Dranyen

སྒྲ་སྙན་

I found an instrument I really want to learn (and maybe even purchase - that would be cool). This is it:

It's a Tibetan lute called a dranyen. Other spellings include dramyin and dramnyen, and I've seen some other strange spellings scattered around. Here's a sweet video of some dranyen players singing and dancing.

The second one is a musician named Nawakyipo doing a concert. He talks about the subject matter of the lyrics, and has a beautiful voice.

This is a Bhutanese player. The dranyen is very popular in Bhutan, and even factors into the monastic music.
More of this guy: http://media.smithsonianfolkways.org/audio/podcasts/sound_sessions/sound_sessions_11.mp3

I don't really have much else to say about the dranyen - just listen to it! It's beautiful, simple, and Keila Diehl says it's easy to learn, at least to start (most instruments are easy to learn at first, but hard to master, yeah?). Hopefully there is a dranyen player or two kicking around Bylakuppe that will impart some wisdom to me.