Dranyen
Tibetan lute companion
Only for iPhone
Free · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
A precise tuner for the Tibetan dranyen, a playable instrument, and a cited guide to its history, tuning, notation and music. From the Terma Heritage Foundation.
Dranyen is a companion for the dranyen (sgra-snyan), the Tibetan lute that has been the heart of Tibetan music for a thousand years. Built by the Terma Heritage Foundation to keep a living tradition alive — and growing into a home for the people who play it and the work of preserving it.
Developed by Thupten Chakrishar in collaboration with Tenzin Norbu (Former TIPA Artist) and with guidance from Jhola Techung and Phurbu T. Namgyal.
Today, Dranyen helps you tune, play, and learn:
TUNER
• Tune by the instrument's three open courses — La · Re · So — in the traditional D-major tuning (A = 440 Hz), confirmed with a master player.
• Real-time pitch detection that listens through your microphone and shows, at a glance, whether your string is sharp or flat.
• Calibrate the reference pitch, or "tune to your own La," for instruments that sit a little high or low.
• A clear, glowing gauge with the note in both solfège and numbered notation — and a gentle confirmation when you land in tune.
PLAY
• A playable dranyen — strum the three open courses (La · Re · So) and the fretted notes to hear how the instrument sounds.
• Voiced from recordings of a real dranyen, with a fretless So drone, so it rings the way the instrument actually does.
LEARN
A built-in, offline guide to the instrument and its world, drawn from cited scholarship:
• History & origins — from 7th-century Tibet to survival in exile.
• The instrument — how it's built, and its La·Re·So tuning.
• Notation — the seven notes once named for animal cries, and today's numbers.
• Music & genres — courtly Gharlu, the classical Nangma-Toeshey, and folk songs.
• Sources — the scholarship behind it all.
PRIVATE BY DESIGN
Dranyen collects no personal data. No accounts, no tracking, no ads. The microphone is used only to detect pitch, live, on your device — your audio is never recorded, saved, or sent anywhere. The app works fully offline.
The developer, Thupten Chakrishar, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Thupten Chakrishar
- Size
- 22 MB
- Category
- Music
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 13.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 13.0 or later. - iPod touch
Requires iOS 13.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 11.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Terma Heritage Foundation