Tibetan Guitar-Dranyen

Tibetan Guitar – Dranyen  

A group of local peoples in Tibet are performing Tibetan guitar and dance in Potala Square. This kind of performance usually happens during major festivals in Tibet. If you travel to Tibet during a Tibetan festival, you may have a chance to watch such a performance.

Traditional Tibetan guitar is called dramyin or dranyen in Tibetan language. “Dra” means sound and “nyen” means beautiful or pleasant sound in Tibetan language. Thus, we can conclude that the sound of Tibetan guitar is very beautiful and pleasant. It was primarily used as an accompaniment to singing on religious festivals of Tibetan Buddhism, such as Saga Dawa Festival, Chokhor Duchen Festival and Great Prayer Festival.

The long-necked, double-waisted and fretless instrument is actually a traditional Himalayan folk music lute with seven strings. The Tibetan guitar is quite different from a contemporary guitar. It does not have a round sound hole in the wooden sounding board, but rather rosette-shaped ones like a lute. Among its seven strings, only six continue to the pegbox. Thus, six tuning pegs are located in the pegbox, while one (typically corresponding to the string which is third from the left) is located in the neck itself.

The body of Tibetan guitar is usually hollowed out of a single piece of wood and can vary in size from 60 cm to 120 cm in length. Its strings are made from animal gut or synthetic material like nylon.

As a secular instrument, Dranyen is one of the few instruments that are allowed to be played inside a Tibetan monastery. The Dranyen is associated with a guardian deity in the Dranyen Cham. The perfomance is usually accompanied by Cham Dance which is a lively masked and costumed dance associated with some sects of Buddhism and accompanied by music played by monks using traditional Tibetan instruments. The dance is considered a form of meditation, and an offering to the gods. The lead dancer is typically a musician, keeping time using some percussion instrument like cymbals, the one exception being Dranyen Cham, time of which is kept using Dranyen.