26 Nepali Musical Instruments Names with Pictures
Music is loved by every people in Nepali culture. People love music in different ways like listening to songs, humming tunes, or playing instruments from festivals like Jatra or marriage or other ceremonies. As we are strong in culture and tradition, we have many traditional Nepali Musical Instruments that produce melodious sounds.
Basically, Nepali Musical Instruments are divided into three categories, they are:
- String
- Wind
- Percussion
String: These musical instruments are used of different lengths and have vibrating strings.
Wind: These musical instruments create melodious sounds. The sound is changed by using the length of air. Generally, these instruments create sound when blown.
Percussion: These musical instruments have single note but amazing for rhythm.
Nepal is rich in musical instruments and it will be incomplete on some special occasions or festivals. Music is played in Nepal from Mountain to Terai. Accoridng to research, there are around 200 original instruments in Nepal. 108 types are still playing across the nation. Panche Baja is a famous musical instrument in Nepal. Most of the musical instruments are still being used by the Newar community.
Below we had listed famous Musical instrument in Nepal.
1. Madal
This normal Nepalese percussion device is the backbone of a maximum of Nepali folk music. These are well-known folk musical instruments related to our lifestyles. The Madal includes a cylindrical frame with a slight bulge at its middle and heads at each ends, one head large than the other. This device is made inappropriate with openings and skin spread over each of the ends of a timber hole tube and stretched with leather-based strings.
The Madal is used especially for rhythm-preserving in Nepalese people’s music, which is the maximum famous and broadly used as a hand drum in Nepal. It is assumed that it turned into first delivered with the aid of using the Magar community, it is similarly well-known and used by nearly all the Nepalese society. The madal has a strand that is going across the waist of the individual playing it to maintain it horizontally.
The playing method of this Nepali Musical Instruments entails rhythmic struck one both ends (heads) with palm. The heads vibrate to provide sound while struck. It is normally utilized in Nepali people’s songs.
2. Flute – Bansuri
Bansuri: The Best Nepali Musical Instrument. The word bansuri originates from Sanskrit: “bans” which means bamboo and “Sur” means musical note. The tone and sound of the Bansuri depend on the height and thickness of the bamboo used. The bamboo decided to make the flute must be selected very carefully so that the tune will be amazing.
Bansuri is a cylindrical tube product of bamboo with a uniform bore and closed at one end. It is not made by joining the bamboo but with a single length of bamboo. It has six to eight open fingers holes which constitute the musical notes.
To produce sound or music one has to close the finger holes with the hands of the left and proper hand. Bansuri is held horizontally and is willing downwards while it is played. Variations in tone are generated by modifying the powerful length of the air column. Long bansuris or flutes have a rich, deep, and mellow tone while in small bansuris or flutes the tone is excessive pitched.
3. Sarangi
Sarangi resembles the violin in western culture. It is traditionally a folk musical device mainly performed with the aid of using the Gandharva community in Nepal. Sarangi is performed for many years and features its personal well-known beats and sounds. Gandharvas used to walk across the nation and pass home to home sing the track of present affairs. Thus, sarangi in Nepal has been used as an instrument used to bring the message and information throughout the country.
String-device is made from a piece of wood, the lowest of that’s made a hole and 4 portions of strings are mounted tightly with 4 wooden nails constant at the top of it. It is performed with the aid of using rubbing on a group of strings mainly left and ) again and again, with a small stick, that’s mounted with a few strings.
4. Murchunga
Murchunga is a traditional Nepali musical instrument and pointed as one of the oldest instruments in the world. It is a calming and soulful instrument. It is made with a flexible metal or bamboo tongue attached to a lyre-shaped frame.
Murchunga is likewise practiced amongst Kiranti people. This traditional Nepali musical instrument is played by plucking its alloy strung with forefinger being gripped among the teeth. The length of the note may be various by inhaling and out.
5. Dhimay
Dhimaya, Dhimaya, or Dhimabaja is a drum performed by the Newars community in Nepal. It is performed collectively with different Nepali Musical Instruments. The dimension of Dhimaya varies from a diameter of forty inches to fifty-one inches and a length of 17 inches to 21 inches. The external part of the drum is made from wooden or metal.
Old Dhimey has a few unusual patterns however present-day drums are either cylindrical or barely barrel-shaped. On the inside of the left side, referred to as Mankhah (Haima in Bhaktapur) a red tuning paste is implicated, presenting a deep sound. There are kinds of dhimay. The smaller ones are referred to as “Dhaacha Dhimay” and the larger is referred to as “Ma Dhimay”.
6-10. Panche Baja
Panche Baja means a group of five Nepali Musical Instruments. This musical instrument replayed together during the marriage. The five Nepali Musical Instruments in Panche Baja are:
Narsingha (Trumpet): It is made of two pieces of an arched copper tunnel that is played by blasting air through its mouthpiece.
Damaha: It is made of skin expanded over an end of a hollow copper bowl played by hitting with hands or sticks.
Tyamko: It is comparable to Damaha in shape but quite small in size. It is played with two pieces of sticks called Gajo.
Sanai: It is made of an alloy shaped like a pipe slightly bent forward has a couple of holes, reed on the top that you blow into.
Dholaki: Dholaki is manufactured from wood that is a hole inside and covered with leather.
11. Jhyamta
It is a couple of flat rounds dish-like Nepali Musical Instruments. This Jyampta is made of brass or bronze, played by beating on each other.
12. Jhyali
This tool is made through a Nepali alloy this is referred to as Pancha Dhatu, which means made up of 5 metals. This musical instrument includes brass, copper, silver, zinc, and gold, and is typically made by blacksmiths. They are thinly walled, encircled pair of round, steel plates, equivalent to cymbals, and are utilized in each folk and classical song in Nepal. Jhyali is performed through scrubbing the plates with the proper hand rising and the left hand descending on the time once they clash.
13. Tungna
This is a famous Nepali Musical Instruments used in the Himalayan area. It is crafted from timber of rhododendron and has 4 wires just like the Sarangi.
14. Khainjadi
It is a type of small drum manufactured from skin stretched over a fringe of a rounded hole timber. Khaijadi is specially performed at the event of singing a kind of song called Roila and Balam. It is performed for the span of Bhajan-kirtan by Hindus. It is made using ox hide, seasoned timber, and bronze with traditional Nepali-styled, absolutely hand made.
15. Damphu
This musical tool is used withinside the Tamang community and made by masking the timber with leather.
17. Dhyangro
Dhyangro is a sort of drum carved from hollow timber by stretching leather each of its edges and performed with a curved stick known as Gajo. This is a traditional medical cure triumphing in Nepal. It is mainly used by religious healers (Dhami/Jhakri). This Dhyangro is used in the event of worshiping or treating humans.
18. Pungi
Pungi is made through a coconut shell and a hollow bamboo pipe. It is performed withinside the Terai to reveal the snake dance.
19. Yalamber
Yalamber is manufactured from bamboo with wires. It is utilized by the Kirat community.
20. Ekatare
It is utilized by the sages and ascetics and manufactured from timber, leather, and string.
21. Urni
It is performed especially through the Dhimal Community manufactured from the outer hardcover of the coconut through stretching leather and fastening a string with a rod.
22. Masak
Masak Baja is an antique bagpipe device made of leather, commonly played at celebrations like weddings. It forms a part of the ‘Antique Indian Musical Instruments’ of the – Albert Hall Museum, Jaipur.
23. Sankha
It is made from a big shell of the conch discovered withinside the sea and ocean. It is blown by our mouth. It is performed for the duration of puja and different non secular ceremonies of the Hindus. It is likewise played while the dead body is taken for cremation.
24. Irlung Pipari
It is smaller than the flute, made from horns of Krishna Saar (black antelope), and used to provide sound blowing into. It is primarily used by Jogis to blow across the homes of humans believing that there might be no damage from evils.
25. Tabala
Tabla is a traditional musical instrument that originated from the Indian subcontinent. It consists of 2 drums, used in traditional, classical, popular, and folk music.
26. Dafli
Dafali is also an Indian-originated musical instrument from Muslim society. Dafali is popular in Nepal during puja and bhajan-kirtan and mostly played in the Terai area in Nepal. Also during, Tihar, it is commonly used in Nepal.
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