Mongolian end-blown pipe with three finger-holes which appears to act as an external amplifier for overtones from the low-pitched vocal drone generated by the musician. The drone may be modified by as much as a whole tone by stopping the top finger-hole of the instrument. By fingering the second and third holes, two simultaneous melodies may be produced from overtones (see also Overtone-singing).
Widespread under different names among Altai Mountain peoples, it is played by three neighbouring groups in contemporary west Mongolia: the Altai Urianghais (tsuur), Tuvans (shuur) and Kazakhs (sybyzgy). The size and compass of the instrument, position of finger-holes and manner of holding the instrument varies with each group. Occasionally Kazakhs make a fourth hole, one finger's width from the third. Altai Urianghais play the instrument for entertainment while tending the flocks, when encouraging animal mothers to accept their rejected young, prior to hunting, at the beginning of domestic celebrations and from the first to third day of the New Year to ward off bad spirits. When in the countryside, the tsuur is hung onto a horse's tail and, when in the home, tucked safely behind a rafter in the respected northern section of the tent. Kazakhs play the sybyzgy in celebrations for the birth of a child, during weddings and during their New Year celebration. Prior to the communist era in Mongolia, every Kazakh family had to own a sybyzgy and keep it in a place of honour even if none could play the instrument.
The tsuur is said by Mongols to date back to Hunnic times but is rare among contemporary Mongols because of attempts by the former communist regime to eradicate it. The instrument is described in the Kalmyk Mongol epic-cycle Janggar as being played together with the yatuga or Yatga. The classical Mongolian word chogur or chugur has been identified in 14th-century literary texts. In the 18th century, Pallas described the technique of playing a three-hole, end-blown Kalmyk pipe related to the Bashkir kura and Kyrgyz choor. Isolated examples of the instrument have recently been found in the Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang autonomous regions of China, where it is called modon huur and chor respectively.
The instrument is made by slitting a larch or willow branch into two halves, hollowing them out, binding them together again with goat gut or thread and then inserting them into a wet intestine, which contracts as it dries. This ensures rigidity and prevents air loss from the joins.
The inside of the pipe is moistened with water prior to playing. The instrument is lodged on the left side of the mouth, between a central and adjoining tooth, with the lips on that side of the mouth closed around it. Maintaining airflow is essential for producing the sequence of notes required achieved after taking air in through the mouth. Each melody is produced by one exhalation of breath. Various traditional melodies (tatlaga) are played, often imitating the sounds of nature including water, animal cries and birdsong (see Narantsogt, illustration).
and other resources
GroveI (A. Nixon)
P.S. Pallas: Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften, i (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1776)
S. Dulam: ‘Conte, chant et instruments de musique: quelques légendes d'origine mongoles’, Études Mongoles, xviii (1987), 33–47
D. Nansalmaa: ‘Oyuny soyol’ [Spiritual culture], Halhyn ugsaatny züi XIX–XX zuuny zaag üe [Khalkha ethnography in the late 19th and early 20th centuries], ed. S. Badamhatan (Ulaanbaatar, 1987), 334–57
C.A. Pegg: Mongolian Music, Dance and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities (Seattle, 2000)
Mongolie: Musique et chants de l'Altai, various pfmrs, coll. A. Desjacques, ORSTOM-SELAF Ceto 811 (1986)
CAROLE PEGG