Georgian Music and Song

Hamlet Gonashvili. Georgian tenor, he is sometimes referred to as "the voice of Georgia"

Georgian music is characterized by polyphony, and accompanying haunting non-Western harmonies, which distinguish it from its neighbors like Armenia. Georgian folk remains vibrant across the country, while modern rock and pop also exist.

Georgian folk songs are often centered on feasts, where songs and toasts to God, long life and other topics. Traditional feast songs include "Zamtari", which is about winter and is sung to commemorate ancestors, and "Mravalzhamier", a joyous hymn. Work songs are also widespread. The orovela, for example, is a type of work song found in eastern Georgia with Armenian characteristics such as a lack of polyphony. There is also a distinct and rich tradition of Georgian sacred music, both settings of hymns for the Orthodox Church, and folk hymns and ritual songs that contain a great deal of pagan imagery. There are, in addition, many lyric love songs, dance songs, lullabies, and travelling songs, among others. Choirs are generally entirely male, though some female groups also exist; mixed-gender choirs are rare, but also exist. (An example of the latter is the Zedashe ensemble, based in Sighnaghi, Kakheti.)

Georgia is a small country, but it is very mountainous. For this reason, folk music styles from different regions of Georgia differ very widely, which makes it difficult to speak of characteristics of "Georgian folk music" as a monolithic whole.

Table songs from Kakheti in eastern Georgia usually feature a simple, drone-like bass part with two soloists singing the top two parts. Kakhetian melodies sound like recitative part of the time (with great emphasis on the words, which are highly poetic), and then break into series of ornate, cascading ornaments. The two melody parts do play off each other, but there is not the type of complicated back-and-forth between the parts that you hear in Gurian trio songs. An interesting tidbit: The drinking song "Chakrulo", in typically Kakhetian style, was chosen to accompany the Voyager spacecraft in 1977.

In Rach'a, male singers accompany themselves on bagpipe. Dissonance is prominent in the west, in Mingrelia and Guria, which also features high pitches and outrageous, yodelling-like vocals called krimanchuli. Svaneti's traditions are perhaps the oldest and most traditional due to the region's isolation. Svan harmonies are irregular and angular, and the middle voice leads two supporting vocals, all with a narrow range. The 20th century has seen professional choirs achieve renown in Georgia, especially Anzor Erkomaishvili's Rustavi Choir.

Georgia is home to a form of urban music with sentimental, lovelorn lyrics, as well as a more rough and crude urban music featuring clarinets, doli and duduks.

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