Music of Mongolia - Long Song

Long Song

This genre is called "Long song" (Urtyn duu) because each syllable of text is extended for a long duration. A four-minute song may only consist of ten words. Lyrical themes vary depending on context; they can be philosophical, religious, romance, or celebratory, and often use horses as a symbol or theme repeated throughout the song. Eastern Mongols typically use a morin khuur (horse-head fiddle) as accompaniment, sometimes with a type of indigenous flute named limbe. Oirat groups of the Western Mongols typically sing long songs unaccompanied or accompanied with the igil.

Read more about this topic:  Music Of Mongolia

Famous quotes containing the words long and/or song:

    “If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the condition of man,—and I think that it is, though only the wise improve their advantages,—it must be shown that it has produced better dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Turn back,
    back
    to the lake of Delos;
    lest all the song notes
    pause and break
    across a blood-stained throat....”
    —Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)