We had the pleasure of learning a little about Tuvan overtone music (throat music) today. Was showing H.o.p. a little video on different types of music, the what of music place to place, and they focused some on Tuvan throat singers. So we’ve been listening to a few files online and now I’m watching this video of Bugotak.
As H.o.p. noted, this type of singing sounds a lot like a digi.
Meanwhile, in science, H.o.p. wanted to learn a little about plastics, an experiment provided being making a simple plasticy substance out of just boiled milk to which you’ve added vinegar and allowed to cool. Wouldn’t you know that we failed at making the milk/vinegar curd? Only a few curds were produced and were powdery, nothing which could be molded. Maybe because I used 2 percent milk?
I tried out some low-style Tuvan vocalization and after just a couple of tries my throat is irritated.
You can even purchase online lessons on the basics of overtone singing. Something I won’t be doing as it’s $30 a pop.
H.o.p. wanted to learn more about the Great Wall of China today. Each of the several folk stories we read on it, interestingly, had to do with death and the Great Wall of China. People dying in connection with their forced time of labor. One of the more interesting ones a popular story for opera, of a woman whose new husband is taken and forced to work on the wall, he doesn’t return, she goes to the wall and learns he has died there and that his bones are buried within the wall. The woman grieves and thus part of the wall collapses revealing a river of bodies of those who died while forced to work on the wall. She cuts herself and is able to find her lover through his skin absorbing her blood. She buries him and then commits suicide.
So we talked about these folk stories and how the wall is indeed remarkable but like so many large and breathtaking achievements something to be remembered is the forced labor that wrought them.
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