Down from the mountains

The landscape thawed as we descended into the valley from the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus mountain range that has separated Georgia from Russia for centuries. I listened to the incomprehensible Georgian dialogue of my hosts as I looked out of the car window at the astounding scenery that passed by: ancient churches, an enormous hydro-electric dam right by the roadside and then a brief stop off in a cottage cum restaurant for a traditional Georgian meal of Khinkali. These delicious meat dumplings originate in this mountainous area in the North East of Georgia and proved much trickier for me to eat that the young Georgian children in our party, leaving my plate covered in the tasty juices that had spilled out from each one while everybody else’s plates remained spotless.


It had been my first day in Georgia and despite having only had a handful of hours sleep since my late-night flight, I had spent the day skiing in the prestigious resort of Gudauri in the north of Georgia. Gudauri remained a popular destination for Georgian skiers but since the August War with Russia only seven months earlier (this was March 2009), Russian tourism had dwindled. The air space here on the northern border of Georgia remained closed, thereby prohibiting Gudauri’s famous heli-skiing, which had attracted many tourists. The rest of the country remained noticeably affected: the signs outside foreign exchange shops in the city showed the rates for USD and Euros but the space beside the Russian Rouble remained empty. There was no trade, no cross-border flights, no diplomatic dialogue.


We drove back towards Tbilisi as the sky grew darker. Then on the radio came a song, which caused the four women in the car to sing along, while the two seven-year old boys in the back remained disinterested. The song was from a Russian children’s cartoon from the Soviet era called Cheburashka. When I asked what the song was about, the attempt at a serious explanation resulted in an eruption of laughter from everyone else due to the silliness of the song. To a chirpy melody and accordion accompaniment, the chorus is:

А я играю на гармошке у прохожих на виду
К сожаленью день рожденья
Только раз в году

And I'm playing the accordion
All the people gaze at me.
It's a pity that birthday’s
Are just once a year.

The song reminded the women of their childhood, but meanwhile in the back of the car, the two boys were listening to American pop music on their mobile phones. The cultural empire had shifted from East to West in a generation. The irony was not lost on Nadia sitting next to me: “Poor Georgians. Once it was Russian music popular, now American music is popular. In twenty years I don’t know which music will be popular.”
I took the opportunity to try to provoke some Georgian songs.
“Do people still sing Georgian songs?”, I asked.
Initially, I was told how there was Georgian pop and even rap, illustrated by the young boys playing a Georgian rap on their phone, but before long, the women quite naturally began singing Georgian folk songs they had learned in school.
Over a dissonant ostinato of lo-fi Georgian rap, they sang a medley of traditional verses in turn, with some casually attempting the distinctive bass drone of Georgian polyphony.

Interspersed with laughter and chatter, they sang songs old and new, the titles and lyrics of which remain unknown to me, but in the end it was the children’s mobile phones that had more stamina; the repertoire of megabytes defeating that of rusty school songs. The negative influence of media technology on indigenous traditions has been well documented around the world. In Ireland in the 1970s, the prodigious song-collector Tommy Munnelly noted:

‘The pleasure garden, the broadside, the industrial revolution, the music hall and many other influences have all altered or eroded the oral tradition, but the death blow was not struck until the advent of radio and television. What need is there to learn a tune or song when the magic box (Pandora's?) will dispense entertainment automatically?’(1)

and similarly it was reported in Java in the 1980s:

‘Whereas dancers used to require the presence of musicians to provide accompaniment for their rehearsals, the standard practice now is to use commercially produced cassettes of dance music, or to make recordings for that purpose. It is not unusual for a dancer to use a cassette recorder for performances, thereby eliminating the musician completely.’ (2)

No doubt, similar oppression on live musical performance has been increasingly occurring all over the world, including in the back seat of our car driving through the Caucasus mountains. As Tom Munnelly points out, it is by no means a new trend. Fashions change, old song-forms are replaced by new, and modes of performance are ushered into extinction by the latest fads. Whether it’s the Lindy Hop being replaced by the Jitterbug in 1950s Harlem dance halls or Georgian rap fighting for survival against Georgian folk polyphony, technology has often been a decisive factor in speeding up the process of change.

However, recording and broadcasting technology can also be the saviour of diverse musics. When, in 2001, Georgian Traditional Polyphony was proclaimed a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO, a programme of ‘re-education’ was implemented by the Georgian government to teach traditional songs to singers in Georgia using recordings from the 1930s as examples of ‘authenticity’.(3) Indeed, since 1901 the early recordings made by the prodigious Graphaphone Company of Georgian ensembles have proved an invaluable resource in preserving the unique style of polyphonic singing before the onset of the Soviet era.

My experience of hearing the women singing their old songs was more special than any recording of Georgian music I had heard up to that point and since, but if it hadn’t been for the recordings I had heard up to that point, I would not have enquired about their songs and perhaps I would not have been inclined to even travel to Georgia. I enquired with Nadia about the songs: Are they love songs? Some are, she explained, some warriors songs and some are from the supra, the traditional Georgian feast. Nata would show me where to get some CDs before I left, she assured me, and she recommended some good recording artists.

The conversation lulled. The night became dark. Then as we neared the environs of Tbilisi, modernity revealed itself gradually as street lights, billboards and neon, and the women tiredly hummed together –

თბილისო, მზის და ვარდების მხარეო
უშენოდ სიცოცხლეც არ მინდა
სად არის სხვაგან ახალი ვარაზი
სად არის ჭაღარა მთაწმინდა

Tbiliso, mzis da vardebis mkhareo
Ushenod sicockhlec ar minda
Sad aris skhvagan akhali varazi
Sad aris chagara mtatsminda

My Tbilisi, flourish in the sun
My fate is regained
Your splendour is nowhere else to be found
Without you life is without beauty

(1) The Singing Tradition of Irish Travellers, Tom Munnelly, Folk Music Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Music of the Travelling People (1975), pp. 3-30 Published by: English Folk Dance & Song Society URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521962 Accessed: 21/07/2009 19:16

(2) Sutton, R. A. (1985) ‘Commercial cassette recordings of traditional music in Java: Implications for performers and scholars’, World of Music, 27/3, pp. 23–45.

(3) Ninoshvili, Lauren, 'Singing Between the Words - The poetics of Georgian polyphony', PhD thesis 2010, Columbia University, p3, referencing discussion with Nino Tsitsishvili