Bundesarchiv Bild 135-S-16-09-12, Tibetexpedition, Mönche blasen Tuben

The music of Tibet reflects the cultural heritage of the trans-Himalayan region centered in

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, Taman ...

, but also known wherever ethnic Tibetan groups are found in

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

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 mountainou ...

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 further abroad. The

religious music Religious music (also sacred music) is a type of music that is performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence. It may overlap with ritual music, which is music, sacred or not, performed or composed for or as ritual. Relig ...

of Tibet reflects the profound influence of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

on the culture. The new-age '

singing bowl A standing bell or resting bell is an inverted bell (instrument), bell, supported from below with the rim uppermost. Such bells are normally bowl-shaped, and exist in a wide range of sizes, from a few centimetres to a metre in diameter. They are ...

' music marketed in the

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

as 'Tibetan music' is of 1970s US origin.

History

Western research into the history of Tibetan music has often focused more on religious than secular musics. It has been suggested that Tibetan religious music may have been strongly influenced by West-Asian musics, including those of pre-Muslim Persia (and perhaps even of Byzantium). It has also been suggested that the landscape – and in particular the resonances of caves, with their natural percussive sounding stones - exerted a formative influence on the

overtone singing Overtone singing – also known as overtone chanting, harmonic singing, polyphonic overtone singing, and diphonic singing – is a set of singing techniques in which the vocalist manipulates the resonances of the vocal tract, in order to arous ...

found in Tibetan Buddhist chant (and plausibly also in prehistoric

shamanic Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiri ...

invocations), which is produced by artful moulding of the

oral cavity In animal anatomy, the mouth, also known as the oral cavity, or in Latin cavum oris, is the opening through which many animals take in food and issue vocal sounds. It is also the cavity lying at the upper end of the alimentary canal, bounded on t ...

. The assiduous adoption and evolution of Indian Buddhist traditions and culture in Tibet between the 12th and mid-20th centuries – in a period when Buddhism had disappeared from most of the Indian subcontinent - allowed the Tibetans to perpetuate musical practices from India that would otherwise have been lost, and to develop them in distinctive ways. Although Tibetan religious music can appear quite separate from the major traditions that emerged in Indian music, some of the musical instruments actually descend from Indian monastic and

tantric Buddhist Vajrayāna ( sa, वज्रयान, "thunderbolt vehicle", "diamond vehicle", or "indestructible vehicle"), along with Mantrayāna, Guhyamantrayāna, Tantrayāna, Secret Mantra, Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, are names referring t ...

contexts, including, for example, the ''dril-bu'' hand-

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inte ...

, the characteristic hour-glass drums called ''

damaru A damaru ( sa, डमरु, ; Tibetan ཌ་མ་རུ་ or རྔ་ཆུང) is a small two-headed drum, used in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. In Hinduism, the damaru is known as the instrument of the deity Shiva, associated with Tant ...

'', and the thighbone trumpet (''

kangling ''Kangling'' (), literally translated as "leg" (''kang'') "flute" (''ling''), is the Tibetan name for a trumpet or horn made out of a human tibia or femur, used in Tibetan Buddhism for various chöd rituals as well as funerals performed by a ch� ...

''), as used in the practice of chöd. The Lama Mani tradition – the telling of Buddhist parables through song — dates back to the 12th century. The songs were performed by wandering storytellers, who travelled from village to village, drawing on their own often humble origins to relate to people from all backgrounds. Vividly illustrated Buddhist thangka paintings depicted the narrative and helped the audience understand what was essentially a teaching. Tibetan "street songs" were a traditional form of expression particularly popular as a means of political and other commentary in a country that was previously without newspapers or other means of mass communication. They provided political and social commentary and satire and are a good example of a bardic tradition, akin to that in medieval Europe or, more recently, the role calypsos played in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

. As song lyrics in Tibet usually contained stanzas of 4 lines of 6 syllables each, the lyrics could be easily adapted to almost any melody. Secular Tibetan music has been promoted by organizations like the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

's Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. This organization specialized in the

lhamo Lhamo, or Ache Lhamo, is a classical secular theatre of Tibet with music and dance that has been performed for centuries, whose nearest western equivalent is opera. Performances have a narrative and simple dialogue interspersed with comedy an ...

, an

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

tic style, before branching out into other styles, including

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded da ...

like toeshey and nangma. Nangma is especially popular in the

karaoke Karaoke (; ; , clipped compound of Japanese ''kara'' "empty" and ''ōkesutora'' "orchestra") is a type of interactive entertainment usually offered in clubs and bars, where people sing along to recorded music using a microphone. The music i ...

bars of the urban center of Tibet,

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhas ...

. Another form of popular music is the classical

gar Gars are members of the family Lepisosteidae, which are the only surviving members of the Ginglymodi, an ancient holosteian group of ray-finned fish, which first appeared during the Triassic, over 240 million years ago. Gars comprise seven livin ...

style, which is performed at rituals and ceremonies. Lu are a type of songs that feature glottal vibrations and high pitches. There are also epic bards who sing of Tibet's national hero Gesar.

Musical instruments

Wind

*''Dungchen'' (དུང་ཆེན་) or ''rag-dung'' (རག་དུང་) - long horn made of copper and/or brass *''Dung-kar'' or ''dung-dkar'' (དུང་དཀར་, literally "white conch") - conch shell horn *''Gyaling'' (རྒྱ་གླིང་) - shawm *''Kangling'' (རྐང་གླིང་) or ''kang-dung'' (རྐང་དུང་) - trumpet made from a human leg bone, or sometimes wood *''Lingbu'' ( གླིང་བུ་) - flute flute made from bamboo, or occasionally wood **''Dung-rus gling-bu'' - flute made from the leg bone of an eagle or vulture *''Kha-wang'' or ''gugzi'' - Jew's harp

String

*''Dramyin'' or ''sgra-snyan'' ( སྒྲ་སྙན་) - long-necked fretless plucked lute with 6 or 7 strings *''Piwang'' ( པི་ཝང་) - 2-stringed vertical fiddle *''Rgyud-mang'' (རྒྱུད་མང, literally "many strings") - hammered dulcimer

Percussion

*''Chö nga'' or ''lak nga'' - double-headed drum, which is usually held by a handle in the left hand and struck with a curved stick held in the right hand *''Damaru'' (ཌ་མ་རུ་) - small hourglass drum *''Dhyangro'' - drum used by Himalayan shamans *''Dril-bu'' ( དྲིལ་བུ་) - handbell *''Gyer-kha'' ( གཡེར་ཁ་) - small decorative bell *''Khar-nga'' (མཁར་རྔ་) - gong *''Nga'' or ''rnga'' ( རྔ་) - term referring to any drum or ritual percussion instrument **''Nga chen'' or ''rnga-chen'' (རྔ་ཆེན་) - large double-headed drum, suspended in a frame and played with two sticks **''Rnga-chung'' - small double-headed drum *''Lda man'' (ལྡ་མན་) - a pair of kettledrums *''Rölmo'' ( རོལ་མོ་), also called ''buk chöl'', ''bup chal'', or ''sbub-chal'' - hemispherical cymbals *''Silnyen'' or ''sil-snyan'' (སིལ་སྙན་ or སིལ་སྙེན་) - flat cymbals *''Tingsha'' or ''ting-shags'' ( ཏིང་ཤགས་) - small cymbals *''Mkhar-rnga bcu-pa'' - set of 10 tuned gongs in a frame

Popular and modern

Tibetans have a very strong popular-music culture, and are also well represented in Chinese popular culture. Tibetan singers are particularly known for their strong vocal abilities, which many attribute to the high altitudes of the Tibetan Plateau. Tseten Dolma (才旦卓玛) rose to fame in the 1960s for her music-and-dance suite "The East is Red". Kelsang Metok (格桑梅朵) is a popular singer who combines the vocal traditions of Tibet with elements of Chinese,

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

and

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

pop.

Purba Rgyal Purba Rgyal (; born July 8, 1985), also known as Pu Bajia, is a Chinese singer and actor of Tibetan ethnicity. Life Early life Purba Rgyal was born on July 8, 1985, in Jinchuan County, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan provi ...

(Pubajia or 蒲巴甲) was the 2006 winner of Jiayou Haonaner (), a Chinese reality talent show. In 2006, he starred in Sherwood Hu's ''Prince of the Himalayas'', an adaptation of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

'', set in ancient Tibet and featuring an all-Tibetan cast. In the multi-ethnic provinces of

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, whose Tibetan inhabitants are regarded as part of the "

Amdo Amdo ( �am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...

" cultural tradition, there is a very strong local scene, mostly exposed through videos on local buses. Amdo stars are among others Sherten (short for Sherab Tendzin) and Yadong, who both have reached outside the borders of China with their music. The first fusion with Western music was '' Tibetan Bells'', a 1972 release by

Nancy Hennings Nancy Hennings is an American musician who teamed up with Henry Wolff to make the album '' Tibetan Bells'' in 1971, one of the pioneering LPs of new-age music. In 1982, with the assistance of Wolff and Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart Mi ...

and Henry Wolff. The soundtrack to ''

Kundun ''Kundun'' is a 1997 American epic biographical film written by Melissa Mathison and directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the life and writings of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the exiled political and spiritual leader of Tibet. Ten ...

'', by Philip Glass, has helped to popularize Tibetan music. Foreign styles of popular music have also had a major impact within the

Tibetan diaspora The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet. Tibetan emigration has three separate stages. The first stage was in 1959 following the 14th Dalai Lama's defection to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, India. The s ...

, where Indian ghazal and

filmi Filmi ("of films") music soundtracks are music produced for India's mainstream motion picture industry and written and performed for Indian cinema. In cinema, music directors make up the main body of composers; the songs are performed by playba ...

are very popular and

American rock American rock has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music, and also drew on folk music, jazz, blues, and classical music. American rock music was further influenced by the British Invasion of the American pop ...

has produced the India-based Rangzen Shonu. Within Tibet itself, among rock groups the bilingual Vajara (Tian Chu) sextants are the oldest and most famous act. Since the relaxation of some laws in the 1980s,

Tibetan pop The music of Tibet reflects the cultural heritage of the trans-Himalayan region centered in Tibet, but also known wherever ethnic Tibetan groups are found in Nepal, Bhutan, India and further abroad. The religious music of Tibet reflects the p ...

, popularised by the likes of Yadong (Tibet), Dadon (now living in the US), Jampa Tsering (Tibet), 3-member group AJIA, 4-member group Gao Yuan Hong, five-member group Gao Yuan Feng, are well known. Gaoyuan Hong in particular has introduced elements of Tibetan language rapping into their singles.

Alan Dawa Dolma Alan Dawa Dolma (; ; born on 25 July 1987), known professionally as Alan, is a Tibetan singer and she is known for her signature "Tibetan wail", often incorporated into her music. She is a graduate of the PLA Academy of Art, majoring in vocal m ...

is the first and currently only artist of Tibetan ethnicity to be active in both Chinese and Japanese music industry. Tibetan dancing

Western representations

Although it is sometimes stated that ' Tibetan singing bowls' date back to a pre-Buddhist,

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spir ...

ic Bon-Po tradition, the manufacture and use of bowls specifically for the purpose of 'singing' (as opposed to standing bells/bowls that are intended to be struck) is believed to be a modern and non-Tibetan phenomenon. The historical records and accounts of the music of Tibet are silent about singing bowls. Such bowls are not mentioned by Perceval Landon (a visitor in 1903-1904) in his notes on Tibetan music, nor by any other visitor. Wolff and Hennings' seminal recording '' Tibetan Bells'' was followed by the development of a unique style of American singing bowl music often marketed as 'Tibetan music'. This has remained very popular in the US with many recordings being marketed as World music or New-age music since the introduction of those terms in the 1980s. 'Tibetan singing bowls' have as a result become a prominent visual and musical symbol of Tibet, to the extent that the most prevalent modern representation of Tibet within the US is that of bowls played by Americans.

Gallery

File:Musician at Tibetan Childrens' Village, Dharamsala.jpg, Musician at Tibetan Childrens' Village, Dharamsala File:Tibetan trumpets at Tagthok Gompa, Ladakh. 2010.jpg, ''Gyaling'' and ''dungchen'' at Takthok Monastery,

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory which constitutes a part of the larger Kashmir region and has been the subject of dispute between India, Pakistan, and China since 1947. (subscription required) Quote: "Jammu ...

. 2010 File:Medium-sized Tibetan trumpets. Tagthok Gompa, 2010.jpg, ''Gyaling''. Tagthok Gompa, 2010

Footnotes

References

* Melinda Jin
''Tibetan culture more active on domestic, overseas stages''
China Tibet Online, 15 November 2013. * Crossley-Holland, Peter. (1976). "The Ritual Music of Tibet." ''The Tibet Journal''. Vol. 1, Nos. 3 & 4, Autumn 1976, pp. 45–54. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Music Of Tibet Tibetan music

Tibetan Buddhist art and culture pt:Tibete#Música