Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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If you are interested in more information on the subject, I recommend visiting these links to John's sites YouTube channels where you can find more information on the subject:

Tours: JohnGrahamTours.com
Academic: JohnAGraham.com
Chant: GeorgianChant.org
Youtube: youtube.com/JohnGrahamTours
Youtube: youtube.com/GeorgianChantOrg

This is the link to the dissertation John discussed:
johnagraham.com/dissertation

In the second episode of the Epic Conversations series, I am honoured to be joined by John A. Graham, an ethnomusicologist and specialist of Georgian music. We discuss the basic musicological parametres of this rich and variegated musical idiom, as well as its history and anthropological context.

0:00 Introduction
5:16 Social functions of Georgian music
14:00 Polyphony is indigenous to the Caucasus
17:38 Georgia's is one branch of Caucasian polyphony
19:25 Centrality of polyphony in Georgian music
22:25 Liturgical vs folk music
29:30 Instrumental polyphony?
32:27 Georgia's links to the modal world
41:46 Vocables and nonsense syllables
48:00 How does Georgian harmony work?
1:13:00 Do Georgian and Western harmony mix?
1:19:00 The old tuning vs modern tuning