Albanians are the cultural descendants of Indo-European peoples who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula in antiquity. Albanian scholars often designate a large group of songs as lyric songs. Women sing lyric songs almost exclusively, but men also sing narrative songs. For the largest celebrations, rural families hire professional musicians from nearby towns. Musicians perform these most often for male guests at an event to generate feelings of elation and nostalgia. Urbanites in past decades also developed their own musical repertoires, known not only in towns, but also in villages where residents had contacts with urban commercial life. Most northern singing is monophonie, but singers sometimes accompany themselves on melodic or rhythmic instruments. Urban songs often range over more than an octave, and include instrumental interludes performed before each verse or between sections. Songs in state-supported contexts were monitored for political content, though less so than in Albania.