Instruments of Bhutan

The Trongsa Tsechu Orchestra

The Dungchen at the Trongsa Tshechu

The Jaling and the Yanchen (Dulcimer)

Remo

 

10th January, 2012. Head office of Music of Bhutan in Thimphu, a research centre dedicated to the documentation and preservation of traditional Bhutanese music and instruments. The Opera Bhutan team is warmly welcomed from the cold chill of a Himalayan winter afternoon with some saving hot ginger tea by the jovial and wonderfully hospitable president, Jane Hancock. Jane is an expert photographer and the founder of a Bach academy who was not so long ago struck by a coup de foudre for Bhutan and in particular, the music of Bhutan.

Jane collaborates with one of Bhutan's finest musicians, Kheng Sonam Dorji, player of many instruments, composer and noted internationally for his contribution to the soundtrack of the the film 'Travellers and Magicians'. We first met Sonam at the fabulous Gangtey Palace in Paro where he visited with Jane and gave us a memorable recital of song and dramyen playing, with the captivating Yak Song as an encore. 

Back in the Thimphu headquarters, gratefully clasping our hot tea mugs, we were about to be taken into the mysterious soundscapes of traditional Bhutanese musical instruments. I have the mad idea that those sounds which somehow arrive at our visceral primordial sensibilities, could be used in someway in the project. The storyline we are working with comes after all from a distant time in the memory of our own Western culture and these strange Himalayan sounds perhaps could work transversely to unlock those memories. I suspect Pasolini was attempting to do this in the soundtrack of his Medea. 

As we sat in the cosy office, Sonam presented us with an enormous range of sound-producing objects, some you would call instruments and others, like the GIANT seedpod which you tilted so that the seeds inside made a delicious rain-like patter, were nature's objects of wonder. 

Here is a video of the Bhutanese oboe, the Jaling.

For more information on Jane and Sonam and their inspiring work, see http://musicofbhutan.org

Invoking Happiness

Invoking Happiness Guide to the Sacred Festivals of Bhutan and Gross National Happiness Khenpo Phuntshok Tashi "Yang is the art of speech in chanting, including recitation or singing, which is capable of capturing the minds of all who hear it. Recitation and chanting with a pleasing voice positively impacts the immediate situation or condition because these sounds have the power to please the ear and mind, by reducing and dispelling negative feelings such as anger so that they will render no further ill effects." Khenpo has a masters degree in Buddhist philosophy and was himself a former Tshechu dancer. His description of "Yang" resonates with the primary definition of opera as was defined by the early theorists at the end of the sixteenth century in Italy. In trying to emulate the ancient Greek technique of 'singing' their tragedies, Iacopo Peri in the preface to his opera 'Euridice' described his newly devised technique of recitar cantando, whereby the singer recites in an intermediate manner somewhere between speaking and singing. The capacity of capturing minds, and the power of a pleasing voice over negativity are concepts that can also be applied to Western opera.