The vocal creativity of the Kyrgyz people reflects their rich history, social and domestic relationships, spiritual and labor experiences. Song accompanies the Kyrgyz constantly and daily, and the love for singing has a truly mass character. The vocal culture of the oral tradition has formed, developed, and improved over thousands of years, resulting in its artistic-expressive and logical-constructive principles and means.
The vocal sphere of folk creativity, in a broad sense, includes epic canvases, akyn compositions, and various "small" genre types of song creativity. The leading role of vocal folklore in the artistic heritage is also determined by the fact that all or almost all folk instrumental music is imbued with its melodiousness. Together with the instrumental tradition, the vocal embodies the true musical talent of the Kyrgyz people.
At the initial stage of the formation of Kyrgyz musical folklore (1920s-1930s), there was a different point of view. A. Zataevich asserted: "In the field of instrumental creativity, undoubtedly lie the main prerequisites for judging the true musicality of this people, concentrating the most vivid and significant aspects that this people can contribute to the musical international of the peoples of our Soviet Union."
Such a one-sided assertion by A. Zataevich is explained by the fact that for the recordings in 1928, he was presented with the best examples of instrumental music performed by outstanding masters of komuz and kyak musicians, while the genres of vocal folklore were represented in very limited numbers, in the form of short lyrical, domestic, and ritual melodies performed by ordinary non-professional folk singers.
Song folklore exists in two main forms — mass and folk-professional. Between them are many transitional, mixed forms.
As a professional, the author and performer of the song consciously approaches the tasks of his art, striving to convey its musical-poetic content to the listener in the most refined form. Being a concert-presented genre, such a song concentrates spiritual energy, creates a special mood of collective psyche, and thus performs an important socio-cultural function. In professional song, all stylistic means appear in a polished form, refined by creative individuality. Hence, on the one hand, its accessibility to mass consciousness, and on the other — the uniqueness of the author's and performer's "I" embedded in it.
In the ancient musical tradition, composition and performance were inseparable, as they represented a single creative process in which the author and singer were one and the same. Alongside the preservation of this type of creative activity, its division gradually occurred.
