Popular Music of Bhutan

The modern famous rigsar genre (Dzongkha; Wylie: rig-gsar which is the new idea) appeared in the 1960’s, the rigsar can be compared from the main traditional music in its updated electronic instrumentation, which is faster than the rhythm, and the dialect language, which especially is the Dzongkha and the Sharchop. Its context can also be compared as the rigsar which is common feature of the Bhutanese television and film. Some of the earliest rigsar tunes were translation of current famous Hindi songs. The first Bhutanese rigsar hit was that of the Zhendi migo, which covered the famous Bollywood filmi song Sayonara from the film love in Tokyo. Since 1960’s a great number of the Bhutanese artists have produced an amazing volume of rigsar music.

 

source of picture: downundertothetopoftheworld.blogspot.com

The rigsar gained the approval on the Bhutan broadcasting Service, this made way for the rigsar band Tashi Nencha to form the first recording studio in Thimphu in 1991. At that time, the Bhutanese people mainly listened to filmi and other types of Indian pop music. The rigsar is the main pattern of Bhutanese popular music and which is date back from the late 1980’s. The first main music star was Shera Lhendup, whose career started after 1981 of his hit Jyalam Jaylam Gi Ashi.

At the end of the 1980’s the rigsar was no longer so common, its critics citing boring, simple tunes that were often copied directly from the foreign music. Since 1995, the founding of the Norling Drayang recording label, of the rigsar has returned to a relative popularity as a union of elements and instruments from English languages pop, Indian and Nepalese music. The rigsar is the main global in Bhutan, which heard in the public streets, in taxis, and on buses and even used by the government to deliver health and sanitation education.