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The Good Musician

Tibetan music

by csnowden on April 12th, 2008

Tibet has been much in the news lately, which got me thinking about the remarkable music found there. Relatively unchanged for millenia, the raw, vibrant power of the alpen-horn like dung-chen echoes through the Himalayas. One can learn a lot about a culture by studying their music. If all invading armies stopped at the borders to hear a concert by the local musicians, I think we could well have world peace.

The 14th Dalai Lama at the University of Buffalo–Promoting Peace Across Borders through education site is an excellent resource for Tibetan music. The Tibetan Musical Instruments site has sound clips as well as photos. Worth visiting just to see the ornately silver filigreed, bejeweled conch shell in the upper left hand corner.

The NIU World Music Instrument Collection conveniently includes sound snips as well. Arguably the best known Tibetan music is the chant performed by the Drepung Loseling
monks in which they intone three notes of a chord (harmonics, or overtones) simultaneously.

Lots of powerful stuff.

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POSTED IN: Uncategorized, Vocal, World

2 opinions for Tibetan music

  • joared
    Apr 12, 2008 at 12:16 pm

    Thanks for the links and so much fascinating information about music I never before knew about, but then I was never a music major or performer. Musicians, educators and performers, are and have been in my life.

    I did play piano for several years as a small child and loved it. My mother told me in later years she regretted frustrating my pleasure in practicing because she finally realized I enjoyed my trial and error searching — that I did that because I could play by ear and she was dependent on reading notes. Obviously, I needed to be able to read notes, too.

    I do love to listen to music — all kinds. We have a very special music store in my town that features all sorts of instruments from all over the world — some brass, but primarily unique wind and string. People are encouraged to play some of them. Wouldn’t be surprised if some Tibetan instruments are there.

  • csnowden
    Apr 17, 2008 at 10:38 pm

    I would love to visit that store. Thanks for sharing your musical past. I’m trying to talk these folks into letting me add an elderblogger badge :)

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