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In recent years, a peculiar singing style which comes from a steppe has been frequently shown on many variety TV programs. This has made the public get to know about Hoomii – the “horse head string instrument in voice” of the steppe.

Mongolian long tune, horse head string instruments and hoomii are the “Triratna of the steppe culture”, which are the most typical and most representative cultural forms of the Mongolian ethic group Mongolian nationality. On Sept 30, 2009, the Mongolian hoomii was chosen as one of the 76 world's intangible cultural heritage items authorized by the protection of the intangible cultural heritage meeting of UNESCO. This is the second project for Inner Mongolia in the “Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists” after Mongolian long tune folk songs.

There is peculiar story about Hoomii coming into being: ancient people who lived in the mountains saw branching streams, cascading waterfalls, valleys echoing the sounds of the mountains and sounds spreading for tens of miles, so then they imitated and produced Hoomii.

Hoomii, also named “haolin chor”, is a great singing form from the Mongolian tremolo complex tone singing style. Hoomii uses a special voice skill which requires a person to sing two voices at the same time to form a rare, multi-voiced shape. The singer holds his or her breath, making a thick bubble sound as the bass voice.

The tracks of Hoomii are not very abundant because of the limitation of special singing skills. Generally speaking, there are three types: chanting about beautiful natural scenery such as “Altain Magtaal” and “Stream of Eu River”; another is the performance and simulation of wildlife images such as “Cuckoo” and “Black Walking Bear”; the third is praising the horse and steppe such as “Four Years Sea Liu Sea Horse”. As far as its music style, hoomii gives priority to short tone music and brief long tone music, but not very much.

From the story of Hoomii’s coming into being, singing from the “laryngeal tone” likely comes from the ancient people in the mountains while hunting.