Rekuhkara (from

Sakhalin Ainu The Ainu in Russia are an indigenous people of Siberia located in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai. The Russian Ainu people (''Aine''; russian: айны, ayny), also called ''Kurile'' (курилы, ''kurily''), ''Kamcha ...

''rekuh''　レクㇷ 'throat'; ''rekut''　レクㇳ or レクッ in

Hokkaidō is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The la ...

Ainu) is a style of

singing Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

, similar to

Inuit throat singing Inuit throat singing, or ''katajjaq'' (Inuktitut syllabics: ᑲᑕᔾᔭᖅ), is a distinct type of throat singing uniquely found among the Inuit. It is a form of musical performance, traditionally consisting of two women who sing duets in a cl ...

, that was practised by the Ainu until 1976 when the last practitioner died,

Nattiez, Jean-Jacques Jean-Jacques Nattiez (; born December 30, 1945 in Amiens, France) is a musical semiologist or semiotician and professor of musicology at the Université de Montréal. He studied semiology with Georges Mounin and Jean Molino and music semiology ...

although recent revival has been attempted in this video based on the old recordings. ''The Rekkukara of the Ainu (Japan) and the Katajjaq of the Inuit (Canada) A Comparison'' in ''

Le Monde de la musique ''Le Monde de la musique'' was a French monthly musical magazine published from 1978 to 2009 with a circulation of 20,000 copies in 2008. It was founded in 1978 by ''Le Monde'' and ''Télérama ''Télérama'' is a weekly French cultural and tel ...

'', Vol. 25, No. 2, 1983. The

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...

spelling ''rekuxkara'' or the

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

spelling ''rekukkara'' (レクッカラ in

Katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

) can also be encountered.Shimomura Isao (下村五三夫), Itō Daisuke (伊藤大介)
樺太アイヌの喉交換遊びレクッカラ
について'' Kitami Institute of Technology, 2008 The Ainu method involved two women facing each other, with one forming a tube with her hands and chanting into the

oral cavity In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on ...

of her partner. The technique is essentially one where the "giver" provides the voice and the "receiver", holding her

glottis The glottis is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing vowels and voiced consonants. Etymology From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γλῶττα'' (glôtta), va ...

closed, uses her

vocal tract The vocal tract is the cavity in human bodies and in animals where the sound produced at the sound source (larynx in mammals; syrinx (biology), syrinx in birds) is filtered. In birds it consists of the Vertebrate trachea, trachea, the Syrinx (bio ...

to modulate the sound stream.

References

Ainu music Throat singing Singing techniques {{ainu-stub

See also

References