the vocal tone or timbre was probably similar to the pungently nasal sound of the narrow-bore reed pipes, and most likely shared the contemporary "typically" asian vocal quality and techniques, including little dynamic changes and more graces, shakes, mordents, glides and microtonal inflections. singers probably expressed intense and withdrawn emotion, as if listening to themselves, as shown by the practice of cupping a hand to the ear (as is still current in modern assyrian music and many arab and folk musics) (van der merwe 1989, p. 11).