Rigsar (

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 ...

རིག་གསར་; Wylie: ''rig-gsar''; "new idea") is a

music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from '' musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are som ...

, the dominant type of popular music of

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

. It was originally played on a

dranyen The dramyin or dranyen (; dz, dramnyen; ) is a traditional Himalayan folk music lute with six strings, used primarily as an accompaniment to singing in the Drukpa Buddhist culture and society in Bhutan, as well as in Tibet, Ladakh, Sikkim and ...

(a kind of string instrument), and dates back to the late 1960s. The first rigsar song, ''Zhendi Migo'' was a copy of the popular

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" ...

filmi Filmi ("of films") music soundtracks are music produced for India's mainstream motion picture industry and written and performed for Indian cinema. In cinema, music directors make up the main body of composers; the songs are performed by playba ...

song ''"Sayonara"'' from the film '' Love in Tokyo''. Rigsar songs can be in several languages, including the

Tshangla Tshangla is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the region; it is also spoken in the adjoining Tawang tract in the I ...

( Sharchopkha) language. The traditional dranyen, a kind of folk guitar, has been updated into the

rigsar dranyen The dramyin or dranyen (; dz, dramnyen; ) is a traditional Himalayan folk music lute with six strings, used primarily as an accompaniment to singing in the Drukpa Buddhist culture and society in Bhutan, as well as in Tibet, Ladakh, Sikkim and ...

for use in popular music. The rigsar dranyen has 15 strings, two bridges and an extra set of tuning keys.

History

Rigsar's popularity grew steadily in the 1970s, when the genre's modern form developed; Dasho Thinley, a schoolteacher and composer, performed a song called ''Dorozam'' which was very influential. Rigsar became very popular by 1981, when

Shera Lhendup Shera may refer to: People * Jack Shera, Canadian politician of the Northwest Territories * John Shera (1840–1906), New Zealand politician *Mahabali Shera, Indian professional wrestler * Mark Shera, American actor Other uses *She-Ra, a fict ...

became a pop icon with the song ''Nga khatsa jo si lam kha lu''; his 1986 ''Ngesem Ngesem'' was also very popular, and was the first to use

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...

s. By the end of the 1980s rigsar was declining in popularity until the arrival of

Norling Drayang Norling Drayang is a music and film production company in the Kingdom of Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the East ...

, a very popular and prolific record label which has released more than 130 albums. Norling's breakthrough release was the album ''Pangi Shawa'', which set the stage for future developments. In the early 1990s, the rigsar industry grew considerably as Drayang repopularized the genre, adding more electronic elements. Modern rigsar recordings often use electronic approximations of

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

s and

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

s. Suresh Moktan released an album, ''New Waves'', in 1996 that is the highest-grossing Bhutanese album in sales. However, he has now begun criticizing rigsar as unmusical. Others dislike the genre because it is repetitive, simple and generally a copy of Indian popular songs, or because rigsar is not influenced by traditional Bhutanese music.

References

{{reflist Bhutanese music

History

See also

References