This is an arrangement of a traditional Buryat-Mongol melody. This version has moved a long way from Badmaa Khanda’s original. Over time, through repeated sessions of improvising on the piano using the jazz-style lead sheet I prepared, even the three main melody lines are no longer exactly the same.

The original vocal version I heard was performed by a powerful women’s ensemble singing in parallel harmonies: parallel motion but not overtone singing. In this traditional style of vocal harmony, additional lines are designed to follow the same contour of the main melody. Although I have echoed this style of composition in a passage or two, as you will hear, this arrangement for piano doesn’t quite follow the same rules.  I suppose that’s what happens, when one surrenders to the natural flow of one’s own imaginings.

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