This list contains "traditional" musical instruments used in

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

. Instruments overlap with nearby countries, including

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

. An example is the

Sarangi The sārangī is a bowed, short-necked string instrument played in traditional music from South Asia – Punjabi folk music, Rajasthani folk music, and Boro folk music (there known as the ''serja'') – in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. It is ...

, a common bow Indian instrument. Although the Nepali people have their own local variant

Sarangi (Nepal) The Nepali Sarangi ( ne, नेपाली सारङ्गी) is a Nepali folk instrument. It is a chordophone played by bowing. Traditionally in Nepal, the Sarangi was only played by people of Gandarbha or Gaine caste (both contested and ...

, both instruments are known in Nepal. Some of the instrument are

madal The madal ( ne, मादल) or maadal is a Nepalese folk musical instrument. The madal is used mainly for rhythm-keeping in Nepalese folk music. It is very popular and widely used as a hand drum in Nepal. The madal has a cylindrical body with a s ...

, maddlam ,

dholak The ''dholak'' is a two-headed hand drum, a folk percussion instrument. The instrument is about 45 cm in length and 27 cm in breadth and is widely used in ''qawwali'', '' kirtan'', '' lavani'' and '' bhangra''. The drum has two differ ...

. In such cases where instruments were imported in

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the History of writing, beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian language, Sumerian c ...

times, or when both varieties are played in Nepal, both can be included on the list. New instruments of Nepali origin may be included, as well as modern recreations of "

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

" instruments. Modern imports such as the western

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

are not included. Nepal ethnic groups

There are hundreds of Nepali musical instruments and they are not standardized. When considering seemingly identical instruments, the

languages Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

, region of origin, musician's

ethnicity An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

and local traditions may affect the instrument's identity and how it is played.

Research avenues

Many Nepali folk instruments or lokabaja (नेपाली लोकबाजा) date back into prehistory or inaccessible history. General histories of musical instruments, such as ''History of Musical Instruments'' by Kurt Sachs, have little to say directly about Nepal. Sachs focused two chapters on India, and when addressing the ranasrnga, on Northern India. When instruments used in Nepal were included in Sachs' book, such as drums with hooked sticks (p. 157), the dameru (p. 159), the lute with a barb on its sides (160-161), the sarangi (226), and the ranasrnga (p. 228), the organizational focus was on India, or "North India." JSTORE, an online repository of academic journals has articles. An example by Thomas O. Ballinger and Purna Harsha Bajracharya, ''Nepalese Musical Instruments'', Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Published by: The University of Chicago Press, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter, 1960), pp. 398–416 (19 pages). Thomas compares the instruments he found with that found in books by A. Campbell and Daniel Wright. Gives descriptions of instruments. :''History of Nepal'', by Daniel Wright, Cambridge: University Press, 1877. :''Notes on the Musical Instruments and Agricultural and Other Instruments of the Nepalese'', by A. Campbell, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. 6 (1837), pp. 953-963. ''The Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments'' is a more comprehensive resource, with many instruments having been documented by ethnomusicologists. Random entries for Nepali instruments include Arbajo, Damaha, the Kingdom of Nepal nd its instruments and international music relationshipsand the ghanta (both large "male" bells and smaller "female" handbells. This resource requires either a subscription (not inexpensive), access to a university library, or purchase of the $995 set of books. The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 5: South Asia, the Indian subcontinent does address Nepal directly in a chapter. Museum and museum catalogs: In 1995, a local project was begun in Nepal, to document the folk instruments there. Ram Prasad Kadel began to visit different parts of his country and collect examples of instruments that he found. He talked to musicians and made recordings. In 1997, he founded the Nepali Folk Instruments Museum, which opened to the public in 2002 in Kathmandu. Kadel wrote two books, catalogues of some of the museum's instruments. ''Nepali Lokbaja'' or ''Folk Musical Instruments of Nepal'' was published in 2004. The Nepali-language book contains entries and images for 375 instruments. The language made the contents inaccessible to most readers outside Nepal. In 2007 Kadel's Musical Instruments of Nepal was published, an English-language book with 362 Nepali instruments and more detailed pictures. The book is the only book in the English language whose focus is Nepali folk musical instruments. Today his museum has more than 40,000 hours of recordings.

Membranophones

Tambourines and frame drums

Kettle drums and single-headed drums

Hourglass drums

Long two-headed drums

Multiple heads nested

* Tri Taal, block with nested drum-heads

Idiophones

Bells

*Yakuchaa Babhu, bell * Ghote, circlet of bells on a leather thong.

Cymbals

Gongs

* TainNain. Gong. * Tinimuni. Metal percussion triangle.

Jaw harps

Jingles, clappers, struck objects

Chordophones String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...

Tube zither The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox or it modifies the sound and transfers it to ...
s and
raft zither A raft zither is a group of single-cord tube zithers, connected together to form a "raft". Tube zithers use a tube as a platform to hold a string (either tied onto the tube or cut out of the tube itself), raised with bridges. The flat surface o ...
s

* Bhante Maadal. 2-String bamboo drum zither. *Tunjaai. Tube zithers connected together into a single instrument, a

raft zither A raft zither is a group of single-cord tube zithers, connected together to form a "raft". Tube zithers use a tube as a platform to hold a string (either tied onto the tube or cut out of the tube itself), raised with bridges. The flat surface o ...

, hanging from the shoulder and plucked with a plectrum. Made from Thysanolaena maxima. * Yalambar (यलम्बर) /

Yalamber Baja The Yalamber or Yahamber Baja (यलम्बर बाजा) is a Nepali tube zither in the Kirati tradition. It is one of three tube-zithers documented in Nepal by the Nepali Folk Musical Instruments Museum in 2004. Instruments in Nepal tend ...

(

tube zither The tube zither is a stringed musical instrument in which a tube functions both as an instrument's neck and its soundbox. As the neck, it holds strings taut and allows them to vibrate. As a soundbox or it modifies the sound and transfers it to ...

-drum) यलम्बर (बाजा)

Aerophones An aerophone () is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instr ...

Trumpets

Flutes, panpipes

Reed instruments

Unidentified

* Baya * Dafali * Ghangling * Girnal * Handiya * Horel * Ilambu * Irlung pipari * Jhajhar * Kaha * Khusyaha * kumuna * Lawa * Paluwa * Paschima * Tahinahi * Tunguna

References

External links

Information about music, instrument and a caste allowed to play them.
{{Asian musical instruments

Nepalese musical instruments

musical instruments A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...