My main instrument is my voice. We come from the lineage of Tibetan nomads, and when I was a little kid, my mother would rise early and start murmuring chants – six syllables in rotation to help bring the mind home. That space between dreaming and being awake is where I got my earliest memory of singing and how the voice affects one’s thoughts and being.

Tenzin Choegyal with his dranyen Metok. Photo © David Kelly

Another of my instruments is the lingbu bamboo flute. My father was a Tibetan healer, and I lived with him until I was five or six. To wind down, he would play the flute and pour himself a fermented millet. It’s a traditional drink like beer, and although I can’t remember my father’s face, whenever I hear the sound of his flute, I can still smell the millet.

My parents had to leave Tibet and go into exile in Nepal. I think my father passed away because of the trauma of leaving our ancestral homeland. My mum had nine kids. Four of them passed away, and my elder brothers were already studying in...