The Republic of Tyva and her people, from the mid twentieth century until today, exist in a colonized state first by the Soviet Union (1944-1991) and currently the Russian Federation (1991-Present). In an increasingly nationalistic Russification policy inside Mr. Putin’s Russia, the people of Tyva continue to live as a marginalized population and the target of rampant discrimination at home. While traditionally the Tyvan people have relied on geographic isolation as a form of defense, both indigenous language and music, while not classified as endangered are under pressure due to continued internal Russification policies. This mixed methods dissertation explored modern Tyvan identity, musical culture and music learning by means of immersive field work in Tyva and Mongolia described in autoethnography, a Likert style survey (N = 168) to rank the importance of markers of modern Tyvan identity, and finally and extended long form questionnaire (N = 44) designed to explore the musical lives, teaching and learning of Tyvan Vocal Music (khöömei), and Tyvan Instrumental Music (doshpuluur, igil, chanzy, kengirge, shoor, chadagan, khomus). Both music and voice function as embodied forms of memory that bind the Tyvans to their ancestral lands and pre-Soviet non-colonized nomadic life.