics, ornamentation, and intensity creates a sense of removal from the context of the rest of the song, transcending time and space and releasing the songs’s submerged, infinite “spirit.” By and large, ornamentation produces the majority of the song’s free landmarks. Norovbanzad manages the ebb and flow of time by skillfully manipulating the energy contained in long song ornaments. Shurankhai condenses energy in the highest, softest point of the piece. Alternating figures, trills, vibratos, and turns release energy in cyclical patterns. Portamenti and appoggiaturas, on the other hand, direct energy in one sliding path. Together, these ornaments provide varying forms and degrees of momentum for each phrase, propelling, dissipating or fluctuating energy between one pillar pitch to another. Landscapes in time also result from the relative densities between fast-moving and flowing types of ornamentation, or between more florid and more syllabic passages. Ornamental landmarks imprint spatial landscapes with comparative concentrations of intervals. In addition, improvised decoration influences the momentum and duration of pitches and therefore the contour of the melody. While hill-contours are often pre-determined, the peaks and valleys in the vocal line, the pathway from one pillar

94 pitch to another, and the relative durations between pillar pitches are highly influenced by vocal embellishments. Landmarks of space and time occupy a wide, manifestly infinite region. A large- scale dynamic shape of crescendo (Sunrise to Noon) and descrescendo (Noon to Sunset) creates an overall impression of cyclicity and omnidirectionality. From the initial sustained crescendo on the first pitch to the long decrescendo on the last pitch, the listener percieves that either sound has traveled in from one direction and left in another or, conversely, that he or she has traveled to and away from a continual song. Often, the ending pitch of a vocal phrase is sustained by the morin khuur and then becomes the beginning pitch of the next phrase, blurring phrase duration and overlapping phrases. Phrase boundaries are further obscured by consistently interwoven sound ensuing from the sliding door relationship between the voice and the morin khuur. The cyclical Sunrise-to-Sunset form contributes to the boundlessness of the region. The limitless aural landscape, in turn, parallels and evokes the cyclical, eternal nature of textual themes.

95 7. CONCLUSION

This thesis provides a portrait of Norovbanzad as an iconic figure within the concert long song tradition of Mongolia, and relates how the technique, performance practice, and aesthetics of her successors transmit a contemporary Mongolianness that combines traditional and modern aspects. Chapter 2 illustrated Norovbanzad’s ability to capitalize upon and embody continuity and change within musical and social landscapes. Chapters 3 and 4 explained how the techniques and performance practices disseminated by Norovbanzad incorporate and transform multiple social and cultural influences while serving a longstanding Mongolian aesthetic. Chapter 5 related how concert long song singers in the generation after Norovbanzad uphold nomadic aesthetic values emphasizing the landscape. Chapter 6 located the principles and practices summarized in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 in a specific recording by Norovbanzad of her famous song, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran.” Concert long song, as solidified by Norovbanzad and described by members of the contemporary generation, is a vibrant, culturally significant vocal tradition. The genre embodies an individual and collectively constructed past, present, and future, and connects singers and audiences to the landscapes of their individual homelands and to a national identity concerned with both preserving and developing Mongolian culture. Chosen by university-trained Mongolian musicians to become “Mongolian classical music,” concert long song shares aesthetics, repertory, technique, and purposes with the rural folk traditions from which it grew. The beauty, technical demands, expressive breadth, and cultural uniqueness of long song have earned long song the name, “Mongolia’s calling card.” Long song, thus, serves as an ambassador for Mongolian culture as a whole.

LONG SONG AND THE LANDCAPE Representations of the Mongolian landscape flowed through this exegesis of contemporary concert long song. Throughout my fieldwork, professional long song singers and scholars repeatedly brought out the interrelationship between long song and

96 Mongolian nature, and the theoretical approach to this work has been guided by this central idea. As I have shown, Norovbanzad and her students lived the importance of this connection. All of the singers that I interviewed except one grew up in the countryside and learned their first songs in a rural context. As children, some singers sang toig and gingoo melodies to sheep and horses. Many singers heard long songs during rural festivals. Long song teachers preferred students from the countryside because, in their view, close proximity to and extended experience with their homelands enables rural, amateur singers to express the meaning of long songs better than urban, professional singers. Foreigners, singers instructed me, must live in a ger in the Mongolian countryside for at least a year before they could hope to understand long song. “The song and the singer are the same as the homeland,” says Chimedtseye (IN), and singers acknowledged aural concepts of long song that reflected their perception of the genre’s unity with nutag. Singers charted the topography of the Mongolian landscape onto the contour of regional long song genres. The well-known Western, Eastern Khalkha, Central Khalkha, Borjigon, and Bayaanbaarat regional styles of long song, expand localized concepts of nutag into broader regional sound concepts. Information from my interviews showed that the Mongolian landscape lives in singers’ minds and bodies, even amidst urban classrooms and concert hall stages. Norovbanzad instructed her students to imagine the landscape during voice lessons in order to gain technical proficiency and expressive depth. Concert long song singers cultivate a rich, chest-dominated tone quality using an idealized voice of a male herder as an aesthetic model. Chimeglel, long song’s distinctive pallette of ornamentation are conceived as stylized representations of animal sounds. References to mountains, rivers, the seasons, animals, and the herding lifestyle abound in long song texts. While performing, long song singers bring visualizations of these references into their eyes, project these images out of their eyes to their audience, and transport the concert to an imagined Mongolian countryside. This embodied and imagined landscape, in turn, provides a performing context for exploring human emotions and relationships. Analysis of religious, spatial, temporal concepts revealed that these meta-texts surround and contextualize concert long song performance within the natural world. In the post-Communist period, long song and other Mongolian arts still show the pervasive

97 influence of animist religious ideas.. As such, long song lives in an ecosystem of other vocal genres such as toig, magtaal, ukhai, and gingoo that contain wordless melodies communicating in ikh khel, the language of animals and the divine. The morin khuur, the accompanying instrument of long song, also is thought to speak this language. Norovbanzad’s “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” provides a revealing example of the animist themes of long song. Juxtaposing the infinite cycle of the sun with the finite life cycle of humans, the song illustrates both spiritual transcendence and the blessings of the natural world. During performance, long song’s spatial and temporal structures create aural landscapes. In long song, space is expansive and boundless, creating nomadic regions of continuous, polylocal sound. Time, in long song, is akin to a landscape that singers and their audiences move through. Seasonal cycles of activity create a variety of fixed and free temporal landmarks similar to those found in the Mongolian countryside. Norovbanzad’s recording of “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naran” (The Gentle Sun of the World) exhibits this spatio-temporal framework of landmarks while cycling through a musical form patterned on the rising and setting of the sun.

LONG SONG PATHWAYS Summarizing ideas on technique, performance practice, and aesthetics of concert long song, this thesis opens up myriad possibilities for creative research in English on the larger long song tradition and Mongolian music and culture in general. Given the richness of Mongolian music traditions, the current drive among Mongolian ethnomusicologists and performers to encourage Western scholarship, and the dearth of scholarship in English, the opportunities for imaginative and exciting research appear as boundless as the vast, Mongolian steppe. While it would be impossible to enumerate all of these possibilities, specific research pathways branch out from the ideas presented and examined in the previous pages. This thesis has begun the process of discerning the affect of standardizations and formal university training on a previously oral/aural tradition of song. A more thorough study and participant observation of the long song curriculum at the University of Culture and Arts could confirm how modern and traditional musical values and practices

98 interconnect and influence each other in a formal educational setting. Historical research on other important figures in the establishment of concert long song pedagogy, such as Norovbanzad’s teacher, Dorjdavga would further uncover the varied regional, national, and international features that make up contemporary concert long song identity. As outlined above, reverence for the Mongolian landscape surrounds and infuses the long song tradition, and the long song tradition, in turn, reveres the Mongolian landscape. Furthermore, Mongol conceptions of the landscape go hand in hand with musical analysis of long song and with understanding contemporary Mongolian identity overall. More analysis of long song and Mongolian music using the landmark and region framework could illuminate this salient relationship and determine the effectiveness of this approach as an analytical tool. Looking at the meta-text of Mongolian poetry, religious ideas, and nomadic conceptions of space and time has revealed that a better conceptualization of long song meaning and musical construction can be achieved through an exploration of the larger philosophical ideas that circumscribe the genre. Comparing Buddhist and shamanic themes contained in individual long songs recorded in Buddhist yatga notation from the eighteenth century to those altered by Soviet standardization and post-Soviet globalization, may be a fruitful way to excavate layers of historical and cultural philosophies informing particular long songs. Having introduced standardized techniques, performance practices, and aesthetics of the urban concert long song tradition and the accomplishments of the concert singer, Norovbanzad, this thesis provides a departure point for research on diverse regional long song styles and tradition bearers. Moreover, long-term research in a rural setting could better ascertain the unique relationship between the landscape and long song expression, and investigate the particular techniques, performance practices, and aesthetics of a local long song dialect and repertory. Recording and expressing centuries-long connections to the Mongol landscape and nomadic lifeways, vocal music permeates Mongol music traditions and society, both rural and urban. Besides the intricate singing and drinking customs of rural domestic celebrations, social singing plays an important function in urban celebrations and festivals. Research on the social singing of short song and zokhiolin duu (composed song)

99 would illuminate Mongolian social interactions and customs, and the role of social singing in creating collective memories and experiences in Mongolia, and, in doing so, binding Mongolian communities together.

Sunset This thesis began with an invitation for you to share my experiences with Norovbanzad’s song, “Uyakhan Zambuu Tiviin Naraan” (The Gentle Sun of the World). I hope that you have enjoyed the journey and have found it as worthwhile as I have. In Mongolia, as with many other cultures, sharing a song is a wonderful way to meet people. Songs taught me Mongolian words, customs, and ways of being. Musically, I was greatly stimulated by Mongolian songs. I heard beautiful melodies and intriguing technical feats. I pondered over textual meanings and expressive flourishes. But sharing the deep joy of singing with other people created the most profound connections with Mongolian culture. After learning and singing a Mongolian song, I was compelled to ask, “What does this song mean?” and “What does this experience mean?” Asking these questions eventually led me to initiate an ongoing and significant interest in Mongolian long song. This is a beginning, not an end.

100 APPENDIX A: MUSIC TRANSCRIPTIONS

This thesis uses ornamentation symbols and a type of modified five-line staff initiated by Shin Nakagawa (1980). Another, modified version of these symbols also appears in Carol Pegg’s description of long song (2001, 46). The following transcriptions both expand upon and streamline previous approaches in order to provide a clearer and and more musically intuitive visual representation of long song.

Transcription Legend

101 APPENDIX B: LONG SONG VOCALISE - “UKHAI”

102 APPENDIX C: NOROVBANZAD’S “UYAKHAN ZAMBUU TIVIIN NARAN”

103 Chorus b (I :2 1) v • • ｾＮ＠ • .T • • at7 • aa XHII - (»J aa 1":)) - a a khi - f«J aa gee -

6 (I :33) ｾ＠ .,,,,m iii i i 9• ft· • ••

M&X - A&R - rvll X3.3 xa aa Hll• mukh - dul - gui khee kha aa ni_

7 (I :49) ｵｾｾ＠ e xrnr• • > ｾ＠ • • • • • • • • M3HA caap - xaa - - HH aa ｵ｡ｾ＠ mand - saar - kha - - ni aa nai

sburank:hai a (2:01) ·.L·u· • , v

xe khu

8 (2:11) ..----...-. ｾｕﾷ＠ • • • • • 0 • • •

6allx - bl aa - xa HajJ bai - khi aa - kha nQ/

104

105 12 (3:21) v • • • • ｾ＠ .. • ·-=-= • • • • • • Ta xa Hil aa - xaa ta kha ;; aa- kha

13 (3:34) X--...... ,. .:::.. ... e qc ' 1¥'=\ AF6=t ｾｾｾｾﾷ＠ . 1!.1 ｾ＠ • • • • • aa- xaa - X HI! aa na - Mit - HYY aa aa- kha khi aa Ia mi - nuu QQ

13a v ｾ＠ • *I e aa 333 a a zee

106 APPENDIX D: COPYRIGHT PERMISSION FORM

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DISCOGRAPHY

Chimidtseye. Altan Ovoo. VCD 3312. No date.

Chuluuntsetseg. Mongolian Folk Songs. Tsomorlig Khevlel Co., Ltd. No date.

Khongorzul, Ganbaatar. Saruul Tal. No date.

Mongolia: Living Music of the Steppes. Multicultural Media MCM 3001, 1997.

Mongolian Songs. King Records KICC 5133, 1988.

Nakagawa, Kunihiko. The JVC Video Anthology of Music and Dance: East Asia, Vol. 5. Tokyo: JVC, Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.

Norovbanzad Foundation. World-Cherished Mongolian Treasure. Ulaanbaatar Broadcasting System, 2006.

The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan. Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40438, 2002.

Vargas, Lajos. Mongolian Folk Music: Selected and Compiled from the 1967 Collection HCD 18013, 1995.

Virtuosos from the Mongolian Plateau. King Records 5177, 1992.

Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet. Sony Music Entertainment SK 89782, 2001.

113 INTERVIEWS

Altantsetseg, long song singer. In the dressing room of the Military Song and Dance Academic Ensemble 06.07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Batmend, long song singer. In a meeting room at the National Dramatic Theatre. 14.08.06.Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Bayarerdene, long song singer. In a meeting room at the National Dramatic Theatre. 31.07.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Byambajargal, long song singer. In the Children’s Palace, the performing venue for the Tumen Ekh Ensemble. 07.07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Chimedtseye, long song singer. In her apartment. 21.07.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Chuluuntsetseg, long song singer. In her studio at the University of Culture and Arts. 4.08.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Dashtsermaa, long song singer. In her apartment. 02.08.06. Translated by Ganaa and ranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Delgermaa, Banzragich, lawyer and Executive Director of the Norovbanzad Foundation. At her office. 01.08.06. Translated by Uranzaya.Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Dondov, long song singer and herder. In the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre. 04.07.06. Translated by Ayasgalan. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Dorjdavga, long song singer and student. In a coffee shop next to the University of Culture and Arts. 08.07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Enkhbat, orchestra leader. In the lobby of the National Dramatic Theatre. 03.07.06. Translated by Ayasgalan. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Erdenetsetseg, long song singer. In the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre. 06.07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Erkhembayar, long song singer. In his apartment. 20.07.06. Translated by Khaliuna. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Gombo, composer. In the greenroom of the Khentii Aimag Theatre. 24.07.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Underkhan, Mongolia.

Jantsannorov, Natsgiin, composer, musicologist, and administrator. In his apartment. 07.08.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

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Lkasuren, long song singer, teacher, and researcher from Inner Mongolia. In the foreign students dormitory at the National University of Mongolia. 20.07.06. Translated by Khaliuna. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Nergui, long song singer. In the greenroom of the National Dramatic Theatre. 07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Nominerdene, long song singer and student. In the restaurant City Coffee, close to the National Dramatic Theatre. 04.07.06. Translated by Ayasgalan. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Sarantuya, long song singer. In her office inside the Old China Industry building. 02.08.06. Translated by Uranzaya. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Tumenjargal, long song singer. At an outdoor pub next to the National Dramatic Theatre. 06.07.06. Translated by Bujigmaa. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

Tuvshinjargal, long song singer. In his car near his office in the Cultural Palace. 20.07.06. Translated by Khaliuna. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

115 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Gabrielle Giron is currently completing her Master’s in Musicology with an ethnomusicology emphasis at Florida State University. Previously she served in Peace Corps Mongolia and AmeriCorps, and earned a BA in Music from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The thesis “Norovbanzad’s Legacy: Contemporary Concert Long Song In Mongolia” reflects an ongoing interest in Mongolian culture and language. In the fall of 2007 she begins study as a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at Harvard University where she will continue to explore the interrelationship of text and music in Mongolian songs.

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