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Yavsan nokhoi yas zuuna. (Only a wandering dog finds a bone.)Mongolian proverb
Introduction
Finding singers in the course of my fieldwork in Mongolia has always been the main challenge and the most enjoyable part of research, and it has recently become an interesting compass for thinking about the materials I have collected and about research in general. In the Mongolian countryside, where there are neither clear roads nor precise addresses, and where people still live as nomads, my research starts by locating singers. When I ask where a singer is, the most common response, especially in summer when herder-singers are actively moving, is, "Oh, you just missed her [or him]. She [or he] moved a few kilometers 'that' way," pointing across the endless steppe. Then the search for the singers on the steppe begins. After driving around for a while, following leads suggested by local people, I might finally get to meet a singer. Or my patient wait might start for a herder-singer who has gone out for herding. In some cases, I have had simply to move on in search of another singer. The chance to meet singers and to collect materials has always seemed to depend largely on serendipity.
Urtyn duu (long song) is one of the traditional Mongolian folk-song genres, characterized, within diverse regional and individual styles, by distinctive elongated musical syllables, ornamentation, and singers' wide vocal range. Urtyn duu singers are traditionally nomadic herders, and even today in the Mongolian countryside, they move with the changing seasons and each day herd their livestock within their nutag (homeland), the local rural region. In contrast, there also exists a clearly separated space, the urban center of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital. The singers of urtyn duu and the songs' performativity are, in this way, deeply related to these geographical places, and to their musical, historical, and political interactions connected with the places, in creating the complex cultural landscape that exists in Mongolia today.
Based on selected interviews with singers and case studies concerning the physical movement of urtyn duu singers and songs, in addition to my observation of urtyn duu's music-cultural landscape during intermittent fieldwork between 2007 and 2017,1 this article specifically explores the notion and practices of mobilities observed...