(b Buyant sum, Bayan Ölgii aimag, west Mongolia, 1921). Altai Urianghai Mongol Tsuur player. Narantsogt (see illustration) inherited the traditions of playing and constructing this rare three-finger-hole end-blown pipe from his grandfather Gar'd, a renowned player. Narantsogt also plays the jew's harp and uses a variety of stones and pieces of wood to produce musical sounds. He moved to Duut sum, Hovd aimag, west Mongolia when he was 17 years old, working as a shepherd in the Altai Mountains. He had to hide his tsuur during most of the communist period in Mongolia in order to prevent its destruction (see Mongol music). Narantsogt often improvises melodies which imitate the sounds surrounding him, as in Balchin Heer Mor' (‘The Chestnut Bay’) and Har Huryn Naadgai (‘The Playing of Black Grouse’), or which praise the spirits that he believes both live in and comprise nature, as in Altain Magtaal (‘Praise-song of the Altai’). In post-Soviet Mongolia, Narantsogt's son, Gombojav, continues the tradition by performing in international and local concerts.
Mongolie: musique et chants de l'Altai, various pfmrs, coll. A. Desjacques, ORSTOM-SELAF Ceto 811 (1986) [notes by A. Desjacques]
C.A. Pegg: Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities (Seattle, 2001)
CAROLE PEGG