Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Music
Music is one aspect of Tibetan cultural life in which there is a strong secular heritage. In
the urban centres, songs were an important vent for social criticism, news and political
lampooning. In Tibetan social life, both work and play are seen as occasions for singing.
Even today it is not uncommon to see the monastery reconstruction squads pounding on
the roofs of buildings and singing in unison. Where there are groups of men and women,
the singing alternates between the two groups in the form of rhythmic refrains.
The ultimate night out in Lhasa is to a
nangma
venue, where house dancers and singers
perform traditional songs and dances as part of a stage show, with members of the audien-
ce often joining in at smaller venues.
Tibet also has a secular tradition of wandering minstrels. It's still possible to see min-
strels performing in Lhasa and Shigatse, where they play on the streets and occasionally
(when they are not chased out by the owners) in restaurants. Generally, groups of two or
three singers perform heroic epics and short songs to the accompaniment of a four-stringed
guitar and a nifty little shuffle, before moving around tables soliciting donations with a
grin. In times past, groups of such performers travelled around Tibet, providing entertain-
ment for villagers who had few distractions from the constant round of daily chores.
While the secular music of Tibet has an instant appeal for foreign listeners, the liturgical
chants of Buddhist monks and the music that accompanies
cham
dances is a lot less ac-
cessible. Buddhist chanting creates an eerie haunting effect, but can soon become very
monotonous. The music of
cham
is a discordant cacophony of trumpet blasts and boom-
crash drums - atmospheric as an accompaniment to the dancing but not necessarily the
kind of thing you would want to put on an MP3 player.
Tibetan religious rituals use
rolmo
and
silnyen
(cymbals)
, nga
(suspended drums),
dam-
aru
(hand drums),
drilbu
(bells),
drungchen
(long trumpets)
, kangling
(conical oboes;
formerly made from human thighbones) and
dungkhar
(conch shells). Secular instruments
include the
dramnyen
(a six-stringed lute),
piwang
(two-stringed fiddle),
lingbu
(flute) and
gyumang
(Chinese-style zither).
