Nurlanbek Nyshanov expanded and arranged two traditional melodic motifs into this short composition. “We always play it from notation,” he says, “and it remains fixed in its present form. The first two motifs are old; the rest is new.” The major scales, symmetrical phrases, and lively tempos call to mind folk music from parts of Europe. Is this resemblance a vestige of ancient contact between Inner Asian nomads and proto-Europeans? History does not provide a sure answer, but songs and tunes rooted in diatonic major and minor scales are common not only in Kyrgyz music but among the historically nomadic Kazakhs and Khakas.