Rigsar (

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman 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 ...

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. Genre is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometim ...

, the dominant type of popular music of

Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...

. It was originally played on a dranyen (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, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

filmi Filmi () music soundtracks are music produced for India's mainstream motion picture industry and written and performed for Cinema of India, Indian cinema. In cinema, List of Indian film music directors, music directors make up the main body of c ...

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 ...

( Sharchopkha) language. The traditional dranyen, a kind of folk guitar, has been updated into the rigsar dranyen 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 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 keyboards. By the end of the 1980s rigsar was declining in popularity until the arrival of Norling Drayang, 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 stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

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 Music of Bhutan

History

See also

References