Country in Asia. It extends from the peaks of the high Himalaya in the north to the plains of the Terai in the south, bordered by India and Tibet. There are three major ethnic groups: the Indo-Nepalese, the Tibeto-Nepalese and the indigenous Nepalese, composed of peoples such as the Newars, Gurung, Tamang etc. Although Nepal is the only official Hindu state in the world, there is a strong Buddhist presence, which is often reflected in an intermingling of beliefs and practices. The physical and cultural geography of the country is extremely varied, and communication between areas is often made difficult by the topography, leading to great cultural diversity even between adjoining valleys.
I. Music in the Kathmandu Valley
III. Traditional music outside the Kathmandu Valley
GERT-MATTHIAS WEGNER, RICHARD WIDDESS (I), CAROL TINGEY (II), PIRKKO MOISALA (III)
Nepal, §I: Music in the Kathmandu Valley
One of the most complex musical cultures in the Himalayan region is that of the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, who speak a Tibeto-Burman language. Over a period of two millennia the Newars developed an elaborate civilization based on agriculture and on trade with India, Tibet and China. Buddhism, Hinduism and many other cultural elements were adopted from neighbouring India but re-shaped according to local needs. The influx of Buddhist and Hindu refugees from northern India following the Muslim conquests of the 12th–13th centuries was an important stimulus to Newar culture. Newar civilization flourished under the Malla kings (13th–18th centuries), whose rival kingdoms of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur competed in architectural, artistic and cultural splendour; several rulers themselves excelled as musicians, dancers, composers, poets and art patrons, particularly Jagajjyotīr Malla (reigned 1613–37) and Bhūpatindra Malla (1696–1722) of Bhaktapur, and Pratāp Malla of Kathmandu (1641–74). Newar autonomy was brought to a sudden end by Prithvī Nārāyan Shāh of Gorkha, who conquered the valley in 1768–9, setting up his capital in Kathmandu. His successors hold the Nepalese throne to this day, but from 1846 to 1951 the Rānā prime ministers were de facto rulers and wealthy patrons of classical music. Since 1769 the Indo-Nepalese have constituted the politically dominant group in the valley (see §II below), but the Newars maintain many aspects of their culture, including an elaborate round of urban rituals in which music and dance play a large part.
Nepal, §I: Music in the Kathmandu Valley
Contemporary pressures inevitably ensure that traditional Newar culture is undergoing rapid change and decline, but in 1987 a survey of the Newar town of Bhaktapur (70,000 inhabitants) identified 220 music and dance groups still functioning. Performance in Newar culture serves a variety of ritual and entertainment functions. Thus a Navadurgā masked dance enacts an awesome cosmic drama in which the deities themselves participate, but it is also an occasion for spectacle, humour and festive enjoyment (Levy, 1990). Such performances establish intimate connections between ritual, space, time and society, and between the material and spiritual realms. Each genre is performed at specific ritual occasions, in specific places (temple, street, public square, river crossing), at ritually determined times (according to the lunar and solar calendars) and by specific castes (jāti) and associations (guthī) in honour of one or more specific gods, goddesses, Bodhisattvas etc.
A universal feature is the worship of the god of music and dance, Nāsahdyah, by all Newar communities (Wegner, 1986, 1992; Ellingston, 1990). He resides in aniconic shrines and in musical instruments. Offerings to him, accompanied by special music (dyahlhāygu), must precede and conclude any music or dance performance or any period of musical apprenticeship. Nāsahdyah is a god of unseen forces, manifested not only in music but also in geomantic lines of power that transect the urban landscape.
Many performances serve to articulate ritual and urban space. Annual dance performances of the Navadurgā mark the centre and boundaries of each quarter of the town of Bhaktapur. Each quarter has its own Nāsahdyah shrine, at which local inhabitants are initiated into musical performance. A temple courtyard may have specific spaces reserved for different musical genres. Groups of performers tend to belong to the same locality, from which they set out in procession at festival time. The destination of such processions may be a series of Hindu or Buddhist shrines or a cremation-ground, and the way is marked with special music for each shrine passed or stage of the journey completed. In such ways the urban landscape functions not only as a stage, but also in an almost prescriptive manner analogous to a musical score (see Wegner, 1988).
Newar music and dance are performed almost exclusively by men. Women are excluded from the performance of all genres except rice-sowing songs and Buddhist devotional songs of the bhajan type. Apart from the Jugī tailor-musician caste, performers are not musicians or dancers by profession. Some genres or instruments are restricted to members of a particular caste, but performance may require inter-caste cooperation, as for example when Jugīs are required to provide melodic accompaniment on shawms for Jyāpu drum or dance performances. Many performance types are organized by societies (guthī), a pervasive institution in Newar culture deriving from the ancient Indian craft-guilds (gosthī). Thus a particular guthī may be responsible for providing daily music at a particular temple. A land holding, sometimes a royal donation, would have provided the guthī with income for the maintenance of instruments, copying of song-books and other expenses, but these holdings have now been abolished by the central government, and the surviving music guthīs are impoverished. Each guthī comprises members of a particular caste, from a particular quarter of a town, worshipping at a particular Nāsahdyah shrine.
Indian influence on Newar music is manifest in the use of rāga and tāla names for melodic and rhythmic structures respectively (see India, §III, 2 and 4. In religious vocal genres the melody (lay) of each song (me) is attributed to a specific rāg, introduced by a short, non-metrical exposition called ālāp, rāg kāyegu (‘taking up the rāga’) or simply rāg. In some cases these rāgas have specific functions, as Mālaśrī for the autumn Dasaĩ festival, or Dīpak (the fire rāga) for funeral music. Most rāgas are diatonic heptatonic or anhemitonic pentatonic in structure. Modes with augmented 2nds, used in Indian classical music since the 16th century, are absent, and the frequent absence of a drone accompaniment in Newar music allows an ambiguity of tonal centre that the drone of Indian classical music tends to eliminate. The melodic structure of individual rāgas is somewhat variable from town to town or temple to temple.
Metrical structure (tāl) is articulated by cymbals of various types, often played by the singers themselves in vocal genres. Metres of four, five, six, seven beats and their multiples are employed. A single tāla normally persists throughout each musical item, but the tāla and/or tempo may change during the course of some dāphā songs, cacā dances and navabājā drum compositions (change of tāla was a feature of some medieval Indian prabandha). The playing of drums, either as an instrumental item or as accompaniment to melodic music or dance, is the most elaborate element of Newar music today. Each of about 15 different drum types has its own complex, pre-composed repertory (or repertories), used for specific functions by particular social groups. Each drum repertory is encoded in an oral notation, in which a large variety of drum sounds are represented by corresponding syllables, selected according to phonetic principles that also underlie Indian drum notations (Kölver and Wegner, 1992). Similar notation is used for the long, straight natural trumpets (pvangā, pãytā) employed in some religious vocal music and dance.
One of the oldest surviving repertories of Newar ritual music and dance is that performed by the Buddhist priests (Vajrācārya). Called cacā or caryā, it is believed to perpetuate the medieval caryā prabandha practised in eastern India by Buddhist mystics of the 11th century and earlier. Cacā songs have texts in esoteric Sanskrit and are set in supposedly ancient rāgas and tālas. A performance begins and ends with a short ālāpa, and a verse describing the iconographic attributes of the rāga may also be recited (see India, §I, 3(iii)(c)). A group of priestly singers accompany themselves on small cymbals (tāh), and the meaning of the words may also be conveyed through dance. This performance, which normally occurs only in the secrecy of the tantric shrine and in the context of highly potent rituals, is a form of meditation in which the singer or dancer invokes the deity to take up residence within himself; cacā is therefore held to confer magical powers on the performer. At particularly important festivals, the cacā dance is accompanied by an ensemble of drum (pañcatāla), cymbals and five pairs of trumpets (pãytā). Similarly constituted ensembles accompany Hindu tantric dance forms established during the Malla period (navadurgā pyākhã, devī pyākhã, bhaila pyākhã, jala pyākhã, gã pyākhã, katĩ pyākhã, dyah pyākhã etc.).
Contrasting with the refined and cloistered tradition of cacā are public musical performances of the Newar Buddhists, which reach a climax in the processional month of Gũla (July/August). Daily processions to the Buddhist shrines are accompanied by ensembles of valve trumpets and clarinets (for the high-caste gold- and silversmiths) or shawms and fipple flutes (bāẽca) for the low-caste oilpressers. These wind instruments are played not by the Buddhists themselves but by Hindu tailor-musicians (Jugī). At the same time the oilpresser children play three varieties of goat- and buffalo-horn (ghulu, cāti, tititāla), and the adults play drums of ten different types, cymbals and natural trumpets. Each Buddhist relic or shrine is saluted with a deafening invocation. The use of these instruments is prescribed in the Svayambhūpurāna (c1550).
The Newar butcher caste (Nāy) play their drum, the nāykhĩ, to accompany funeral processions to the cremation ground. En route their drum patterns reflect their passing of every street corner and every stone related to the spirit world, ceasing at the moment when the pyre is ignited. They also play during other ritual processions, always indicating with their drum patterns the nature of the ritual and the phases of the procession.
The Jugī are believed to be the descendants of a sect of Indian mystics, the Nāth or Kānphatā Yogins, who settled in the Kathmandu Valley during the late 17th or early 18th century. They took up the profession of tailoring and of playing shawms and trumpets in temples. They are the only players of shawms (originally five different types) among the Newars, providing musical services on this instrument to other castes. Today they also play valve trumpets and clarinets in Indian-style wedding bands.
The large, middle-caste, mixed Hindu and Buddhist community of farmers (Jyāpu, Mahārjan) constitutes a veritable repository of Newar musical and other traditions. Several types of devotional music are performed in temples, of which the oldest, dāphā, is believed to date from the 17th-century heyday of Newar civilization. In Bhaktapur there remain some 60 dāphā groups attached to different shrines and deities. Song texts in Sanskrit, Newari and Maithili, many ascribed to Malla royal authors, are contained in manuscript song-books that specify the rāga and tāla for each. The songs are performed by two antiphonal choruses, accompanied by cymbals, natural trumpets (pvangā) and barrel drum (khi). The most complex Newar tāla structures are those of dāphā – especially the songs known as gvārā, in which the tāla periodically changes – and the most elaborate drum repertory is that of the khi. The dāphā repertory includes the Gīta-govinda, a famous collection of Sanskrit poems on the erotic and mystical relationship between Krsna and Rādhā, composed in the 12th century by the eastern Indian writer Jayadeva. This work has been known in Nepal since at least the 15th century.
In Bhaktapur, eight of the ritually most important dāphā groups were expanded (beginning with a royal donation in the early 18th century) to include sets of nine different drums (navabājā). These are played at festival times by a master-drummer in a three-hour sequence of contrasting drum solos, accompanied by the shawms of the Jugī and interspersed with dāphā songs.
More recent types of religious group singing with drum accompaniment include the Indian-style Hindu bhajan (with harmonium, tablā and Indian tāla), and its Buddhist equivalent called jñānmālā bhajan. Intermediate between these and the older dāphā stands dhalcā bhajan, using dhalak instead of tablā and Newar instead of Indian tālas.
Processional music of the farmers, bricklayers and potters is played during civic and family rituals. These are ensembles of cylindrical drums (dhimay, dha) accompanied by cymbals, or of transverse flutes (basurī, up to 20 per group) accompanied by drums and cymbals (and sometimes augmented by violins and harmonium). The flutes play the melodies of folksongs related to seasons or types of agricultural work (sīnā jyā, puvājyā, silu, ghātu, byaculi, mārsi etc.). The origins of such processional traditions may be very early: a 7th-century inscription at Badikhel testifies to the existence of a contemporaneous music guthī (Sharma and Wegner, 1995).
Two types of Newar sacred dance can be distinguished. In one the dancers become possessed by the gods, who take up residence in the dancers’ heavy, elaborately painted masks (navadurgā pyākhã, jala pyākhã, pacāli bhairav, gã pyākhã, dyah pyākhã). All such dances include ferocious goddesses of vital importance in Newar religion, and are performed by particular castes, often low in social status. Typical of this type is the navadurgā dance of Bhaktapur, performed by members of the gardener caste, whose annual cycle of performances in every quarter of the town and surrounding countryside ensures the blessings of the gods – and especially goddesses – for the current year. The dance and its accompanying music (played on drum and cymbals) are but one element in a complex of rituals including the making and painting of the masks, their destruction by cremation at the end of the annual cycle and frequent blood sacrifices.
Dances of the second type, though often superficially similar, are performed mainly for entertainment (mahākālī pyākhã, kha pyākhã, katĩ pyākhã, bhailā pyākhã). The enactment of religious narratives connected with festivals may bring merit to the participants and observers, but the dancers are not possessed by the deities they represent. During the Festival for the Dead (Sāpāru, August) in Bhaktapur, about 60 different dances and other entertainments are performed, including a stick dance (ghẽtãgisi), using face paint instead of masks, masked dances of the tantric gods and goddesses (bhailā pyākhã), acrobatic entertainment (khyāh pyākhã) and cabaret with political themes (khyālāh).
The Buddhist tantric cacā dance belongs to the first type, since the dancer seeks possession by the deity or Bodhisattva represented. In recent years attempts have begun to bring elements of cacā dance on to the public stage as a form of Nepalese ‘classical’ dance. In its gesture language it appears to be related to some of the classical dances of India (e.g. Bharata-nātyam).
Nepal, §I: Music in the Kathmandu Valley
Rulers of the Kathmandu Valley patronized the classical music of north India from Malla times onwards. The Newar kings promoted the performance of elaborate dramas, involving music and dance, on the model of Indian classical drama. A number of Indian music and dance treatises were known – some of the oldest (14th-century) manuscripts of the Nātyaśāstra survive in Kathmandu – and new treatises were composed, in Sanskrit and Newari, especially during the reign of Jagajjyotīr Malla of Bhaktapur (1613–37), who also patronized a local tradition of rāga-mālā painting (see India, §II, 3(iii)). By the 18th century, and probably earlier, Muslim musicians from India were at the Kathmandu court. Although banished by Prithvī Nārāyan Shāh (reigned 1768–75), Indian musicians returned under his successors and flourished under the Rānā prime ministers (1846–1951). Leading musicians (including the singer Tāj Khān, the sarod player Na’matullah Khān and his two sons Keramatullah and Asadullah ‘Kaukabh’ Khān) were attracted from Banaras, Lucknow, Calcutta, Rampur and other Indian centres, and were appointed tutors to the Nepalese aristocracy. With the fall of the Rānās most of these musicians returned to India, though some of their descendants and pupils remain. Although classical music (śāstrīya sangīt) is nominally supported by the monarchy (HM Queen Aishvarya holds an MA in sitār), there is now little state, public or media patronage for it, partly owing to the rival attractions of local traditional and popular music.
Nepal, §I: Music in the Kathmandu Valley
Although it is heard throughout Nepal, modern popular music is performed and recorded mainly in Kathmandu and transmitted largely via national radio. Radio was banned during the Rānā regime but developed rapidly after 1951, followed by 78 r.p.m. and 33 r.p.m. records in the 1960s, indigenous films from 1973 and cassettes from 1980. Until the 1980s these media were government sponsored, and they remained under government supervision thereafter. Indian films (see India, §VIII, 1) have dominated the film market since the 1950s, but radio has been the more important medium in Nepal. The employment of Nepalese artists by radio broadcasters has ensured the development of indigenous genres of popular music despite competition from Indian film music. The principal genres are the ‘folksong’ (lok gīt) and ‘modern song’ (ādhunik gīt).
‘Folksongs’ were first collected (from various regions of Nepal) and popularized by Dharma Raj Thapa (b 1924) in the 1950s. Among later singers, Kumar Basnet (b 1943) is known especially for Tamang songs, and Jhalakman Gandharwa (b 1935) for the songs of his own Gaine musician caste (see §II below). Lok gīt performances tend to combine elements such as instrumentation from different ethnic groups and from the ‘modern song’; the language is usually Nepali.
‘Modern songs’ also began in the 1950s, with the Newar singers Nati Kazi (b 1925) and Shiva Shankar (b 1932). They drew on Nepalese folksong idioms, to which Ambar Gurung (b 1937) added elements of Indian rāgas and Western harmony (Grandin, 1989). The texts are composed by the singers themselves or drawn from contemporary Nepalese poetry. The standard format is a refrain (sthāyī) alternating with verses (antarā). Tablā or mādal supply the rhythmic accompaniment using repetitive patterns borrowed from the ‘light classical’ tradition of north India or from the local repertory. Melodic accompaniment employs a variety of instruments, including not only Nepalese flute and sārangī but also Indian sitār, santūr, jaltarang and harmonium, and Western guitar, mandolin, saxophone, clarinet and electronic keyboard. Melodies are derived from rāgas, local songs or are freely composed, and they employ diatonic heptatonic scales, with some chromatic alteration and added harmonies. The metre is usually 6/8 or 4/4. Vocal production is based on Indian popular styles and local practice. All these elements are assimilated into a highly successful genre that permeates life in Nepal wherever there is electricity. Many ‘modern songs’ have been adopted enthusiastically by young people in the hills, who sing them, along with traditional songs, as their evening entertainment.
Since the early 1960s love and patriotism have been the only acceptable themes for popular songs transmitted through the official media, and in 1965 Nepali was imposed as the only permitted language, in the interests of national integration. The situation has altered little even following the restoration of democracy in 1990. Some artists, such as Prem Dhoj (b 1939) and Narayan Gopal (b 1914), have therefore remained independent of official institutions, disseminating their songs via stage performances and cassette recordings; these songs express social concerns and employ regional languages as well as Nepali. Such songs are musically similar to ‘modern songs’ and ‘folksongs’, but employ a smaller ensemble suited to stage performance.
Indo-Nepalese society is organized according to a strict hierarchy of castes. The caste system is thought to have been introduced to Nepal by high-caste immigrants from north India who, fleeing from Muslim oppression, made their homes in the Himalayan foothills and soon became the dominant group. With them came low-caste artisans, including musicians. Indo-Nepalese professional musicians comprise the lowest strata of society, together with other low castes. Among them number the damāī tailor-musicians, gāine minstrels, hudkī hour-glass drummers and bādi (ex-)prostitute-musicians. These groups have affinities with professional musician castes in north India.
Damāī, meaning ‘kettledrum player’ are tailors and musicians (fig.1). The kettledrums (damāhā) are usually played in pairs, with paired shawms (śahanāī), small kettledrum (tyāmko), cymbals (jhyālī), barrel drum (dholakī) and paired c- or s-shaped horns (narsinga). This ensemble, known as pañcai bājā, has a ritual function and is an essential accompaniment to any Indo-Nepalese procession, life-cycle rite, festival or sacrifice. Its broad repertory includes ritual and seasonal items, wedding tunes, folksongs and modern songs. Western band instruments are popular and may complement a traditional pañcai bājā.
In far west Nepal damāī play in large orchestras of kettledrums led by a master drummer and accompanied by shawm (śahanāī), cymbals (jhyālī) and horn (narsinga). The musicians wear ceremonial white robes and turbans and perform circle dances as they drum. The repertory includes a number of responsorial drumming pieces, the master drummer sounding a call to which the other kettledrums respond.
Damāī are employed at temples to sound a large kettledrum (nagarā) during daily rituals. The kettledrum may be accompanied by shawms and a variety of trumpets and horns, notably one in the shape of a serpent (nāgbelī bājā). In far west Nepal the kettledrum has retained its ancient function of signaller.
Far west Nepal is the home of the hudki(ya), a damāī sub-caste whose members play the pitched hourglass drum, hudkā, to accompany ballads, songs and dances, in addition to playing kettledrums. The hudkā is used as a mirliton during unaccompanied passages of song, the musician holding the drum to his cheek so that the skin vibrates in sympathy with his voice. A metal tray (thālī), played with two sticks, is sometimes used as an accompanying instrument. Hudkī are particularly important as singers of ritual ballads (bhārat, jāgar) during trance-inducing ceremonies and heroic ballads (bharau) at life-cycle rites.
Gāine are itinerant singer-musicians. Traditionally they serve their patrons by singing their blessings or devotional songs on their behalf, receiving foodstuffs in return. Prior to the advent of Radio Nepal, gāine also had the duty of disseminating news and government messages. Their vocal style combines declamation and singing. The main accompanying instrument is the sārangī, a bowed fiddle with four strings (see India, §III, 6(i)(c)). Their other instrument, a long-necked plucked lute called ārbājo, is all but obsolete. Both instruments are carved from single pieces of wood and have four strings, tuned upper fifth–tonic–tonic–lower fifth. The rhythmic articulation achieved through bowing the sārangī is heightened by little bells attached to the bow. The ārbājo is held horizontally, both hands plucking the strings to produce a rhythmic drone. Today ārbājo may occasionally be heard at gāine weddings, played in ensemble with a sārangī.
The gāine repertory comprises heroic ballads (karkhā), sacred and auspicious songs (mangal gīt), wedding songs, patriotic songs and ‘sung messages’ for the army (lāhureko sandeś), social commentaries and folk songs (jhyāure gīt). Some of the songs they sing pertain to particular festivals or seasons and are played by the damāī too. The gāine tradition is in decline, many gāine now making instruments for sale to tourists rather than performing.
Most bādi have abandoned their traditional professions of musical performance and the prostitution of their women. Formerly, bādi women (bādinī) sang and danced for money, accompanied by their men on small barrel drums (dholakī, mādal), sometimes with harmonium. These days bādi earn a living from drum-making, tanning and labouring rather than music-making. In far west Nepal bādi substitute for gāine, singing and playing a Rajasthani-style sārangī, called a maśak sārangī, with a rectangular body, four melody strings and a variable number of sympathetic strings.
In addition to the music of the musician castes, other Indo-Nepalese castes enjoy recreational and devotional music-making. Playing the small barrel drum (mādal) is not caste restricted, and it is used across the country to accompany traditional songs and dances. Blacksmiths (kāmī) make instruments for the damāī, but they have their own musical tradition. They make iron jew’s harps and entertain themselves with traditional, film and radio songs.
The Nepalese court employs 16 pure-caste women as ritual singers (mangalinī). It is their duty to sing during daily rituals, royal life-cycle rites and festivals. The mangalinī (‘auspicious women’) have a repertory of nine sacred songs, each of which has a specific ritual function. They accompany themselves on harmonium and tablā. Brahmin priests sound conch (śankha) and bell (ghantā) during temple rites. During festivals they sing responsorial invocations of a deity’s name (bālan gan) and other devotional songs (bhajan), accompanying themselves with a small frame drum and finger cymbals.
Indo-Nepalese traditional music is characterized by two metres, 4/4 (khyālī) and 6/8 (jhyāure), and by melodies based on a pentatonic scale, sometimes with additional notes in descent. The seasonal and ritual repertories of the professional musician castes employ a variety of metrical structures, including rhythmic cycles of five, seven and nine beats. Similarly the melodies of these repertories are based on a range of scales, including several heptatonic scales with third, fourth and/or seventh degree raised in ascent and flattened in descent. Much of this musical tradition is in a state of decline, however, due to the influence of radio and film music.
A genre of national light music is broadcast by Radio Nepal to promote national integration. This music combines Indo-Nepalese elements, such as pentatonic melodies and traditional instrument accompaniments, with Western and South Asian pop elements, including orchestral backings, tablā and synthesized sound effects. The songs, sung in Nepali and concerned with love themes, are widely popular.
Hardly any of the music cultures of the 30 or so ethnic groups living outside the Kathmandu valley have been studied. Religious rituals, oral narratives and festivals have been investigated as if they were silent, ignoring music which plays an essential part in them.
The mountainous topography has kept local cultures relatively isolated from each other. The caste hierarchy (officially banned in 1951) into which ethnic groups are included as castes (jāti) has supported the distinctiveness of music cultures. In an attempt to raise their status, people belonging to a lower caste may, however, adopt songs, among other cultural practices, from upper castes. The development of mass media, particularly Radio Nepal with its nationalist politics, has been one of the major factors in musical change in rural areas. Authentic recordings of minority musics are not played on the radio. Nepalese and Hindi popular tunes are adopted into local repertories, and songs in a similar style are composed.
Among the northern Sino-Burman ethnic group, anhemitonic pentatonic melodies sung with slight variations in a heterophonic and sometimes melismatic manner dominate. In the south, among the dominant Indo-Aryan group, melodies are based on heptatonic scales, and singing may be more unified but also more melismatic. The rhythmic accompaniment is rich and varied, and most of the music is combined with dance. These generalizations, however, do not give justice to the vast variety of local musics.
In addition to the music of mass media adopted by rural people, some musical genres, such as the jhyāure dance, are known all over Nepal. A song duel, dohorī gīt, in which individuals or groups compete in invention of new verses, is also popular. The improvised verses are usually followed by refrains sung by people listening to the competition.
Most of the music in villages is made by ordinary people during their leisure time and while working it is conceptualized as being collective and reciprocal. Only singing and playing in a group for an audience (visible or invisible) is regarded as music: songs sung alone or in groups while working are not regarded as music but as an inseparable part of the work at hand. Musical roles are divided according to gender, and even though women take part in some musical genres (such as the rateulī dance at weddings), their music-making is limited after they marry.
Religious beliefs relate to much of the music; religious authorities have their own repertory connected with rites after death and other rituals. Music performed both by shamans and laymen is used as a medium to communicate with the gods, local deities and ancestors. The beating of drums accompanies the spiritual journeys made by shamans and by the spirit possessions of ordinary people. Various animistic, Buddhist and Hindu rites (for purifying the house, blessing the first-born son etc.) and numerous religious festivals consist of, or at least include, music; perhaps the best known is the mānī-rimdu festival of the Sherpas. The singing and dancing of Hindu epics belongs to some ethnic repertories (such as the Gurung version of the story of Lord Krsna, and the nachang of the Magars, based on the Hindu epic of Rāma and Sītā).
Musical instruments include a wide range of membranophones, most popular of which is the wooden cylindrical drum (the mādal), bamboo flutes (basurī), cymbals (jhyālī), trumpets made of animal horn, oboes and jew's harps, while string instruments are more rare. The harmonium is also used in villages. Many of the instruments originate from India. A variety of names and pronunciations for the same kind of instrument and the same kind of music are used; the same name may also be used to describe different kinds of musical practices.
The most traditional dances may imitate working movements (such as the wass dance of the Khaling, connected with earth worship in May), or animals (for example the Limbu dance ke-lang, the parts of which are named after various animals that were originally imitated). Men may dance female roles, and women dancing in male costumes may perform in contemporary dances.
Music-making, and to some extent the musical repertory, is related to the agricultural cycle of the year. The gods are honoured with music in the hope of a good crop and to celebrate the auspicious occasion of eating from the new harvest (such as chhonam of the Chepang). When work in the fields allows leisure time, musical performances are arranged.
The musical repertory of the Gurung of mid-Nepal consists of traditional genres, such as the ghāmtu and sorathī, more recent genres relating to the Hindu tradition (the Krsna carītra), popular pan-Nepalese dances and contemporary music in adopted popular styles. The latter are performed in the dance theatres and ‘cultural clubs’ of the young, as well as in the rodī, an institution for the evening gatherings of young people. Nowadays only old people in a few villages know secular songs in the Gurung language. Almost all Gurung music (excluding singing while working) is combined with dancing.
Most of the music made by the local shamans (poju, khlevri) and lamas relates to death rites. The funeral/cremation ceremony, as well as the guiding of the soul to heaven, include dances and songs (such as the serga) performed by laymen to the soul of the deceased. The older genres of the Gurung repertory, the ghāmtu (the ghāmtu of the Magars differs considerably from that of the Gurung) and the sorathī are shamanic. The gods are asked to bless the performances, sensitive listeners may fall into a trance owing to the gods' presence, and in the kusundā part of the ghāmtu, the dancers become possessed by the spirits.
The most traditional genres are based on pentatonic melodies that are slightly varied through heterophonic singing technique, possibly embellished with undulating voice formation produced by vibrating the jaw. The result is a continuously flowing complex musical texture. Performances other than those of the shamans are accompanied by mādal drums. The drum accompaniment is based on rhythmic patterns called parka (also called tāls), which are varied. Newer music, including the Krsna līlā, is diatonic and sung in a unified manner to the accompaniment of mādal and harmoniyam.
The political changes of 1990, when King Birendra relinquished absolute power following pro-democracy demonstrations, altered the status of ethnic groups. The promotion of diverse ethnicities is now officially allowed, and minority musics have gained new roles in maintaining and supporting minority cultures and identities. However, the impoverishment of rural areas reduces the frequency of long-lasting, costly musical performances. Gradual modernization has decreased the importance of musical genres related with the shamanic belief system and traditional way of life.
and other resources
GEWM (‘Music in Nepal’, P. Moisala)
A. Campbell: ‘Notes on the Musical Instruments and Agricultural and Other Instruments of the Nepalese’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, vi (1837), 953–6
A.A. Bake: A Preliminary Report on the Music of the Kathmandu Valley (MS, 1957, SOAS)
F. Hoerburger: ‘Folk Music in the Caste System of Nepal’, YIFMC, ii (1970), 142–7
F. Hoerburger: Studien zur Musik in Nepal (Regensburg, 1975)
M.M. Anderson: The Festivals of Nepal (London, 1977)
D.B. Bista: People of Nepal (Kathmandu, 4/1980)
A. Vajracarya: Mallakālīna Gã Pyākhã [Gã dance of the Malla period] (1982)
R.S. Darnal: ‘Raginee Malashree’, Himalayan Culture, ii/1 (1982), 25–8
M.S. Slusser: Nepal Mandala: a Cultural Study of the Kathmandu Valley (Princeton, NJ, 1982)
T. Ellingson: ‘Buddhist Musical Notations’, The Oral and the Literate in Music: Tokyo 1985, 302–41
C. Tingey: ‘An Annotated Bibliography and Discography of Nepalese Musics’, Bulletin of the International Council for Traditional Music, United Kingdom Chapter, nos.11–12 (1985), 4–20, 34–44
R.S. Darnal: Nepālī sangīt-samskrtī [Musical culture of Nepal] (Kathmandu, 1988)
C. Tingey: ‘The Nepalese Field-Work of Dr. A.A. Bake’, Ethnomusicology and the Historical Dimension, ed. M.L. Philipp (Ludwigsburg, 1989), 83–8
R. Boonzajer Flaes: ‘And the Band Played On: Nepal Transforms a Brassy Tradition’, Natural History (1991), no.9, pp.38–49
D.R. Widdess: ‘The Oral in Writing: Early Indian Musical Notations’, EMc, xxiv (1996), 391–405
F. Bemède, ed.: ‘Himalayan Music, State of the Art’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, nos.12–13 (1997) [special double issue]
P.B. Kasa: Nāsadyoyā Mye [Songs for Nāsahdyah] (Kathmandu, 1965)
A. Sakya: Gũlā bājãyā boli [Language of the Gũlā ensemble] (Kathmandu, 1971)
S. Lienhard: Nevārīgītimañjari: Religious and Secular Poetry of the Kathmandu Valley (Stockholm, 1974); repr. as Songs of Nepal: an Anthology of Nevar Folksongs and Hymns (Honolulu, 1984)
N. Gutschow and B. Kölver: Bhaktapur: Ordered Space: Concepts and Functions in a Town in Nepal (Wiesbaden, 1975)
P. Kvaerne: An Anthology of Buddhist Tantric Songs: a Study of the Caryāgīti (Oslo, 1977)
J.H. Teilhet: ‘The Tradition of the Nava Durga in Bhaktapur, Nepal’, Kailash, vi (1978), 81–98
Dh. Bajracarya and T.B. Srestha: Śāhakālakā abhilekh [Records of the Śāh period], i (Kathmandu, 1980)
S. Wiehler-Schneider and H. Wiehler: ‘A Classification of the Musical Instruments of the Newars’, Journal of the Nepal Research Centre, iv (1980), 67–132
F. Koizumi and others: Dance and Music in South Asian Drama: Chhau, Mahakali Pyakhan and Yakshagana (Tokyo, 1983)
G. Toffin: Société et réligion chez le Newar du Nepal (Paris, 1984)
L. Iltis: ‘The Jala Pyākhã: a Classical Newar Dance Drama of Harasiddhi’, Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley: Lübeck 1985, 201–13
G. Tandan: ‘Śrī paśupatināth mandirmā bājā sambandhī vyavasthā, ek carcā’ [A study of the organization of music at the Paśupatinath temple], Śaiva-bhūmi (Kathmandu, 1985), 25–41
G.-M. Wegner: ‘Navadāphā of Bhaktapur: Repertoire and Performance of the Ten Drums’, Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley: Lübeck 1985, 471–88
V. Bouillier: ‘La caste sectaire des Kānphatā Jogī dans le royaume du Nepal: l'exemple de Gorkhā’, Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrème-Orient, lxxiii (1986), 125–67
T.L. Manandhar: Newari-English Dictionary (Delhi, 1986)
G.-M. Wegner: ‘Anruf der alten Götter: Notation und Analyse einer newarischen Trommelkomposition’, Formen kulturellen Wandels und andere Beiträge zur Erforschung des Himalaya, ed. B. Kölver (Sankt Augustin, 1986), 312–40
G.-M. Wegner: The Dhimaybājā of Bhaktapur (Wiesbaden, 1986)
R.S. Darnal: ‘Nāg-beli bājā’, Nepālī samskrtī, iii/2 (1987), 1–4
K. Sakya and others: Jhīgu bājā jhīgu samskrtī [Our music, our culture] (Patan, 1987)
L. Aubert: ‘Les musiciens dans la société newar’, Bulletin de la Musée d'Ethnographie, xxx (1988), 31–67
G.-M. Wegner: The Nāykhĩbājā of the Newar Butchers (Wiesbaden, 1988)
I. Grandin: Music and Media in Local Life: Music Practice in a Newar Neighbourhood in Nepal (Linköping,1989)
T. Ellingson: ‘Nāsadya: Newar God of Music’, Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, viii (1990), 221–72
R.I. Levy: Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal (Berkeley, 1990/R)
D.N. Gellner: Monk, Householder and Tantric Priest (Cambridge, 1992)
U. Kölver and G.-M. Wegner: ‘Newarische Trommel-“Sprache”’, Von der Vielfalt musikalischer Kultur: Festschrift für Josef Kuckertz, ed. R. Schumacher (Anis-Salzburg, 1992), 261–8
G.-M. Wegner: ‘Invocations of Nāsadyah: with Comments by R.S. Darnal’, Aspects of Nepalese Traditions, ed. B. Kölver (Stuttgart, 1992), 125–37
D.R. Widdess: ‘Buddhist Dhrupad? Caryā in Nepal’, Dhrupad Annual, vii (1992), 84–105
V. Bouillier: ‘Mahādev Himalayen’, Classer les dieux? Des panthéons en Asie du Sud, ed. V. Bouiller and G. Toffin (Paris, 1993), 173–96
V. Bouillier: ‘Une caste de Yogī Newar: les Kusle-Kāpāli’, Bulletin de l'Ecole Française d'Extrème-Orient, lxxx (1993), 75–106
N.D. Sharma and G.-M. Wegner: ‘The Bājā Guthi of Badikhel (Kathmandu Valley)’, Lux Oriente: Begegnungen der Kulturen in der Musikforschung: Festschrift Robert Gunther, ed. K.W. Niemoller, U. Patzold and K.-C. Chung (Cologne, 1995), 53–8
R. Vajracarya: Pulāmgu va nhugu cacāh munā [Collection of old and new songs] (Kathmandu, 1996)
D.R. Widdess and G.-M. Wegner: Musical Miniatures from Nepal: a Newar Rāgamālā (forthcoming)
G.-M. Wegner: ‘The Drums of Bhakhapur’ [forthcoming]
M. Helffer and A.W. Macdonald: ‘Sur un sārangī de gāine’, Objets et mondes, vi/2 (1966), 133–42
M. Gaborieau: ‘Les récits chantés de l'Himalaya et le contexte ethnographique’, The Anthropology of Nepal, ed. C. von Fürer-Haimendorf (Warminster, 1974), 114–28
M. Helffer and M. Gaborieau: ‘A propos d'un tambour du Kumoan et de l'ouest du Népal: remarques sur l'utilisation de tambours-sabliers dans le monde Indien, le Népal et le Tibet’, Festschrift to Ernst Emsheimer, ed. G. Hilleström (Stockholm, 1974), 75–80, 268–72
A.W. Macdonald: ‘An Aspect of the Songs of the Gāine of Nepal’, Essays on the Ethnology of Nepal and South Asia (Kathmandu, 1975), 169–74
M. Helffer: ‘Une caste de chanteurs-musiciens: les gaine du Népal’, L'ethnographie, no.73 (1977), 45–75
C. Tingey: Heartbeat of Nepal: the Pañcai Bājā (Kathmandu, 1990)
C. Tingey: ‘Musical Instrument or Ritual Object? The Status of Kettledrums in the Temples of Central Nepal’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, i (1992), 103–9
C. Tingey: ‘Sacred Kettledrums in the Temples of Central Nepal’, AsM, xxiii/2 (1992), 97–103
C. Tingey: ‘Auspicious Women, Auspicious Songs: Mangalinī and their Music at the Court of Kathmandu’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, ii (1993), 55–74
C. Tingey: Auspicious Ensembles in a Changing Society: the Damāi Musicians of Nepal (London, 1994)
J.T. Hitchcock: The Magars of the Banyan Hill (New York, 1966)
I.S. Chemjong: History and Culture of the Kirat People (Kathmandu, 1967)
I. Toba: ‘Folk Art and Culture as Observed in a Khaling Village’, Kailash, v/1 (1977), 22–7
M. Mikame: ‘A Note of the Phaguwaa Festival of Chitwan Tharu’, Kailash, vii/3–4 (1979)
G.M. Gurung: The Chepang: a Study of Continuity and Change (Kathmandu, 1986)
D. Holmberg: Order in Paradox: Myth, Ritual and Exchange among Nepal's Tamang (Ithaca, NY,1989)
P. Moisala: ‘An Ethnographic Description of the Madal-Drum and its Making among the Gurungs’, Suomen antropologi, iv (1989), 234–9
P. Moisala: ‘Gurung Music and Cultural Identity’, Kailash, xv/3–4 (1989), 207–22
P. Moisala: Cultural Cognition in Music: Continuity and Change in the Gurung Music of Nepal (Jvyäskylä, 1991)
P. Moisala: ‘Gurung Music in Terms of Gender’, Etnomusikologian vuosikirja, vi (1994), 135–47
Musik der Nevārī-Kasten, rec. F. Hoerburger, Berlin Staatliche Museen KM003 (1971) [incl. notes by F. Hoerburger]