Tuvan and Mongolian throat singing, most widely known by the Tuvan term khoomei, is a vocal technique that allows a single singer to produce two audible pitches at once, a sustained low fundamental tone and one or more clear, whistle-like higher overtones shaped by precise adjustments of the tongue, throat and mouth cavity, several distinct styles of which, including sygyt, kargyraa and khoomei proper, are individually named and recognized within Tuvan tradition according to differences in vocal technique and resulting timbre.
Practitioners and scholars widely connect the tradition's origin and continued practice to the pastoral, herding way of life historically dominant across Tuva, Mongolia and neighboring regions of Siberia, describing throat singing as developed partly in imitation of and response to natural sounds encountered across the open steppe, including wind moving across grassland, running water, and the calls of animals such as horses, a connection singers and teachers frequently describe as central to understanding the practice's meaning rather than as incidental inspiration. The technique demands years of practice to develop reliable control, and it is taught and transmitted both within families and pastoral communities where it has long been practiced and, increasingly since the later twentieth century, through formal ensembles and dedicated teachers responding to substantial international interest in the tradition.