EVERY GENRE PROJECT - February 1 - Zhabdro gorgom
Genre of the Day - Zhabdro gorgom
Album of the Day - Music From the Mountains of Bhutan by Sonam Dorji (2014)
In the high mountains of Bhutan, there’s a guitarist with an angelic voice, dedicated to the guitar and the songcraft of his nation. Bhutan is a country whose national identity is one of drama, a cool mystique, and self-mythologizing; historically reclusive thanks to its isolated location in the Himalayas, the Buddhist kingdom remained one of the few states in Asia to be untethered to the constraints of European colonization and has just begun to open up for tourism in recent decades. Billing itself as the happiest country in the world and a stalwart home of traditional Buddhist monarchy, the kingdom has succeeded in attracting tourism while profiting immensely from it, slapping a $250 per day charge on tourism until 2022—it’s now sitting at $100, though!
Much cheaper, though, is listening to Bhutanese music, although seemingly efforts to release Tibetan music pale in comparison to efforts in drawing tourism; today’s genre only has two releases listed on its chart. Zhambdro gorgom is a genre that is popular in neighboring and culturally related Tibet, but is more popular in Bhutan, with religious themes to the lyrics reflecting Bhutan’s strong identity as a Buddhist nation. It can feature just a vocalist, or be performed with Bhutanese lutes, flutes, and fiddles. Supposedly, the genre is distinctive from other Tibetan and Bhutanese folk genres by being more lively and informal, although I didn’t find the liveliness across this album.
Today’s album has a very plaintive feel: it features just the vocalist Sonam Dorji with the aforementioned lute, albeit at times with the inclusion of a flute. Each song features fluttering, rich, almost hypnotic guitar combined with Dorji’s golden voice. His voice has a lightness to it, so much so that I initially mistook his voice for that of a woman’s; however, once I realized, I was even more impressed. Not only is his vocal tone radiant, the style of singing here is also remarkable. It’s melismatic, gliding, sailing, and descending across single syllables with effortless ease. Imagine having that much breath control in a nation with an average elevation of over 10,000 feet. His connection with nature is integral to the development of Dorji’s voice, though: his experience growing up in rural Bhutan, surrounded by the sounds of birdsong and the flowing rivers, inspired his magnificent vocal style. While it can be easy and pessimistic to scoff at Bhutan’s whole national happiness spiel (especially when it’s facing challenges faced by many countries making economic and developmental transitions and is also not even ranked in the top 90 of the World Happiness Report), there is an attunement to the beauty of nature present in Dorji’s story and musical approach that is worth admiring. Whether it’s gross or national, it’s always important to look at the ways we can derive joy and inspiration from the beauty of natural surroundings, and while I couldn’t hope to understand Dorji’s words, I understand the sentiment nonetheless.