I learned about this interesting form of Sardinian polyphonic music today, and I'm sorry it took me so long, because I find it nothing short of amazing.

A tenore is practised by groups of four male singers each of whom has a distinct role; the oche or boche (pronounced /oke/ or /boke/, "voice") is the solo voice, while the mesu oche or mesu boche ("half voice"), contra ("counter") and bassu ("bass") - listed in descending pitch order - form a chorus (another meaning of tenore). The bassu sings the same note sung by the oche, and contra a fifth above the bassu. Oche and mesu oche sing in a regular voice, whereas contra and bassu sing with a technique affecting the larynx. The oche sings a poetic text, which can be of epic, historic, satirical, amorous or even protest genre. The chorus consists of nonsense syllables (for example bim-bam-boo). According to popular tradition, mesu oche imitates the sound of wind, while the contra imitates a sheep bleating and the bassu a cow lowing. The solo voice starts a monodic vocal line and is then joined by the others as he indicates to them to join in. The effect is somewhat that of a round except that the points where the other singers join in vary and, thus, the harmonies vary from version to version. The execution differs in details between each of the villages where a tenore is sung to such an extent that the village can be immediately recognized. Although nowadays cucordu and canto a tenore are performed only by men, memories remain of a time where women groups performed as well, following the matriarchal tradition of Sardinia. According to some anthropologists, canto a tenore was performed back in nuraghe civilisation. In 2005, Unesco classed the canto a tenore among intangible world heritage [1].

Sardinia is home to one of the oldest forms of vocal polyphony, generally known as cantu a tenore; several famous musicians have found it irresistible, including Frank Zappa, Ornette Coleman, and Peter Gabriel. The latter travelled to the town of Bitti in the central mountainous region and recorded the now world-famous Tenores di Bitti CD on his Real World label.

(My apologies if this bores any musically sophisticated readers).

And interesting feature about the language of the singers (Sardo logudorese) is that it is he most conservative of all Romance languages" (being closer to the original Latin than the others, and having changed very little from the Latin vulgate):

The language derives from Latin, and has been influenced by Catalan and Spanish due to the dominion of the Aragon and later the Spanish Empire over the island. Logudorese is the northern macro-dialect of the Sardinian language, the southern macro-dialect being Sardu campidanesi, spoken in the southern half of the island. The two variants share a clear common origin and history, but have experienced somewhat different developments.

Though the language is typically Romance, some words in the language are not of Latin origin, and often are of uncertain etymology. One such is "nura", found in "nuraghe", the main form of pre-Roman building, hence the term for the pre-Roman era as the Nurgic Period. Various place names similar have unanalisable roots.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Logudorian is that, due to the particular history of the area, it has suffered very little contamination and has changed very slowly from Vulgar Latin in comparison to other Latin languages, even though in terms of vocabulary it is not as close to its Latin ancestor as Italian, the most Latin of Romance languages. Having said this, Campidanese in contrast at times shows more archaic features than Logudorese, particularly in its verb forms, sauch as the retention of the 3rd person plural in -nt(), reduced to -n() in Logudorese.

Enjoy!