The two-part singing and playing in the Istrian scale, a traditional singing practice characteristic of the Istrian region and the north Adriatic coastal area and islands, was inscribed in UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.

[3] It was first named by Ivan Matetić Ronjgov early in the twentieth century,[2] assisting his study and notation of Croatian music.

[7] Karol Pahor's cycle of 15 pieces, Istrijanka (1950), was the result of study of the Istrian mode, as was Danilo Švara's Sinfonia da camera in modo istriano (1957).

[10] Throughout the areas of Istria and the Kvarner Gulf the distinctive vocal singing has spread, consisting of alternating half and whole steps, which, particularly in older singers' and instrumentalists' renditions, are untempered.

The songs are sung by pairs of singers (male, female, or mixed) in a characteristic two-part polyphony in minor thirds (or major sixths) with a cadence to a unison or an octave.