Khoomei, the Mongolian art of overtone singing, lets a single singer produce two audible pitches at once, sustaining a low fundamental tone while shaping a second, higher sound with careful movements of the tongue, throat and mouth. Mongolian tradition recognizes two principal techniques. Kharkhiraa emphasizes a deep subharmonic voice, while isgeree produces a clear whistled overtone above the fundamental. Both are documented as having developed among pastoral communities of western Mongolia, centered on the Altai Mountains, and both are understood by practitioners as connected to nomadic life and to the region's shamanic religious traditions, performed in contexts ranging from state ceremonies to the ordinary domestic task of lulling an infant to sleep.
UNESCO inscribed the Mongolian traditional art of khoomei on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010, on Mongolia's own nomination. The inscription is specific to Mongolia and does not extend to the closely related throat singing tradition practiced across the border in Tuva, which uses its own named techniques, among them sygyt and kargyraa, and carries no UNESCO listing of its own under Russia. The two traditions share a common vocal technique and a common steppe and pastoral background, and they are frequently discussed together, but they are documented separately in scholarship and named separately in UNESCO's own record, and the atlas now keeps them as two entries for the same reason.
Since the late twentieth century, khoomei has moved well beyond its pastoral origins, drawn into concert performance, formal ensembles and dedicated teaching in response to strong international interest, alongside its continued life within Mongolian herding communities.