Sakha Traditional Music

Russia · 1400s

Epic Dreamy Chill Sentimental Dark

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Description

Sakha traditional music is the indigenous music of the Sakha (Yakut) people of northeastern Siberia. It centers on epic chant (Olonkho), ritual incantations (algys), improvisatory song (toyuk), and highly developed timbral techniques, especially the khomus (Jew’s harp).

The sound world is characterized by monophonic vocal lines ornamented with glottal shakes, trills, and overtone-rich timbres; flexible, speech-like rhythms; and drones or ostinati produced by the khomus or frame drum. Much of the repertoire imitates the natural environment—wind, rivers, reindeer, horses—and encodes cosmology, ethics, and communal memory.

While deeply ancient and rooted in shamanic practice, Sakha traditional music has continued to evolve through contact with neighboring Turkic and Mongolic cultures, Russian liturgical and folk traditions, and modern stage practice.

History

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Top albums

Tuva, Among the Spirits: Sound, Music and Nature in Sakha and Tuva

Vocal Evocations of Sakha-Yakutia, Siberia (2)

Chyskyyrai Чыскыырай

Soul of Yakutia

Spiridon Shishigin

The Damned Stone Про́клятый камень

Cholbon Чолбон

Dobun Duoraan (Sounds of ancient land of Olonkho)

Ayarkhaan Айaрхаан

Igrayet Ivan Alekseyev (khomus) Играет Иван Алексеев (хомус)

Играет Иван Алексеев

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Influenced by

North Asian Music

North Asian music is an umbrella term for the traditional and contemporary musical practices of the peoples of Mongolia and Siberia (including Tuvan, Buryat, Sakha/Yakut, Altai, and other Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic groups). It is characterized by overtone-rich vocal techniques (such as khöömei/khöömii throat singing), expansive long-song styles, pentatonic and modal melodies, open-fifth drones, jaw harp timbres, and ritual drumming. Signature instruments include the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), igil (two‑string spike fiddle), topshuur and doshpuluur (lutes), limbe (flute), and the khomus (jaw harp). Socially, the music spans epic recitation, shamanic-ritual sound, herding songs tied to pastoral lifeways, and modern stage ensembles that adapt these idioms for concert and global audiences.

Mongolian Music

Mongolian music encompasses the traditional vocal and instrumental practices of the Mongolian steppe, centered on the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), long song (urtyn duu), short song (bogino duu), epic song (tuuli), and the overtone-rich vocal art of khöömii (throat singing). Its melodic language is largely pentatonic, with expansive, arching phrases that evoke open landscapes, horses, and nomadic life. Textures range from solo voice with a sustained drone to heterophonic ensemble playing, and rhythms move fluidly between free, rubato narrative delivery and lively dance meters for bielgee (seated dance) and festive pieces. Ritual and religious strands—especially Buddhist chant and older shamanic practices—intertwine with courtly and folk repertories shaped during and after the Mongol Empire, yielding a music that is at once intimate, contemplative, and epic in scale.

Mongolian Throat Singing

Mongolian throat singing (höömii) is a traditional overtone-singing art in which a vocalist produces a low, sustained fundamental drone while shaping the mouth and throat to amplify specific overtones, making two or more pitches audible at once. The result is an otherworldly, flute-like melody floating above a deep, stable tone. Rooted in the nomadic herding culture of Mongolia, höömii is closely tied to the natural soundscape of the steppe—wind, rivers, and animal calls—often imitated in timbre and phrasing. Distinct Mongolian styles include kharkhiraa (a growling undertone beneath the drone) and isgeree khöömii (a whistling-overtone style), among others categorized by the primary resonance area (throat, chest, palate, nasal cavity). Performances range from intimate solo pieces to ensemble settings with morin khuur (horsehead fiddle) and tovshuur (lute), and appear in ritual, celebratory, and concert contexts. The practice emphasizes breath control, resonance, and subtly shifting vowel shapes rather than conventional harmonic progressions.

Tuvan Throat Singing

Tuvan throat singing (khoomei) is a traditional vocal art from the Turkic-speaking people of Tuva in the Sayan–Altai region of southern Siberia. It is a biphonic technique in which a singer sustains a low drone (the fundamental) while shaping mouth, tongue, and throat to amplify specific overtones, producing the perception of multiple pitches at once. Distinct styles such as khoomei (soft, airy), sygyt (bright, whistling overtones), and kargyraa (deep, growling undertone) evoke the sounds of wind, rivers, and horse hooves and reflect a nomadic pastoral worldview. Performances often feature traditional instruments like the igil (two-string bowed fiddle), doshpuluur (lute), shoor (flute), and khomus (jaw harp), and can be either solo or ensemble-based.

Central Asian Throat Singing

Central Asian throat singing is a family of overtone-rich vocal techniques practiced across Mongolia, Tuva, and neighboring regions of Inner Asia. Singers shape the vocal tract to amplify specific harmonics above a low fundamental drone, producing the impression of two or more pitches at once. Traditionally performed by nomadic herders, these styles often imitate the sounds of wind, rivers, birds, and horses, and are closely tied to animist and steppe life-worlds. Substyles such as khöömii (overtone-focused), sygyt (whistling, high overtones), and kargyraa (very low, growling fundamentals) showcase distinctive timbral goals, breath control, and resonant vowel shaping. While deeply rooted in folk practice, throat singing has influenced contemporary ambient, drone, and experimental scenes, and it increasingly appears in cross-cultural collaborations and modern stage settings.

Altai Music

Altai music is the traditional music of the Altai peoples in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. It is marked by epic storytelling, overtone (throat) singing known locally as kai, and a timbre-first aesthetic that imitates the sounds of wind, rivers, birds, and horses. Core instruments include the topshur (a two‑string plucked lute), the shoor (end‑blown flute), the khomus (Jew’s harp), and frame drums used in ritual and narrative contexts. Melodies often draw on anhemitonic pentatonic modes and flexible, speech‑like rhythms, while textures tend toward solo voice with drone, or sparse heterophony from a small ensemble. Songs commonly praise mountains, taiga, and rivers, recount heroic epics and clan histories, and invoke Tengrist cosmology, blending practical herder life with a spiritual view of nature.

Khakas Traditional Music

Khakas traditional music is the folk and ritual music of the Khakas people of South Siberia (Republic of Khakassia, Russia). It centers on epic storytelling, overtone-rich throat-singing (often called kai/khai), and a distinctive set of indigenous instruments. Core timbres come from the chatkhan (a long zither), jaw harp (temir-khomus), shamanic frame drum (tüngür), and various flutes, with vocals ranging from clear narrative chant to deep, droning overtone techniques. Melodies tend to be pentatonic or modal, with narrow ranges, drones, and flexible, speech-like rhythm in epic recitation. Themes reflect steppe life, hero epics, nature, animist/shamanic cosmology, and communal memory. While ancient in origin, the tradition continues today through ensembles, community bearers, and staged folklore performances.

Russian Music

Russian music refers to the broad body of folk, sacred, art, and popular music that developed in the lands of historical Rus' and the Russian state. It combines deep-rooted Slavic folk traditions, Orthodox liturgical chant, and European art-music practices absorbed and reimagined from the 18th century onward. Hallmarks include modal folk melodies, powerful choral sonorities (often with resonant basso profundo lines), bell-like tone colors, and an affinity for expansive, emotionally charged lyricism. Folk dances and songs—carried by instruments like balalaika, domra, gusli, and the bayan—coexist with a towering classical canon (from Glinka and Tchaikovsky to Shostakovich) and a rich 20th-century popular sphere (bard song, estrada, rock, and hip hop).

Russian Orthodox Liturgical Music

Russian Orthodox liturgical music is the a cappella chant and choral tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church, sung in Church Slavonic during services such as the Divine Liturgy, the All‑Night Vigil, and the Hours. It grew from medieval monophonic chant (especially Znamenny, but also Demestvenny and Put’) structured by the octoechos (eight-mode) system inherited from Byzantium. From the 17th century onward, polyphonic and later richly harmonized choral idioms developed alongside chant, creating a uniquely Slavic blend of ancient modal melody and Romantic choral sonority. Hallmarks include unaccompanied mixed or male choirs, free, text-driven rhythm, deep basses (oktavists), luminous chordal writing in later repertoire, and a reverent, prayerful tone that prioritizes clarity of the sacred text over display. Instruments are not used, in keeping with Orthodox canons.

Ancient Music

Ancient music refers to the musical practices of the literate civilizations of antiquity (e.g., Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Levant, Persia, India, and China) before the medieval period. It is largely monophonic, text-driven, and modal, and survives today through a small corpus of notated fragments, theoretical treatises, iconography, and instrument remains. Its sound world is characterized by modal pitch systems (e.g., ancient Greek harmoniai built from tetrachords), rhythm tied to poetic meter, and timbres from lyres, harps, auloi (double-reed pipes), flutes, rattles/sistra, frame drums, and early lutes. Because authentic performance practice must be reconstructed, modern revivals rely on scholarship in archaeology, philology, and organology as much as on musical craft.

Has influenced

Worldbeat

Worldbeat is a pop-oriented fusion that blends contemporary Western production (pop, rock, dance, and electronic) with rhythms, instruments, scales, and vocal styles drawn from diverse musical traditions around the world. It typically features layered percussion, polyrhythms, call-and-response vocals, and multilingual or code-switching lyrics, while maintaining accessible song forms and hook-driven choruses. Arrangements often juxtapose drum kits, bass guitar, and synths with instruments such as kora, mbira, oud, sitar, djembe, balafon, or charango. As a retail and radio category in the 1980s–1990s, worldbeat served both as a creative space for cross-cultural collaboration and a marketing umbrella, attracting praise for bridge-building and criticism for occasional exoticism or unequal credit-sharing.

World Fusion

World fusion is a broad, exploratory approach that blends musical traditions from different cultures with contemporary forms such as jazz, rock, ambient, and electronic music. Rather than being tied to a single folk lineage, it privileges hybrid instrumentation, modal and rhythmic vocabularies from around the globe, and collaborative performance practices. Compared with the more pop-oriented worldbeat, world fusion tends to be more improvisational, texture-driven, and studio- or ensemble-focused. It commonly juxtaposes instruments like oud, kora, sitar, tabla, duduk, and frame drums with electric guitar, synthesizers, and jazz rhythm sections, often emphasizing modal harmony, drones, polyrhythms, and odd meters.

Trapfunk

Trapfunk is a Brazilian hybrid that fuses the drum programming, 808 bass, and hi‑hat articulations of trap with the syncopated tamborzão grooves, vocal cadences, and party‑ready attitude of funk carioca (baile funk). Tracks typically balance sparse, hard‑hitting trap frameworks with driving Brazilian funk percussion at 130–150 BPM, sliding 808s, and vocal deliveries that alternate between melodic hooks and rapid-fire chants. Lyrically, it draws on the street storytelling, ostentation, and party culture of the baile while adopting the darker textures and sound design of contemporary trap. The result is a club-optimized, bass-forward style that feels equally at home in the baile, on streaming playlists, and across social platforms, linking Brazil’s local funk scenes to global trap aesthetics.

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