Fortune, Emotion and Poetics: The Intersubjective Experience of Mongolian Musical Sociality

Abstract

This paper explores the spiritual esoteric imperative of social singing during the life-cycle event of an Altai Urianghai wedding. Social singing in this context creates a ‘musical-social heterophony’, interweaving layers of singing and talking, creating a space that is never solely social, nor solely musical. The creation of this space is described as bayar tsengel, or celebration, and is an attempt to sway this event into a positive and beautiful (saihan) space. Each wedding guest contributes to this through ‘gifting’ songs, and if the right celebration is created, it enhances the creation of fortune (hishig buyan) for the newly married couple. I argue that each wedding guest negotiates the indeterminacy of this musical social space, forming a type of Mongolian musical intersubjectivity. This intersubjective musical-social experience includes not only interactions between guests, but interactions with an esoteric dimension of causal forces that could either create or dispel fortune. Show more