Tibetan Music

Heard some fantastic music around the Zhongdian area, Litang, in northern Yunnan, western Sichuan in China, especially impressed by the pop side of things.

Anyone know anything at all about this sort of stuff?

Thanks for the tips people.

The Music was definitely Tibetan rather than Chinese, and was contemporary but may have been recordings of traditional songs.

We heard it in the evenings in a few ethnic tibetan towns, people would form these massive dance circles in the town square and perform specfic dances in a circle to particular songs, so I guess that would suggest that these are folk songs, but rerecorded recently. They sounded wicked on huge crusty PA. And it seemed mostly authentic rather than just a staged tourist event.

I have a video clip of one of these circles so I'll see if I can edit it down a bit and upload it somewhere. Also have a CD I got in Zhongdian so I'll have another listen to that and upload anything that's particularly interesting.

Just got thinking about some Taoist music I heard playing at the Divine Music Administration (!!) Music Musuem at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, which was fairly minimal and quite incredible, stuff used in Imperial rituals. Anyone know anything about this sort of stuff? Those massive stone bells are amazing. I think there was one on display at the three emperors exhibition at the RA in London at the moment.