The Tibetan cultural area spans five different countries along the Himalayan mountain range. There are 4·5 million Tibetans within the People’s Republic of China in an area that includes the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR); former central Tibet, or Utsang; and former eastern Tibet, or Kham and Amdo, which are now autonomous prefectures or districts in the provinces of Quinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. There are Tibetan communities also in Ladakh, Sikkim, Assam, Zanskar, Lahul and at Dharamsala in India, in northern Nepal and Bhutan, and in Baltistan in Pakistan (fig.1). Despite different geographical, historical and political circumstances, Tibetans in this cultural area share many characteristics, including music, language and the Mahayana Buddhist and Bon religions.
I. Background, history and research
CAROLE PEGG (I), RICARDO CANZIO (II, 1(i)), MICHELLE HELFFER (II, 1(ii), 3–4), MONA SCHREMP (II, 2), ISABELLE HENRION-DOURCY, TSERING DHONDUP (III, 1, 6), A. MARK TREWIN (III, 2), ISABELLE HENRION-DOURCY (III, 3, 5), GEOFFREY SAMUEL (III, 4), LAETITIA LUZI (IV)
The history and musics of the Tibetan cultural area have always been intertwined. From the 7th to 12th centuries, Indian influence became strong as Mahayana Buddhism and Tantrism entered Tibet and co-existed with the indigenous Bon religion. Tibet was a dominant military power in Inner Asia in the 8th century, during the period of the early kings (7th–10th century). In the 13th century the country came under Mongol influence, although it was never completely conquered. Chingghis Khan campaigned against the northern Tibetans (Tanguts) in 1206, and in 1226–7 his grandson, the Mongol Yüan dynasty emperor Khubilai Khan, settled Tibet’s tributary status by recognizing ’Phags-pa, leader of the sa-skya–pa Buddhist school, as its religious and secular authority. During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) different Tibetan factions made alliances with both Mongol confederations and the Chinese. The re-establishment of close relations between Tibetans and Mongols during the 16th century is evidenced by the power of the Mongol prince Altan Khan to create and bestow the title of third Dalai Lama (applied retrospectively to his two predecessors) upon the religious leader of the reformist Buddhist dge-lugs-pa school. From 1644 to 1911 overlordship over Tibet continued under the Manchus; when the Qing dynasty fell in 1911 the 13th Dalai Lama tried to gain recognition for Tibet’s independence.
Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and the armed uprising in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled into exile in Dharamsala, northern India. Since then, a diaspora of over 150,000 Tibetan refugees has settled in India, Nepal and Western countries. From 1966, with the onset of the Cultural Revolution, Tibetan religious practices and cultural customs were banned, and Marxist-Leninist ideology and structures imposed. Although the Cultural Revolution ended in 1976, repression continued. At the beginning of the 1980s, the communists made ideological concessions on religious practices and the traditional cultures of ‘minorities’, which were followed by a time of relative liberalization. Demographic pressure from the Chinese heightened at the beginning of the 1990s, and religious repression recommenced in 1996.
Research on Tibetan music has been affected by these political events. Prior to the 1960s various musics were collected and studied by Westerners, for instance by A.H. Francke in 1905 (folksongs), Roerich in 1942 (dramas) and G. Tucci in 1949 (epics). Field research in Tibet became impossible after the 1960s, and Western scholars have had to rely on other methods. Tibetan refugees have been used to provide data from which to construct a model of pre-1950 Tibetan society, and the Tibetan-speaking peoples of the southern Himalaya have provided primary materials for comparative analysis. Research topics have included Buddhist music, notation and the masked dance-drama, social and cultural contexts of performance, ritual characteristics and history.
During the liberalization period of the 1980s, music studies in Tibet were undertaken by the Han Chinese and some Tibetans. For ideological reasons, these have concentrated on the music of folk performers. Since 1990, interest in the contemporary situation in the TAR has grown. Within China, a project called Zhongguo minzu minjian yinyue jicheng [Anthology of Folk Music of the Chinese Peoples] began in the 1980s to document the traditional music and dance of every province (see China, §IV), including Tibetan genres in the TAR, Gansu, Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces. The anthology focusses on compilation and systemization; historical and social analyses are based on Chinese political orthodoxy. Since the end of the 1990s, a limited number of Western researchers have had access to Tibet (e.g. I. Collinge, M. Schrempf, I. Henrion-Dourcy), scholars who hold radically different theoretical and methodological perspectives from Chinese and Tibetan scholars in the People’s Republic of China.
Representations of Tibetan music arouse the same passionate debates among ethnomusicologists as the area’s political and legal status, history and ethnicity provoke on the international stage. This article brings together a range of differently-orientated specialists. Mirroring the foci of research, a division has been made between the monastic music and dance of Bon and the four Buddhist schools – rnying-ma-pa, bka’-brgyud-pa, sa-skya-pa – and dge-lugs-pa, and traditional musics and dance, although the latter may also be deeply infused with religious beliefs and ritual.
1. Liturgical chant and music.
Tibetan music, §II: Monastic music
Bon refers to the pre-Buddhist system of beliefs and practices prevalent in Tibet until about the 8th century and to the textually-based doctrine that began to emerge from the 11th century onwards. Its followers, the Bonpo, are found especially in Kham (Sichuan) and south-western Tibet, with some communities in India and Nepal. Bon has incorporated many ideas from different periods of Tibetan history, resembling Buddhism in its monastic organization, doctrine and liturgical practices. However, it retains distinct literary, historical, mythological and cultural identities.
Rituals vary between and within these lineages. Ritual activity is associated with liturgical texts and includes chant, recitation, instrumental music and dance. Liturgical texts are essentially metric and are delivered as recto-tono recitation; in various formulae for intonation (skad), which can be adapted to the metrics of the text; and using chant (dbyangs or gyer). Most texts are recited and are usually preceded by a short chant. The longer dbyangs or gyer are offered to protective deities and are used for propitiating the important deities Phur-ba and Khro-bo. Unlike in Buddhist schools, no neumatic notation is used. However, chant is organized into components similar to neums, which are named and allow for clear identification of single and compound units.
The most characteristic instrument of Bon is the flat bell, gshang (fig.2). It is used to punctuate the drum formulae that link the various sections of a ceremony. Drums (rnga) and cymbals (rol-mo) are required for the performance of any ceremony. The smaller version of the Bonpo flat bell is known as sil-snyan; the Buddhist instrument of the same name is known as sil-chol. These may be accompanied with various patterns at specified points by long trumpets (dung-chen), long reed aerophones (rgya-gling) and sometimes short trumpets with a receding bell (ko-yo) and conch-shell trumpets (dung-dkar).
There are four main Tibetan Buddhist schools: ‘the old ones’ or rnying-ma-pa, so called because of their attachment to the oldest texts transmitted from India; ‘those of the oral tradition’, the bka’-brgyud-pa, who have divided into numerous branches over the course of centuries; ‘those of Sa-skya’, the sa-skya-pa, called after their main monastery in central Tibet; and the reformed school of the ‘virtuous’, the dge-lugs-pa, who have stood foremost on the political scene since the 15th century and from among whom the Dalai Lama is chosen.
The development of monastic life was encouraged by these schools as well as the reformed Bon, and it is estimated that before 1959 several thousand monasteries were active in Tibet, some of which served as universities and hosted thousands of monks. Lengthy theoretical studies were undertaken in these monasteries, and the liturgical calendar, which was extremely dense, included substantial musical performances. After the near destruction of monastic traditions in the 1960s and 70s, calendrical and other rituals are once again being held, at least partially, in Tibet and in the eastern provinces of Amdo and Kham. Contemporary monastic institutions in India, Nepal and Bhutan have maintained the programmes of traditional studies and the liturgical calendar. They are responsible for performing complex rituals for the benefit and protection of the faithful.
The dates of the celebrations vary according to the religious school or even the different monasteries that have developed from the same ‘mother-monastery’. However, services in honour of Târa and Mahakala are performed daily and there are regular weekly and monthly rituals, for example, the tshes-bcu ritual in honour of Padmasambhava, which is held on the 10th day of each month in rnying-ma-pa monasteries. One of the most solemn rituals – the dgu-gtor – is held during the final days of the final month of the Tibetan calendar. It can last for more than one week (from the 23rd to 30th day of the 12th month in the rnying-ma-pa monastery of Zhe-chen in Bodnath) and is the occasion of a considerable display of music and ritual dances.
The musical sections of various celebrations depend to a great extent on oral tradition but also refer to manuals of notations compiled by past precentors (see §4 below). They make great use of vocal chorus and imply the intervention of numerous musical instruments (see §3 below). The texts of the rituals are usually in verse and have been elaborated by various scholars after canonical texts or spiritual visions. They are enunciated in various ways. Recto-tono recitative (’don-pa), sometimes performed at an extremely rapid tempo, is used for the repetitions of mantras deriving from Indian tradition. They represent in sound the Buddhas and tutelary (yi-dam) or protective (chos-skyong) deities invoked during the rituals. Psalmody is used with simple melodic formulae, often called rta (lit. ‘horse’, but here meaning [musical] ‘mount’ or tune), which correspond to one or two lines of seven or nine syllables or, more rarely, to four-line stanzas. These formulae are sometimes repeated with a progressive rise in pitch from stanza to stanza until the end of the text. The 21 stanzas of praise to the 21 Taras are a well-known example of this musical practice of ‘systematic rise’. A slow and solemn way of chanting, called dbyangs (lit. ‘vowel’), involves placing meaningless syllables (tshig-lhad) between the syllables that make up the text. They are chanted around a fundamental sound with its timbre modified or ornamented according to procedures peculiar to each tradition and varying from one monastery to another. Depending on the solemnity of the ritual, the dbyangs may be either ‘short’ (less elaborate) or ‘long’ (more elaborate). Some, particularly in rnying-ma-pa and bka’-brgyud-pa traditions, have evocative titles such as ‘growl of the tigress’, ‘big summer drum’ (which evokes thunder) and ‘eddying lake waters’. It was to preserve the memory of these dbyangs that the neumatic notations from the dbangs-yig were devised (see §4 below).
In his short Musical Treatise (Rol-mo’i bstan-bcos), which has been quoted continuously since the 13th century, the ‘Great scholar of Sa-skya [monastery]’, Sa-skya Pandita, describes the qualities of the chant that will be ‘pleasant to hear’ (snyan-pa), with sweetness, a relaxed character and clarity of enunciation. The chorus of monks, following the dbu-mdzad (precentor), do their best to obtain such a result, but the ideal remains difficult to achieve in practice, partly due to the differing ages of the monks and novices.
Among the dge-lugs-pa, particularly in the Tantric colleges of Rgyud-stod and Rgyud-smad, the monks cultivate an extremely low register and use what is considered to be ‘the Tantra voice’ (rgyud-skad) or, more colloquially, ‘the mdzo voice’ (the mdzo being a cross between a yak and a cow), described in the West as biphonic chant. Each singer emits a deep fundamental tone, simultaneously producing a distinct harmonic or partial of that fundamental (see Overtone-singing).
Side by side with these ritual forms of chanting, a prominent place is given to didactic chants (mgur), which are widely used by religious scholars and mystics to pass on their teaching to their disciples or to the Buddhist faithful in general. The most famous ones are attributed to the poet and saint Mi-la ras-pa, who lived in the 11th–12th centuries. Most of the great Tibetan mystics have composed and still compose such mgur chants, which have been (and are being) carefully collected by their disciples. The texts are mostly in lines of seven syllables, and they are sung to melodies that are close to those of the popular repertory.
Tibetan music, §II: Monastic music
The Tantric masked dance-dramas known as ’cham are spectacular ritual and social events in ethnic Tibetan areas. They date back to the establishment of monastic communities of both the Bonpo and Buddhists in Tibet and are a syncretistic ritual form that includes Tibetan, Indian and Chinese cultural elements. There are various types of dances, some of them particular to certain monastic schools. ’Cham is distinct from the ritual dances known as gar (see §III, 2 below), in that it is publicly performed by mostly masked monks in the courtyard of a monastery for the spiritual benefit of its lay community. In ’cham the monk-dancers (fig.3) are considered to embody temporarily the deities (fig.4) or enlightened persons whom they portray. A ’cham dance is a religious act variously believed to expose the participants to the sacred power (byin-rlabs) of the deities present, to generate faith and to yield religious merit.
’Cham are usually performed as part of larger ritual cycles on significant dates in the lunar calendar. They consititute the culminating events of festivals, such as the expulsion rites conducted at the end of the Tibetan year, or celebrations of the lives of famous Tantric masters and popular saints such as Mi-la ras-pa (1040–1123), in which the dances have a more narrative or didactic character. A ritually important set of unmasked dance figures are the ‘black hats’ (zhwa-nag), named after their symbolic black headgear. More secular human characters contribute entertaining interludes.
’Cham performances are accompanied by a monastic ensemble that sits beside the dance area (’cham-ra). Ritual instruments such as rnga (drums), sbug-chal and sil-snyan (cymbals) provide the beat (rdung) for the dance steps. Rgya-gling (oboes) and dung-chen (long trumpets) contribute melodic passages (fig.5). A separate pair of oboe players welcomes the dancers into the dance area with invocational music. The dancers emerge through the main entrance of the temple, which serves as a preparatory room (’cham-khang), and begin to circle around the dance area. This may be marked out with concentric circles and auspicious symbols.
’Cham dances usually consist of three phases. Initially, the monks meditate inside the temple on the highest tutelary deity (yi-dam) invoked, such as rDo-rje phur-pa, and transform themselves into the various deities of his mandala, some of whom later appear in the dance. Next, ’cham itself is performed, the dancers re-enact the major actions of the rites, especially the sacrificial killing (bsgral-ba) of an effigy (Sanskrit linga) symbolizing obstructive or evil forces, and an exorcistic rite (gtor-rgyab) is performed outside the monastery. The concluding phase occurs in the temple, where the participating monks are ritually divested of their roles.
Biographical sources often record that ’cham originate in the dreams or meditative experiences of famous Bon and Buddhist lamas. The revealed choreography and iconography of new dances may be recorded in dance manuals (’cham-yig) or passed on by oral tradition through a lineage of lamas who are dance masters (’cham-dpon). While no written history of ’cham and its many different forms exists, it is apparent that the monastic dance traditions and styles of different Tibetan religious schools have influenced one another. Although the monasteries tend individually to determine the protective deities, historical narratives and personages, certain prominent deities occur in many ’cham forms, including powerful protective goddesses such as dPal-ldan lha-mo in Buddhist dances or Srid-pa’i rgyal-mo in those of the Bonpo, and gShin-rje, ‘Lord of Death’, with his stag-headed minions.
Apart from their ritual function, ’cham have also been adapted as tourist spectacles for foreign audiences, both in Chinese-controlled areas and in exile. Touring ’cham troupes also perform adaptations of the dances in Western concert halls and museums as displays of Tibetan cultural identity, with a political and economic agenda.
Tibetan music, §II: Monastic music
Monastic rituals employ a range of musical instruments, consisting of idiophones (bells, various kinds of cymbals, wooden semantrons), membranophones (small hourglass drums with whipping clappers, large double-headed frame drums), and aerophones (long and short trumpets, conches and oboes). The Tibetans themselves distinguish between instruments made to resound (’khrol-ba), instruments played by striking (brdung-ba) and instruments played by blowing (’bud-pa).
Instruments made to ‘resound’ by shaking them include the small handbell, dril-bu (Sanskrit: ghantā), whose proportions and decoration are defined in canonical treatises. It is held in the left hand and represents ‘wisdom’ (shes); it forms a pair with the ritual rdo-rje sceptre (Sanskrit vajra), held in the right hand and representing the ‘skilful methods’ (thabs) necessary to attain enlightenment. The rdo-rje and dril-bu derive from Indian traditions and feature prominently in the iconography associated with many Buddhas, divinities and religious masters.
The small damaru hourglass drum may have its body made of two half-skulls with the tops set end to end, known as a thod rnga, but it is more usually made of wood or plastic. Its two skins are struck alternately by the impact of pellets (fig.6). A special kind of damaru is known by the Tibetan term cang-te’u. Large cymbals with a small central boss, known as sil-snyan, are played with a horizontal movement; their crystalline sound is considered as proper for the offering of sound and in the worship of peaceful (zhi-ba) deities. The flat bell gshang, used by the Bonpo, corresponds to the Buddhust dril-bu.
Instruments sounded by striking include the big, double-headed frame drum known as the rgna. It is found in different sizes and two forms: the ‘offering drum’ (mchod-rnga), suspended from a wooden stand and struck vigorously with a pair of straight sticks; and the ‘hand drum’ (lag-rnga), so called because of its handle, held in the left hand and struck with a cross-shaped stick (fig.7). Many legends tell the story of its origin. The large cymbals with a voluminous central boss, called sbug-chal or rol-mo and clashed with a vertical movement, are also considered ‘struck’. Their loud sound makes them suitable for the worship of terrifying deities (drag-po), and in dge-lugs-pa and rnging-ma-pa monasteries the chant-master uses them for guiding the other performers. Small ting-shags cymbals, whose resonance is very specific, are rarely used in communal rituals. The wooden gandi semantron, the length and proportions of which are defined in scriptures translated from Sanskrit, was formerly used to summon the monks for various activities but today is employed only to call them to the communal ceremony of the confession of sins held once or twice a month. In other circumstances it has been replaced by a gong (mkhar-rnga).
Instruments played by blowing are prominent in ritual music and are always played as pairs of identical instruments. Conches are known as dung-dkar (Sanskrit: śankha), and are a symbol of the proclamation to the world of Buddhist law. They summon the community to certain ceremonies, and their sound mingles with that of the sil-snyan and mchod-rnga in music played to accompany offerings. The task of blowing them is often entrusted to young novices. Trumpets ‘of the legs of men’ (mi rus-pa’i rkang-gling), made from human femurs, are often replaced by metal substitutes with bells in a variety of shapes. On these are played short phrases that have names (when the instrument is mentioned in the text of a hymn or as part of the instrumental ensemble) referring to the number of times the player takes a breath, for instance ‘breathing three times’ (gsum-’bud), ‘breathing five times’ (lnga-’bud).
The telescopic metal trumpets known as dung chen or rag-dung are of different lengths, from about 1·70 metres to 3 metres or more (see fig.5). They are played in association with drums, cymbals, the bell and the damaru, during processions and in the interludes marking the different parts of a ritual. The repertories of different monasteries generally comprise a dozen pieces, known by descriptive names and associated with particular deities or rituals.
The shrill sounding oboes known as rgya-gling (fig.8) consist of a wooden pipe with seven equidistant finger-holes, a metal mouthpiece and a richly ornamented metal bell. They are played using a circular breathing technique that allows the performer to play continuously for over half an hour. The composition of pieces for rgya-gling, within a range that never goes beyond the octave, is based on the linking of melodic formulae indefinitely repeated and varied.
Although Tibetan iconography has included a kind of lute as an attribute of dByangs-can-ma (the Tibetan equivalent of the Indian goddess of speech and music, Sarasvatī) and to Yul-’khor-srung (the Tibetan form of Dhrtarāstra, king of the celestial musicians and guardian of the region of the east), no chordophones are played in the ritual music of Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibetan music, §II: Monastic music
Tibetan notations, which have graphic conventions peculiar to different traditions, and to different monasteries within the same tradition, are principally concerned with the performance of chant during rituals. The term dbyangs (‘vowel’) is generally used to designate these chants, which are characterized by the introduction of meaningless syllables (tshig-lhad) between significant syllables (tshig-rdzogs) of the text. dByangs centre on a single note taken as a point of reference, its pitch and timbre being imperceptibly modified by various ornamental procedures, a process described by Ellingson (1979) as ‘tone contour melody’.
These various types of notations and the commentaries accompanying them cannot be used in practice without the aid of oral tradition, of which the precentors (dbu-mdzad) are the repositories. They are aids to memory, giving no precise information about the pitch or duration of the sounds performed.
Notations for the voice (dbyangs-Yig, ‘writing of dbyangs chants’) are preserved in manuscripts and mainly reserved for the use of precentors; they are read from left to right. The beginning of the text to be chanted (written in dbu-can or dbu-med script) is given along with the meaningless syllables (tshig-lhad) to be introduced between the syllables of the text. These may be in an invariable phonetic form (ya/a), or in a phonetic form that varies according to the nature of the preceding syllable, which they reproduce like an echo. Indications relating to the playing of the drum or cymbals accompanying the chant are marked. Neumatic signs in the form of curves placed above the syllables may be elucidated by commentaries in small characters placed between the lines of the text and the notation signs.
Figs.9–11 are taken from different traditions and show increasing complexity. Those of the sa-skya-pa school are the most straightforward, giving the text and the meaningless syllables, with small empty circles (rnga-thig) just above to indicate drum-beats. The undulating signs (sbrul-shad) placed vertically or obliquely above or below certain syllables define the movement of the drumstick before striking the drumskin.
Fig.9 shows the first line of a chant in praise of Mahakala, a protective deity of Tibetan Buddhism. The textual syllables, here numbered [1] to [7], were written in red ink, and the additional syllables (tshig-lhad) in black.
In fig.10 (from the karma bka’-brgyud-pa monastery, Dpal spungs) the same text is accorded a more elaborate notation. This notation has curves of a neumatic character and indicates the various ‘modifications’ to be made to each syllable – in respect to vocal timbre (changes in the supporting vowel sounds), attack, the introduction of various ornaments (single, double or triple ’gyur) or the requisite dynamics, indicated by a thickening of the line – as well as indicating the drum-beats to be performed at the beginning of each neumatic sign.
Fig.11 shows a line of notation from the dge-lugs-pa tradition on three levels, consisting of regular curves surrounding the syllables of the text and the additional syllables (tshig-lhad). The upper and middle levels contain the words of the text, while the lower level is reserved for the tshig-lhad. Each syllable is surmounted by a small empty circle denoting the striking of the cymbals. Finally, the caesura after the first three syllables and before the last syllable of each nine-syllable line is indicated by a sign resembling a stylized lotus (encircled in the figure).
Various instructions for the playing of these instruments occur in manuals of vocal notations, often specifying the number of beats to be struck before or after a chant, for example ‘three beats’ (gsum-brdung) or ‘nine beats’ (dgu-brdung). This basic count may be modified by the addition of onomatopoeic effects (ber, sbram, thang) or extra beats, shown by the syllable byas, various types of ‘responses’, etc. Some monasteries collected the rhythmic formulae in specific manuals called either rnga-grangs (‘count of the drum’) or rol-tshig (‘words of the cymbals’).
In fig.12 the rhythmic formulae are classified according to the rituals in which they occur. Each beat is shown as a full circle, which may be small, medium-sized or large, depending on its intensity. These circles are surmounted by figures indicating the order of the strokes or their arrangement within a formula. The undulating lines above indicate a tremolo for cymbals. In many cases the notations are complemented by a text or mantra, its syllables corresponding to a beat struck on the drum and/or cymbals.
Notations that seem to be derived from vocal notations are used in some monasteries for playing conches (dung-dkar), short trumpets made of bone or metal (rkang-gling) or long telescopic metal trumpets (dung-chen/rag-dung). They differ from tradition to tradition. The most elaborate are for dung-chen, based on three sounds: a low (’dor), middle (rgyang/skad) and high sound (tir/ti/nhi).
Fig.13 illustrates the notation of two pieces for dung-chen. The first consists of a combination of two neumatic formulae. The notation begins with a rgyang played in a particular manner (’or) and continues with a rgyang held for some time (rgyang-ring), depicted by a rising curve swelling at the centre to indicate intensification of the dynamic and followed by a rgyang repeated more briefly (rgyang-thung). The tir, which follows directly, is depicted as a thin, descending line, before the repeat of a long rgyang. The central part of the next ‘formula’ is shown by a series of nine triangles with the syllable ha underneath, indicating a violent, broken sound.
The second, shorter piece is associated with the ‘summoning’ (’gugs) of the protective deities and is characterized by the use of a middle sound played very loud (rtsags) and a tir also played loudly, before a return to several middle sounds interspersed with sudden breaks (rbad-bcad), marked by maximum thickening of the line.
There are few notations for rgya-gling (oboes). Some are based on fingering, correspond to the playing holes; others, from the dge-lugs-pa monastery of rNam-rgyal-grwa-tshang (Ellingson, 1986), are syllabic.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
Unlike the monastic tradition, Tibetan folk music is mainly vocal, with little independent instrumental music. Dances are invariably associated with singing, but not all songs are danced to. Rough distinctions can be made between the styles of central Tibet, Kham and Amdo, and more significantly between (semi-)nomadic, agricultural and pre-1959 ‘cosmopolitan’ urban contexts such as Lhasa. However, these distinctions fail to cover adequately what has evaded any indigenous systemization until recently. Research have largely focussed on central Tibet, with few references to peripheral regions such as Ladakh and Bhutan; compliations initiated in China since the 1980s have thrown light on local traditions in Kham and Amdo.
Traditional music is deeply infused with religion and, to some extent, with literature; the most famous Tibetan poetry evokes musical terminology. Traditional music has drawn on folktales as much as literary sources and, in turn, has inspired popular songs. For example, the 9th-century Dunhuang texts reproduce versified ‘songs’ (glu and mgur-ma) attributed to sovereigns and officials; the celebrated yogi Mi-la ras-pa (1040–1123) is held to be the author of ‘songs’ of religious experience (mgur-’bum); and the sixth Dalai Lama (c1710) is credited with composing famous ‘love songs’ (mgul-glu). A literary and Buddhist background is evident in the songs’ morality and metaphors, but they also draw on oral traditions.
Traditional music, though mainly vocal, is sometimes accompanied by a gling-bu (flute) among peasants and nomads. Songs implying dance steps often use chordophones: the sgra-snyan (lute), most popular in western and central Tibet, and the pi-wang (fiddle), favoured in Kham. Songs are generally strophic, sometimes with refrains. The verses usually contain four lines, although this may vary between two and eight, and lyrics may be improvised with regional variations. The texture is normally monophonic, either solo singers or unison chorus. Antiphony is frequent, sometimes responsorial between soloists and/or groups. Heterophonic elements appear in overlapping antiphony.
Melodies tend to be melismatic with initial ascending, terminal descending and intermediate glides. Proficiency in ornamentation is considered the most important vocal skill. All regional song styles have their own ornamentations, mainly modulations of guttural sounds: ’gyur-khug, mgrin-khug (central Tibet), ‘gugs (Amdo), ngag-’gyur (Kham) etc. The pastoral melodies are more ornate, have a wide compass (9th to a 12th), a tense vocal quality and rhythmic freedom. Agricultural songs reflect work rhythms and have a smaller compass, a relaxed vocal quality and little ornamentation. Urban songs have a more literary background and formal style, with more varied thematic material. Specialized vocal techniques also include the rhythmical narrations of ’bras-dkar (‘white rice’, denoting auspiciousness), who perambulated at New Year giving good luck greetings to, and collecting donations from households, and the chanted recitations of the wandering bla-ma, who told edifying stories such as the biographies of saints and narratives of lha-mo theatrical plays (see §5 below)
Chinese policy has attempted to folklorize traditional Tibetan genres. State-supported troupes for the performing arts offer theatricalized versions of traditional music on stage, with elaborate costumes, modified voice timbres and metres, and Chinese and Western instruments accompany songs traditionally performed unaccompanied. Such troupes have a greater impact in Lhasa than in rural Tibet, where traditional singing and dancing has been highly resistant to state influence. A greater long-term effect may arise from the intense exposure, since the late 1980s, given to modern Chinese and foreign popular styles, through television and cassettes. The Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (in Dharamsala) has been set up to document and preserve the traditions of Tibet but has not managed to avoid folklorization. Before 1959 there was no notation for Tibetan traditional music; Chinese numerical transcription has become the standard method of notation, used both in Tibet and by Tibetans in exile.
The generic term for songs and dances is glu-gar. The recently forged terms dmangs-glu and dmangs-gzhas indicate ‘popular songs’, and the combined glu-gzhas is generic for ‘songs’. The Tibetan differentiation between glu and gzhas is not clear. Gzhas tends to be more popular among the peasants of central Tibet and parts of Kham, whereas glu is more often used in western Tibet, Kham and Amdo, and among nomads. Gzhas can be danced to, whereas glu are entirely vocal. Gzhas tend to be rhythmical, with a fixed stanza structure (four hexasyllabic lines is the most common) and an emphasis on conveying the text (except la-gzhas, love songs from Amdo and Kham, and gzhas-chen, from central Tibet, which are closer to glu). Glu tend to be more melismatic, with an emphasis on ornate melody (except glu-shags, responsorial criticizing songs, and gtsang-glu, the songs from Tsang, which are closer to gzhas).
Glu represent a large category of songs of various lengths, for example ’brog-glu (nomads’ songs), la-glu (courting songs), khram-glu (robbers’ songs) and glu-chu (friendship songs). In rural Amdo and Kham, glu is often applied to songs that mark stages in major festivals, often with religious content, such as those for the beginning of a celebration (’go-glu) and those recalling cosmology and history (chags-glu), as well as praises (bstod-glu) and lamentations (smreng-glu).
Kha-mtshar are light, humorous songs. Tshig-kyag (central and western Tibet), glu-shags, la-kha (Amdo) and la-glu are all repartee songs, a common and ancient feature of Tibetan singing. They metaphorically tease, criticize or verbally outwit an opponent. In Amdo, when the competition becomes too intense, someone will rise from the audience to sing a bar-byol or bar-zhugs-pa’i glu, which provides a quietening interlude.
La-gzhas (pronounced layi), by far the most popular regional songs of Amdo, are love songs between young people. Etiquette necessitates that they hide from their relatives, monks or elders, hence their name, ‘songs for (hiding behind) the mountain pass’. La-glu is the term used among nomads and in parts of Kham, where they are sometimes called (dga’-)gzhas. Wedding songs appear at all phases of the nuptial ceremonies, sometimes involving specialist singers.
Work songs (now known as las-gzhas) are most popular in central Tibet but are also found in Amdo (where they are known as ba-lo). They accompany the agricultural cycle from ploughing to harvest and all the herding activities of the nomads (glu), as well as log-carrying, house-building and carpet-making. The tune and rhythm is determined by the nature of the job and the physical movements associated with it. Ar-gzhas (roof-smoothing songs) are sung in antiphonal lines with parlando elements.
Khrom-’gyur-gzhas were, until the 1950s, satirical street songs of Lhasa. They were an accepted anonymous way of lampooning prominent officials. sTod-gzhas, ‘songs from western Tibet’ (ex.1), have spread all over central Tibet and, recently, Amdo. The songs are accompanied by a sgra-snyan (lute) and a lively dance and are either performed solo or by a few performers. There are two main styles: the more jovial is from the Sakya area and the more reserved from Ngamring; the first has gained great popularity in Lhasa (see §3 below). mNga’-ris sgra-snyan rdung-len, songs from Amdo on the stod-gzhas model, have become very popular in Tibet since the 1980s. They are accompanied by the sgra-snyan (lute) and the mandolin. There are various other widespread singing customs: drinking songs, which have different tunes in each region; mda’-gzhas, the ‘arrow songs’ for archery competitions in Kongpo; mo-gzhas (Tsang) and mgur-mo (Kham), ‘divination songs’, often about love between young people; and children’s songs (byis-pa’i glu in central Tibet, shayi in Amdo).
Songs have survived under the Chinese communists by going under cover or by adapting their lyrics to suit the new regime. Some standardization has taken place: complex and locally restricted arts have disappeared (e.g. ral-pa performances, gzhas-chen and rbad), whereas sgra-snyan zhabs-bro songs have now become the most dynamic popular tradition in central Tibet.
Song-and-dance styles, linked to ceremonies and gatherings, vanished with the abolition in the late 1950s of the traditional religious context of celebrations. They were revived in the early 1980s in a somewhat impoverished form, in which sequences were abbreviated and costumes and songs had been lost. Some styles found their way in to the new official celebrations (bro, sgor-gzhas). Song-and-dance genres accompany important celebrations such as New Year, weddings, ‘ong-bskor (a field circumambulation in summer) and religious festivals. They are ceremonial, generally involving an introduction that confers good wishes, slow and fast sections, both divided into prescribed sequences, and an auspicious conclusion. They often present offerings and prayers to local gods and buddhas. Participants, both men and women, may number in the hundreds. Most songs are antiphonal and unaccompanied but may be punctuated by a stamping dance.
sGor-gzhas in central Tibet and bro in Kham are immensely popular dances performed in a circle, sometimes in concentric circles. Gral-gzhas are performed in a straight line. Bro has characteristic large movements with long sleeves, and songs are performed in a high and loud voice. Gling-bro refers to the epic hero Gesar. There are sometimes competitions between villages (bro-brdung in Kham, sgor-gzhas in central Tibet) that can last for a whole night. Khams-gzhas is a generic term, known to all Khampas as referring to the round dances performed in Kham accompanied by the pi-wang fiddle, with softer demeanour and less formal lyrics than bro. The most famous are the ’Ba’-gzhas, from Bathang, whence the style originated. It also includes part of the ral-pa repertory, a complex performing tradition in which wandering, often family-based performers paid homage to Mi-la ras-pa. Accompanied by long-handled drums, cymbals and bells, these performers executed spectacular spins, contortions and acrobatics (fig.14). They also performed popular songs on the Khams-gzhas model.
Gzhas-chen (‘great songs’) belong to a small group of songs believed to have been composed in the 7th century. They were performed as a ceremonial welcome for important guests, as well as for the arrival of the bride during a wedding. Men danced in armour, and women wore splendid jewellery. The performance was highly structured, with many sections and historical allusions. Related to this genre are the rgya(l)-gzhas of Tingri region, the bro-chen of Dechen (Kham) and possibly the gar-shon of Ruthog and Pureng (Ngari), although they are the only ones to use kettle drums and sur-na.
Songs-and-dances with military connotations included the ljags-rkyang and rbad of central Tibet, which stimulated heroism before the battle and honoured the protectors after victory. rBad, responsorial songs danced in armour, were included in ’ong-bskor festivals and weddings. The still performed jiare of Drukchu and Thepo (in Amdo) involves the same general features and contains many epic stories. Bro(-pa) gzhas(-ma), believed to have originated at the court of Trisong Detsen in the 8th century, are popular in Lhokha and Shigatse. In these, men dance while beating drums attached to their waists, and women sing. Dances of Amdo include ldings-zlos (pronounced ‘dodi’), a female ritual of Drukchu and Thepo, and gar, or rtsed-rigs (Labrang, Rebgong), which includes allusions to animals, for the solemn opening of a major festival.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
Tibetan court music and dance (gar, ‘dance’) is performed by a troupe of dancing boys (gar phrug-pa) formerly maintained at the Dalai Lama's court. The accompanying ensemble (gar-pa) of paired kettledrums (lda-man or brda-ma) and oboes (surna or bsu-rna) also provided instrumental pieces for a wider range of ceremonial functions, connecting the tradition with the broader distribution of drum-and-reed ensembles throughout the Tibetan cultural area.
The core repertory comprises ‘male dances’ (pho-gar) and ‘female dances’ (mo-gar), supplemented by other dances including a sword dance (dri-gar) and those imitating certain animals or birds (e.g. the peacock dance, rma-bya gar). Except for the sword dance, which was performed by adult males, all were performed exclusively by the gar phrug-pa at court ceremonies for the Dalai Lama. These took place in the Assembly Hall of the Potala Palace on the first two days of the New Year (lo-gsar), at the great ‘procession of the offerings of the assembly’ (tshogs-mchod ser-bang) in honour of the fifth Dalai Lama, during the summer zho-ston festival held in the Norbulingka Palace, and at enthronements of Dalai Lamas and Regents.
Purely instrumental pieces were played by the gar-pa musicians when the Dalai Lama appeared in public ceremonies and spectacles, for example at the Jokhang temple during the Great Prayer Festival (smon-lam) and at the death anniversaries of past Dalai Lamas. Processional pieces (phebs-rnga, ‘drumming for the [auspicious] descent’) were played whenever the Dalai Lama embarked on an official journey. Variants were played when riding on horseback.
The main instrumental ensemble typically consisted of up to four each of lda-man pairs and surna, occasionally with the addition of a ten-piece gong-chime (mkhar-rnga bcu-pa). In less formal, indoor settings some gar pieces could be performed in the ‘soft style’ (’jam-rol), on a flute (gling-bu) and single pair of lda-man. Alternatively, gar tunes (gar-glu), including some dance-tunes, were sung by the gar phrug-pa as praise-songs (ex.2a). In such cases the loud drums and reeds were replaced by an ensemble of chordophones including the sgra-snyan, rgyud-mang and pi-wang (all common with the nang-ma ensemble), as well as two lutes that are now obsolete. These were the tam-bu-ra (apparently similar to the Mongolian khiil khuur, but plucked) and ghan-chag or ga-ndza (a bowed lute resembling the Central Asian ghidjak).
With the exception of similar ensembles maintained at some of Tibet’s leading monasteries – notably Tashilhunpo (Zhaxiluenbo), the seat of the Panchen Lama – the gar-pa were almost exclusively maintained by the Dalai Lama's government in Lhasa as a guild, called gar-pa’i skyid-sdug, comprising about 70–80 members. The head of the organization (gar-dpon) had the status of a government official and was in charge of intense training and discipline. New recruits were selected from the provinces, as demand dictated, according to age, appearance and social class.
Gar pieces open with a non-metrical prelude (sngon-’gro’i rag, ex.2b) played by a solo surna (or gling bu, in the ‘soft style’), freely accompanied by a single pair of lda-man with characteristic pulsating rhythms. The ensuing ‘song’ (gar-glu, ex.2c), whether sung or rendered instrumentally by the ensemble, is one of a number of set tunes, with the occasional addition of instrumental interludes (’gyur-kha). The gar glu melodies are strophic and bi-thematic, and the hexa- or heptatonic themes have long, often unequal phrases sustained in an even dynamic. When played loudly on the surna, a continuous line is maintained by staggered (rather than circular) breathing, in a heterophonic style with glides, trills and variations in vibrato speed and width. Throughout, the resonant drum-beats of the ldaman provide slowly-measured cadential patterns.
The origins of gar are uncertain. It is popularly believed to have evolved during the reign of Songtsen Gampo (620–49 ce), though the present instrumentation suggests a date no earlier than the Yuan period (1271–1368). Recent research suggests that gar is associated, though not exclusively, with the South Asian Naqqārakhāna. An important Tibetan treatise attributed to Sangye Gyatso (1688), Regent to the fifth Dalai Lama, attests that gar was introduced in the 17th century to central Tibet from Ladakh. Ladakh maintained a court ensemble of lda-man and surna for official ceremonies. The similarity of the instruments, contexts and musical forms with those found in gar suggests that Ladakh may have played a key role in the development of gar from earlier Middle Eastern traditions.
Gar began to decline even before the Chinese invasion. A form of syllabic notation (contained in the 1688 treatise), which seems to have been uniquely associated with gar, had already been forgotten when performances ceased after the Dalai Lama's flight to India in 1959. In exile, official gar performances were revived in the 1980s in the service of the Dalai Lama's government and as part of programmes presented by its cultural organization, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. Political reforms in Tibet led to a controlled revival under the guidance of Pa-sangs Don-grub Gar-dpon (b 1918), the last gar-dpon to have served a ruling Dalai Lama in Tibet itself.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
Nang-ma has been termed by some observers ‘the classical music of Tibet’. It was an essential background for the festivities of officials and noble families of old Lhasa, whence it spread to the city of Shigatse. Wealthy sponsors could invite amateur or professional musicians to perform. Performances involved singing, dancing, playing instruments or, for some lute players, doing all three at the same time. In the 1920s and 30s, the style expanded. Dance-songs from western Tibet (stod-gzhas, pronounced and sometimes transliterated ‘töshe’), and a few from central Tibet, were absorbed into the instrumental mould of Lhasa nang-ma music. Some stod-gzhas had already spread to Lhasa, but had not been influenced by genres in Lhasa. These new songs came to be known as ‘Lhasa töshe’; ‘nang-ma stod-gzhas’ referred to the performance style which alternated both types of song. It became the capital’s most popular form of song-and-dance, and it has recently come back into favour.
The origins of nang-ma are unclear. Most Tibetan scholars usually place them in areas to the west of Tibet, as with gar and stod-gzhas, the name deriving from the Kashmiri naghma, meaning ‘song’. Muslim musicians from Baltistan, Kashmir and Central Asia did play an important role in Lhasa. However, instruments such as the yang-chin (hammer-dulcimer), the ho-chin and the dal-chin (fiddles) are borrowed and/or derived from China, though the melodic patterns appear to be predominantly Tibetan. The musical structures are reminiscent of those of the gar-glu but have different melodies. The Lhasa minister Doring Pandita (rDo-ring bsTan-’dzin dPal-’byor) is said to have brought a yangqin from China in 1793 and to have established an instrumental ensemble by putting it together with the lute, flute and fiddle. He also introduced the Chinese gongche notation system (Tib. kung-khre’i phu’u), which was used until the 1950s.
The nang-ma’i skyid-sdug (‘the nang ma group of mutual support through good and bad times’) was the largest and most famous society performing nang-ma (and Lhasa töshe) in Lhasa, coming into prominence at the beginning of the 20th century. It performed for a few government functions, such as official autumn picnics (fig.15) and the Saga Dawa celebration held at the Lukhang, where it played on a boat in the middle of the lake. During the bathing festival, the society performed the sa-gzhi las-mo, a fixed set of nang-ma songs performed with special dances and costumes. The group comprised about 60 members, both men and women, including several aristocratic and merchant members and a few Muslim performers of Ladakhi, Kashmiri and Hui origins. Only 12 were full-time professionals who acquired great popularity, for example Rabsel Abdul Rehman, Bhayi Wali and bSod-nams sKyid-’dzoms. a-jo rNam-rgyal was the society’s last teacher and most famous member, who renewed the genre by creating Lhasa töshe. The society was disbanded after his death in 1942.
In contemporary Tibet there are about 48 nang-ma songs and 53 Lhasa töshe. The verses are generally in the standard gzhas metre of four six-syllable lines, with repetition of refrains after two lines in töshe. Subjects include greetings, good wishes, love and social life, as well as praises for buddhas, monasteries or one’s birthplace. Some nang-ma songs are borrowed from the sixth Dalai Lama’s ‘love songs’ (A-ma-le-ho, Bya la bya) or from the tshig-kyag songs (rGya-gar shar, ’Dzoms-pa rnam-gsum). Famous töshe include Jo-lags bKra-shis, sGam-pa la-mo and Zla-ba’i gZhon-nu.
The composition of the accompanying instrumental ensemble is flexible and relies on the personnel available, usually having about six people. It may consist of two sgra-snyan (plucked lutes) and two pi-wang or ho-chin (fiddles), big and small, tuned to an octave; also a ’phred-gling (side-blown flute) and a yang-chin (Chin. yangqin: ‘hammer-dulcimer’). Additional bells, ting-shags and ’gyer-kha, give a rhythmic pulse. All instruments play the same melodic line, which is the singer’s melody, and the instruments follow the voice. Heterophony only comes from ornamentation, octave transposition and sometimes an ostinato provided by the lute. The nang-ma scale is mainly heptatonic. The prelude of töshe songs is pentatonic and the main part is usually hexatonic, sometimes pentatonic. After a prelude, which is different for nang-ma and töshe, there are two sections: a slow section for the song (called dal-gzhas for nang-ma, rgyang-gzhas for töshe) and a fast section for the dance (mgyogs-gzhas for nang-ma, ’khrugs-gzhas or khyug-gzhas for töshe). The last section includes a song in töshe but not in nang-ma. Pieces conclude with a lively dance. However, the tripartition – prelude, song, dance – is flexible, and sometimes there is a concluding slow section, or there is no fast or slow section. A töshe generally ends with a standard coda. Unlike nang-ma, the melody in töshe is the same in both sections. In addition to the standard prelude (and coda for töshe), song sections are linked by an instrumental interlude that gives the singer a rest. This is a ’jog, or ‘vocal resting place’. It can appear inside a song (bar-’jog) or between the slow and fast sections (mjug-’jog). It takes the singer’s last note, known as ma-sgra (‘root sound’), and ornaments and extends this as a temporary tonic.
Banned during the 1960s and 70s because of its association with the Tibetan ruling classes, nang-ma and töshe music was revived at the beginning of the 1980s. The songs performed by government troupes display Chinese vocal and instrumental influence. However, some people have tried to revive the style from personal experience, in particular the influential bSod-nams Dar-rgyas Zhol-khang. In Tibet and in exile, nang-ma has shifted from a Lhasa-based privileged music to become an emblem of the elegance of Tibetan secular music. However, the traditional repertory has shrunk from 100 to about 15 songs. Since 1997, Lhasa has seen a new and very popular form of revival, the ‘nang-ma houses’, a Tibetan version of the karaoke bars in which people from the audience sing and dance traditional nang-ma and töshe on a stage.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
A variety of epic narratives (sgrung) may have been performed in earlier times, but the one full-scale narrative now performed is the epic of Gesar (or Kesar) of Ling (gLing Ge-sar). The epic includes the story of Gesar’s miraculous birth (in response to an appeal to the gods by the people of Ling, oppressed by demonic forces); his childhood and youth; the horse-race by which he wins the throne of Lingh and his first wife, Drukmo (’Brug-mo); and a series of episodes (more or less indefinitely extendable) in which Gesar encounters and defeats various human or demonic adversaries, in almost all cases the rulers of states surrounding Ling. The historical Kingdom of Ling was a small state in east Tibet, and the epic is important in east and north-east Tibet (Kham, Amdo). It is also found, however, in the far west (Ladakh, Baltistan). Many places throughout Tibet are associated with characters or events in the story. Gesar is an important figure in Tibetan folk religion and is associated above all with nomadic-pastoralists.
In traditional performance the solo bard (sgrung-mkhan), usually male, alternates between prose narrative and songs sung by the various characters in the story. The prose narrative is recited in heightened speech with exaggerated tonal inflections, also used for a variety of other traditional genres. The songs, each introduced by a mantra (usually om mani padme hum hrih), are sung to a small repertory of melodies that correspond to different characters, character-types or activities. While each singer has his own melodies, many of these tunes are widely known. Some singers use a large number of melodies, but many respected singers use relatively few. The emphasis is on the text; the short melody covers two (sometimes three or four) lines of text and is repeated until the end of the song is reached. The verse-form of the epic will fit any tune. The texts begin with an invocation to the character’s patron deities and an announcement of the place and the character’s identity. The body of the song frequently takes the form of prediction, divination, command or the boasting of a warrior.
The most respected singers of the Gesar epic are ‘inspired’ bards (’babs-sgrung) who are thought to be chosen by the gods while young through a shamanic-style illness, after which they are trained by a sympathetic lama. They learn the stories through visionary techniques and are sometimes thought to remember them from past lives, in which they took part in the story. When they perform, the epic is described as ‘descending’ on them. This may be represented in performance by the bard’s hat, a symbolic device referring to the hat worn by Gesar himself.
Previously bards would travel, singing for a few days in each village, unless they attracted the patronage of a wealthy Gesar enthusiast and secured longer-term employment. In east Tibet especially, many wealthy families traced their descent from characters in the epic and were happy to employ a visiting bard. After the epic began to be written down (the oldest texts are from the 18th century) some of these families built up large manuscript collections of popular episodes. Not all, or even most, of the travelling epic bards were ‘inspired’; others learnt the stories through listening to older bards or from manuscripts. ‘Inspired bards’ were regarded as the most authoritative, however, and manuscript versions are often based on their performances.
The narrative may be understood in terms of the power of the Buddhist teachings and deities. Gesar and the other characters linked to high Buddhist patron deities inevitably win, however, employing all kinds of trickery and deceit in order to succeed, often exploiting the weaknesses (arrogance, pride, self-conceit) of their enemies. This provides a revealing glimpse into Tibetan folk religion, in which Buddhist deities are as much a source of magical power as guides to enlightenment. Gesar’s enemies are either demons or adherents of the Bonpo and other ‘heretical’ (mu-stegs-pa) traditions, and consequently they must be converted or destroyed in order to establish the realm of the Buddhist Dharma.
In the late 19th century, a group of mainly rnying-ma-pa lamas of the ris-med movement, of whom the most prominent was Mi-pham Rin-po-che (1846–1914), developed an interest in Gesar, creating rituals in which he and other epic characters are treated as Tantric deities. This has continued until the present day, and some religious communities perform major rituals, ’cham and other dance traditions using Gesar and other characters from the epic. Mi-pham and his colleagues were responsible for the first printed version of the epic, and other lamas have written episodes intended primarily as vehicles for Buddhist teachings. Not all lamas view the epic positively, however, and its performance was traditionally forbidden at the major Central Tibetan monastery of Drepung (’Bras-spungs), whose protective deity is sometimes described as antagonistic to Gesar.
The epic was suppressed along with other elements of traditional culture during the Cultural Revolution, but on the whole has been viewed positively by the Chinese authorities. A national campaign to preserve and record the epic was started in the 1980s. In recent years many manuscript episodes have been printed in Tibetan both in Tibet and among refugees, along with some transcriptions of performances by contemporary bards. The epic has been used as a basis for plays and a TV series (on Qinghai TV), and there have been experiments in performing the songs with instrumental accompaniment, but so far none of these has achieved much popularity in comparison with the traditional performance mode. Professional performances are relatively rare these days, but many Tibetans, especially from Kham or Amdo, know some tunes and sing parts of the epic for pleasure, alone or with friends.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
(A-lce) lha-mo is often translated as ‘Tibetan opera’ but is better described as ‘Tibetan musical theatre’. It depicts Buddhist concepts such as Karma, renunciation and compassion, but it is a secular art form, distinct from the ritual monastic dances (’cham). There is a clear division between the numerous amateur troupes of Tibet (reconstituted in the 1980s after a 19-year ban) and members of the professional Tibetan Institute of the Performing Arts, who perform lha-mo in a relatively traditional way, and the professional troupes within the Tibet Autonomous Region, who play an abbreviated and reformed style of lha-mo. The most famous of these is the Bod-ljongs Lha-mo tshogs-pa (more commonly called by the Chinese Zangju tuan), the TAR Opera Troupe of Lhasa.
A-lce lha-mo (‘elder sister, female celestial’), from the name of a character in the prologue, originated in central Tibet. It may have been drawn from sources such as the ceremonial spectacles of the Tibetan imperial period (7th–9th century), local songs and dances and Indian Buddhist drama. However, the founding of a specific theatre tradition in Tibet is ascribed to the 15th-century yogi and scholar Thang-stong rGyal-po. During the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama (17th century) the bkra-shis zhol-pa style was created, still performed today and sometimes called ‘white mask lha-mo’, from the colour of the main character’s mask in the prologue. It is considered a precursor of the ‘blue mask lha-mo’ style, which has more eleborate stories and melodies and which developed into the lha-mo style of today (fig.16). The Zho-ston (‘yoghurt festival’), established in the 17th century, celebrated the end of the monastic summer retreat. This became a major theatrical festival organized in Lhasa by and for the Tibetan government. Twelve troupes of performers from central Tibet were required to leave their fields and travel to Lhasa to perform for the Dalai Lama’s court. The sKyor-mo-lung group, whose traditions are perpetuated by both the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and the Zangju tuan, was the only professional one, with famous performers such as A-lce Dvangs-bzang, mig-dmar rGyal-mtshan and Nor-bu Tshe-ring. By maintaining strict control over the quality of performances, the institution of the Zho-ston greatly encouraged lha-mo and inspired the lamas of Amdo and Kham, studying in Lhasa, to found troupes when they returned home.
All the troupes of these regions were of monastic origin. Lha-mo was widely performed in Kham only from the beginning of the 20th century and was greatly influenced by local ’cham performances and traditional music. In Amdo, where the performance style is the most remote from that of central Tibet, the theatrical tradition is very recent (since the 1940s). It is called rnam-thar and uses new stories, local music and dialect. The southern region of Mon (rTa-wang) also has a distinctive lha-mo tradition dating from the end of the 19th century.
The written form of a narrative is called rnam-thar (‘spiritual biography’), a term generally reserved for a high lama’s spiritual path. Each troupe adapts the text into a ’khrab-gzhung, a libretto separating dialogues, narrated and sung episodes. The plays number only eight, although there may have been four or five more stories in the past, and they invariably bear as a title the name of the hero or heroine. The stories are either adaptations of Indian tales (Dri-med Kun-ldan, gZugs-kyi Nyi-ma, ’Gro-ba bZang-mo, Chos-rgyal Nor-bzang, Padma ’od-’bar and possibly gCung-po Don-yod Don-grub) or local legends (sNang-sa ’od-’bum) and historical events (rGya-bza’ Bal-bza’). During the Cultural Revolution only one Beijing-model opera was performed in Tibetan: lGang-bzhu dmar-po (‘The Red Lantern’). Since the 1980s many new librettos that diverge from the traditional lines have been compiled in the professional work units in Tibet. In exile, the new plays have remained closer to a-lce lha-mo.
Tibetan musical theatre contains ritual elements, chiefly in the prologue and the finale. Performed during the harvesting season, it is linked with the propitiation of local gods in order to ensure prosperity. It can also be performed in the winter season for money. Traditionally it is performed outdoors, under an awning in a monastery courtyard or on a village threshing ground, surrounded by spectators. One play lasts the entire day, sometimes two or three days. Lha-mo was traditionally sponsored by wealthy people, monasteries or the Tibetan government for Zho-ston; it is now funded by local administrations in Tibet. Troupes comprise 10–20 actors, mainly agricultural workers and sometimes including a few women, who were banned from the stage during the pre-1959 Zho-ston. Before the 1950s, actors in Kham and Amdo were mainly monks. This was rare in central Tibet, but one monastic troupe did acquire great fame, the rMe-ru spro-gseng of Lhasa, which acted out satirical imitations of officials. Some masks are used, either flat ones worn on the forehead or full masks to represent gods and demons; make-up is rare and costumes bright. Professional government troupes within China perform on a stage inside a theatre, rather than outdoors. The plays are shortened to three hours and are revised along political lines or are new. These use modern instrumental music and ballet dances; the actors do not wear masks, and they use facial expressions inspired by the operas of the Cultural Revolution.
A lha-mo performance consists of three sections: ’don, gzhung and bkra-shis. The standard prologue purifies (by the rngon-pa, hunter-fishermen) and consecrates (by the rgya-lu, princes) the stage and calls on female celestials (lha-mo or rigs-lnga) to sing and dance. Offerings and prayers are made to the image of Thang-stong rGyal-po, erected on the altar on the stage. The second section is the drama itself, overseen by a performance master who narrates the plot and regulates the length of the performance by summarizing or expanding scenes. In the last section the actors sing valedictory praises and wishes for prosperity, while the sponsors offer ceremonial scarves and restitution.
The main part of the play alternates narration, songs, dance and srub-’jug, comic interludes with improvisation and mime. Scenes are cut with stylized dances sometimes accompanied by songs – either slow (dal-’khrab) or fast (mgyogs-’khrab). The instrumental music, restricted to a drum (rnga) and a pair of cymbals (sbub), provides the pulse for either the prelude or interlude dance motives. In Kham, monastic instruments such as dung-chen (long trumpet) and bsu-sna/surna (oboe) are also used. In Amdo, a large instrumental ensemble is used, with yang-chin (hammer-dulcimer), pi-wang (spike fiddle) and gling-bu (flute).
Narration (kha-bshad), both in metred verse and ordinary speech, is given by the teacher of the troupe in a parlando recto-tono style. Fast and rhythmic, this chant ends with a vigorous shout, the cue for the actor to enter the stage and/or start singing. The lha-mo songs, called rnam-thar, are the most spectacular musical features of the performance. These are alternate monologues interspersed with dances, in verses generally composed of two lines of nine syllables. In Kham and Amdo they are closer to local songs, but in central Tibet they are uttered in a unique and tense gutteral style. They have initial upward and terminal downward glides, in free rhythm and metre with a register of about an octave. The melody line is ornamented with glottalizations (mgrin-khug). This throat vibration varies regionally and according to the status of the character portrayed; for instance, slow and detached vibrations represent a king. The antiphonal chorus is performed by everyone on the stage, giving rise to heterophony between the singer and the chorus and within the chorus itself.
The main character sings only one melody throughout the play, in two styles designated by their length: rta-ring, long melody, and rta-thung, short melody. Rta-ring is the most ornate, sung in a solemn context, whereas rta-thung is easier to sing and gives the singer a rest. These personal melodies cannot be borrowed by other characters or used in other plays, though there are also melancholy (skyo-glu) and common tunes (dkyus-gdangs) that can be sung by anyone in the right context. Recent innovations include tunes mixed with traditional songs (gzhas-ma rnam-thar) and inverted tunes (gdangs-log). Composers associated with government troupes within China have now broken the restriction of singing only one rnam-thar, and tunes are mixed with those from different characters and different plays. The most striking feature of their modernization of lha-mo is the accompanying orchestra comprising Tibetan, Chinese and Western instruments.
Tibetan music, §III: Traditional music
Except for drums and cymbals, traditional music uses different instruments from those used in monastic music, and different instruments are used in different areas. As traditional music is chiefly vocal, instruments mostly accompany singing and dancing. Apart from instrumental versions of nang-ma or traditional songs, and the long preludes for gar and Khams-gzhas, purely instrumental music is rare.
Sbub-chal are loud brass cymbals (used in ache lha-mo), and sil-snyan are small cymbals (used in ral-pa). Ting-shags are a pair of small cymbals linked by a lace of leather. The (g)shang is a large flattened bell with an internal tongue (used for ral-pa). Rows of bells fixed on to a strap are called ’gyer-kha (used in nang-ma), and chu-ril comprises four rows of bells decreasing in size (used in dodi).
The rnga is a double-headed frame drum and may be large (rnga-chen) or small (rnga-chung). It either has a long handle held in the left hand (used in A-lce lha-mo and ral-pa), or is fixed on to the dancer's waist as in bro, Central Tibet. In the klu-rol festival of Rebgong (Amdo), a single-sided metal-framed drum, rnga, with calf skin and a short handle is used. brDa-ma (or lda-man) are kettledrums akin to the Indian tabla, mounted on a metal (in gar) or wooden frame (in the gar-shon of Ngari).
Gling-bu (flutes) are either end-blown (gzhung-gling) or side-blown (phred-gling). They are made of bamboo, apricot-wood, sandalwood, eagle or vulture bone (dung-rus gling-bu), or, rarely, of copper (zangs-gling) for the vertical wide-mouthed flute used in parts of Amdo. Archaeological finds also show ocarina-type clay flutes (rdza-gling). Flutes may be single or double, and all have seven finger-holes. They are used in most traditional musics. The bsu-sna or sur-na are oboes made of wood. They are very similar to the rgya-gling monastic oboe, but they have a different sound and are not played with circular breathing. They have seven holes in the front and a thumb hole on the back. They are used in gar, gar-shon of Ngari, and traditional music of the Himalayan borderland regions such as Ladakh, its neighbouring regions and Sikkim. The jew's harp kha-wang (Amdo, Kham) or gugzi (nomads of Ngari) is a slit bamboo plate held in the mouth, vibrated with the voice and a piece of string; sometimes jews harps are also made of brass or iron).
The small spike fiddle called pi-wang in traditional contexts, and ho-chin in nang-ma music, is related to the Chinese Huqin. Either tenor (ho-chin) or bass (dal-chin), it has a long wooden neck and a cylindrical sound box often made of wood, bamboo or yak horn. The back is open and the front of the sound box is covered by sheep skin (pi-wang) or python skin (ho-chin). The two strings, often tuned a 5th apart, have a horse-hair bow, shorter than its Chinese counterpart, running between them. Fingering techniques are different from those used in China. A few instruments have two double strings. The three-string spike fiddle, ghan-chag, of Kashmiri type with an external bow and silk strings, is used in gar-glu.
The plucked lute sgra-snyan, ‘pleasant sound’, found in traditional music throughout the Himalayas, is called rgod-po in parts of western Tibet and mNga'-ris sgra-snyan in Amdo. It has a long unfretted neck and is played with a plectrum. In central Tibet there are various sizes, usually a big and a small one. The three double strings are tuned to B–B–e–e–a–a in Tingri or B–B–e–e–A–A in Lhasa. The instrument has three or five strings in Nepal, seven strings in Bhutan. It is made of peach wood, rarely sandalwood, apart from the lower part of the sound box, which is covered by goat- or python skin. Traditionally strings were made of horse-hair or silk; today they are made of nylon. The tambura, a lute plucked with the fingers instead of a plectrum, is used in gar-glu. The necks of both the pi-wang and sgra-snyan end in carved animal-heads (horse, dragon, eagle, sea monster), which may allude to the shamanic symbolism of the steed carrying the consciousness to another experiential realm.
The yang-chin, from the Chinese yangqin (‘foreign zither’), is a hammered dulcimer. Sometimes called by the Tibetan rgyud-mang(s), ‘many strings’, it has a wooden trapezoidal box resonator and 25 strings that pass over movable bridges. It is played with two soft-headed sticks and is used in nang-ma.
The origin of Tibetan chordophones is difficult to assess. Literary sources mention these three types of Tibetan instruments, but terminological confusion makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what they were like. Influences on the sgra-snyan might have reached Tibet through India or Central Asia and those on the pi-wang through Central or Inner Asia and/or China. The hammered dulcimer may have originated in Europe or the Middle East around the 15th century and spread eastwards to Tibet, probably via China.
Tibetan contemporary pop music first appeared in the early 1980s, primarily from singers who belonged to official Performing Arts work units, such as TAR or Lhasa song-and-dance troupes (bod-ljongs glu-gar tshogs-pa and lha-sa glu-gar tshogs-pa), for example Chamba Tsering. Pop music was influenced by two major sources: the music of Tibetan artists outside of Tibet (living in India or Nepal), whose songs were remixed and recorded, usually with different words; and Western music refashioned by Chinese artists, including contemporary pop and rock music and Italian opera.
The first singer to become popular all over Tibet was Dadron. Her first album came out in 1990 before she moved to the USA in 1994. Soon after Dadron made her appearance, a new generation of young singers who had not been members of any official troupe emerged; of these about ten performers or bands have become well known. Most are self-taught, non-professional performers, and their cassettes are usually privately produced, (sometimes homemade) recordings with non-official distribution. Despite the obvious influence of Dadron, each performer has his or her own form of expression in various vocal and musical styles, from ‘mellow slow’ to ‘medium hard-rock’ and different traditional sounds.
Contemporary Tibetan pop music is closely connected to traditional folk music. The musicians come from many parts of ‘ethnic’ Tibet: Karma comes from central Tibet, Yadong from Kham and Jamyangkyi from Amdo. Folk melodies from the artists’ home regions have undoubtedly inspired them, and most of the singers have performed traditional songs at some point in their careers (some starting as traditional singers), either with traditional instrumentation or in remixed rock versions.
Though many performers rarely compose their own songs, they can usually choose the composers and lyricists with whom they work. The lyrics often deal with traditional subject-matter, describing Tibetan life or retelling cultural classics such as the Gesar epic or the love song ma-skye a-ma’i, written in the 18th century by the sixth Dalai Lama.
In 1997 nang-ma-khang, sometimes called Tibetan karaoke, appeared in Tibet. A nang-ma-khang is a bar decorated in Tibetan style where pop singers, traditional singers and musicians, both working independently or from official work units, perform music ranging from traditional (nang-ma, stod-gzhas, lha-mo) to contemporary pieces, including Indian and Western rock and pop.
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Norbu Tsering: Ache Lhamo is my Life (Florence, 1999)
G. Samuel: ‘Songs of Lhasa’, EthM, xx/3 (1976), 407–49
R. Tethong: ‘Conversations on Tibetan Musical Traditions’, AsM, x/2 (1979), 5–22
Tian Liantao: ‘Zangzu chuantong yueqi’ [Tibetan traditional musical instruments], Yueqi (Beijing, 1989–91)
I.O. Collinge: ‘The Dra-nyen (the Himalayan Lute): an Emblem of Tibetan Culture’, CHIME, vi (1993), 22–33
M. Helffer: mChod-rol: les instruments de la musique tibétaine (Paris, 1994)
dGra-lha Zla-ba bZang-po (dGra-lha D.Z.): ‘Bod kyi rol-cha’i rnam-grangs mu-tig phreng-mdzes’ [The beautiful garland of all Tibetan musical instruments], Bod-ljongs sgyu-rtsal zhib-’jug [Tibetan Arts Studies] (Lhasa, 1995), ii; (1996), i–ii; (1997), i–ii; (1998), i–ii
sKal-chos: ‘rGod-po zhes-pa’i rol-char dbye-zhib thog-ma byas-pa’ [‘Detailed discussion on the Göpo’], Bod-ljongs sgyu-rtsal zhib-’jug [Tibetan Arts Studies], ii (Lhasa, 1997), 37–51
Tibetan Buddhist Rites from the Monasteries of Bhutan, rec. J. Levy, i: Rituals of the Drukpa Order; ii:Sacred Dances and Rituals of the Nyingmapa and Drukpa Orders; iii:Temple Rituals and Public Ceremonies, Lyrichord LYCD 7255–57 (1971)
Musique rituelle tibétaine, rec. G. Luneau, Ocora C 599011 (1971) [notes by G. Luneau]
Tibetan Buddhism: the Ritual Orchestra and Chants, rec. D. Lewiston, Elektra Nonesuch-Explorer CD-7759-72071-2 (1973)
Ladakh: Musique de monastère et de village, rec. M. Helffer (Phyang monastery), Le Chant du Monde/CNRS/ Musée de l’Homme LDX 74662 (1976) ) [notes by M. Helffer]
Tibetan Buddhism: Shartse College of Ganden Monastery, rec. D. Lewiston (1987), BCD 9015 (1989)
Les traditions rituelles des bonpos tibétains, rec. R. Canzio, Ocora CD 580016 (1993) [notes by R. Canzio]
Tibet: the Heart of Dharma, rec. D. Lewiston, Ellipsis Art/Musical Expeditions 4050 (1996)
Amdo Monastère Tibétain de Labrang, rec. Tian Qing and Tian Miao, Ocora C560101 (1996) [notes by Tian Qing]
Tibetan Folk and Minstrel Music, coll. P. Crossley-Holland, Lyrichord LLST 7196 (1961)
Musique et théâtre populaires tibétains, rec. G. Luneau, Ocora OCR 62 (1971)
Ache Lhamo: Théâtre tibétain: Prince Norsang, rec. R. Canzio, TIPA, Sonodisc, ESP 8433 (Dharamsala, 1985)
The Music of the Minorities in China, i:The Opera Music of Tibet, ed. Mao Jizeng, Wind records TCD 1601–06 (1994)
Ache Lhamo (Celestial Female): Parts from Tibetan Opera, rec. Tian Liantao, Pan 2046CD (Leiden, 1996)
Dhama Suna: Music of Tibet, perf. Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. Erato 1997 (Track 3) [notes by D.A. Scheidegger].
Tibetan Folk Music: Traditional Songs and Instrumental Music, rec. R. Zollitsch, Saydisc CD-SDL 42 (1999)
12 Treasures: Gesar Songs and Prayers from The Saltmen of Tibet, rec. U. Koch, Terton 007, CL 5565
