Diversion From and Unity With – Day 797

The Hu – Photo: L. Weikel

Diversion From and Unity With

And now for something completely different. I offer tonight’s post as both a diversion from and unity with the world at large.

It’s been a while since I wrote about one of the loves of my odd life: Tuvan throat singing and its very close cousin, Mongolian throat singing. I have a couple of favorite Tuvan throat singing groups, but tonight I’m thinking wistfully of The Hu, the Mongolian folk-metal band that Karl and I went to see in Brooklyn in September 2019.

I’m so glad we had that experience! Little did we know that it might be a very long time before we ever have such a chance again.

Tonight’s Diversion

My niece posted a video by The Hu on Facebook today that I just saw this evening. I have to admit, I became mesmerized and haven’t been able to turn their music off ever since.

I decided to write about them again tonight in the hope that you might allow yourselves to give this music a listen. It may strike you as really strange at first, but if you close your eyes and just allow yourself to ‘ride’ the rhythms, vocals, and ancient instrumentals, you may find yourself transported (or at least diverted) from the stresses we’re all encountering right now.

One selection I am finding myself loving as I sit here trying to muster my thoughts is a piece entitled Shireg Shireg*. What I love about this selection in particular is how much it reminds me of more traditional folk pieces from both Mongolia and Tuva.

I’ll see if I can find a single version of it on YouTube (I did – it is linked above to the title), but if I can’t, it’s at minute 38.27 in this wonderful fundraising video. I hope you’ll listen to it and allow yourself to be transported to the steppes for a few minutes. Both are beautiful renditions in their own ways.

Unity

And it is this video benefiting Covid-19 relief by The Hu that brings me to speak of experiencing the unity we have with even the furthest parts of the world. Mongolia is pretty much on the opposite side of the globe, and is a land of vast steppes, taiga, wild nature, and tremendously fierce and loving nomadic people.

Yet Mongolia, like the rest of the world, is not immune to Covid-19. And The Hu performed this fundraiser to benefit their fellow Mongolians who are battling the ravages of this pandemic just as we are. (I do believe they are more compliant with the mask wearing and have actually been more successful in quelling the spread than we have been here in the U.S.) That said, they don’t have anywhere near the healthcare capacity that we do (nor the population).

No country is immune. We’re all in this together. But that doesn’t mean we can’t lose ourselves in that great unifier…music.

*I just found the lyrics to Shireg Shireg and – what a surprise – find them to be meaningful to me in many ways, and quite possibly to you as well:

(T-314)