Zhungdra ( dz, གཞུང་སྒྲ་; Wylie: ''gzhung-sgra'') is one of two main styles of traditional Bhutanese folk music, the other being

bödra Boedra ( Dzongkha: བོད་སྒྲ་; Wylie: ''bod-sgra''; "Tibetan music"; also spelled bödra) is a traditional genre of Bhutanese music. Boedra, which is influenced by Tibetan folk music, is one of the two main folk singing styles in Bh ...

. Arising in the 17th century, zhungdra (''zhung'' meaning "center, mainstream", and ''dra'' meaning "music") is an entirely endemic

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

ese style associated with the folk music of the central valleys of Paro,

Thimphu Thimphu (; dz, ཐིམ་ཕུག ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Bhutan. It is situated in the western central part of Bhutan, and the surrounding valley is one of Bhutan's ''dzongkhags'', the Thimphu District. The ancient ...

, and

Punakha Punakha ( dz, སྤུ་ན་ཁ་) is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. It is abo ...

, the heart of the

Ngalop The Ngalop ( dz, སྔལོངཔ་ ; "earliest risen people" or "first converted people" according to folk etymology) are people of Tibetan origin who migrated to Bhutan as early as the ninth century. Orientalists adopted the term "Bhote" or ...

cultural area. Bödra, in contrast, evolved out of Tibetan court music. Zhungdra is characterized by the use of extended vocal tones in complex patterns which slowly decorate a relatively simple instrumental melody. Untrained singers, even those with natural singing ability, typically find it challenging to sing zhungdra. This has reduced the popularity of zhungdra compared with

rigsar Rigsar (Dzongkha རིག་གསར་; Wylie: ''rig-gsar''; "new idea") is a music genre, the dominant type of popular music of Bhutan. It was originally played on a dranyen (a kind of string instrument), and dates back to the late 1960s. The f ...

, the fast-paced pop Bhutanese music style based on electronic

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s. The zhungdra style may be appreciated in songs such as ''Lhodrak Marpai Zhab'', found on

Jigme Drukpa Jigme Drukpa is a Bhutanese musician and singer of traditional folk songs, born in 1969 in the small village of Wongchelo, in Pemagatshel, eastern Bhutan. He graduated from Sherubtse College in 1993, and undertook postgraduate studies in Norway. ...

's album ''Endless Songs from Bhutan''. Although formally secular, the lyrics of zhungdra songs often tell

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

allegories, such as ''Yak Legbi Lhadar'', in which the singer tells of his former life as a

yak The domestic yak (''Bos grunniens''), also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox or hairy cattle, is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan Plateau, Kachin Sta ...

slaughtered in connection with a non-Buddhist ritual in the

Gasa district Gasa District or Gasa Dzongkhag ( Dzongkha: མགར་ས་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Mgar-sa rdzong-khag'') is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. The capital of Gasa District is Gasa Dzong near Gasa. It is loc ...

References

{{reflist Bhutanese folk music

See also

References