Description: The Dramyen is found under the names “Sgra-Snyan”, or “Danyen” or “Damyen” or “Damyan”, is a member of the long necked fretless lute family found in the Himalayan regions, primarily Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan. According to Samuel 1976 the Dramyen is featured in the icon of the "goddess of the eastern regions" Dbyan-Cans or in Sanskrit [Saravati]. Many dramyen's from Tibet, Nepal and Ladakh have 6-strings and they are fretless, where as the Bhutani model of the dramyen have 7-strings. The dramyen is used to accompany folk-singing, songs and dances. The ornamentation and artwork is influenced from religion and Buddhist iconography. Aa-Dd-d"-Gg |
Anatomy of the Dramyen: An acoustic chamber is formed by stretching animal hide from yak skin over the body, the hide is held together in place by one nail at the surface of the sound board close to the top of the neck. The bottom part of the neck up to the head stock is carved from a single piece of wood. All of the tuning pegs are wooden and hand carved. Only two nails are used on my specimen, one of the nails used to hold the head stock to the neck.
The artwork in detail:
The materials used for painting are old fashioned and likely "lead
based" or "plant based" depending how the paints are made. The dies
used on the tuning pegs are "vegetable based" and chesso being a
plaster like substance used to enhance a three dimensional approach to
the artwork. It appears that this approach is taken here, although the
chesso is in "gold" colour perhaps with gold powder in the chesso
formula when that was made with the instrument its self.
A personal story about my specimen: This specimen is ancient dating back 200 years (that is no joke) this was confirmed by a Bhutani expert on dramyens my teacher Randy met when he performed at a Sacred Music Festival in Thailand some years ago. This Bhutani dramyen I found in New York City at the time I found the instrument hung on the wall and knew what the instrument was and said to my father when he and I were on vacation in year 1999. I said to my father “I want that one” my father knew which instrument but did not know the name of the instrument however he knew the instrument was a personally important acquisition and remains to be to this very day.
Citations: New Grove Dictionary of music book P to Z, page 356 (for tuning) > See. G. Samuel Songs of Lhassa" EM, 1976 pages 407-49. Discography; The Bhutani Dramyen can be heard on a series of discs from Lyrachord Records "Tibetan Buddhists Rites from the Monisteries of Bhutan Vol.4 Tibetan and Instrumental music LYRCD 7258.