For three decades, music was an endangered art in Afghanistan. Soviet occupation and civil war disrupted people’s lives. When the Taliban took over in the mid-’90s, music was banned altogether.The Taliban ordered instruments and recordings to be destroyed. There could be no singing or playing or dancing in public. But not even severe oppression – including police beating musicians with their own instruments – could kill performing traditions that date back thousands of years.
“The technique belongs to all the world,” says Kabul native Mushfiq Hashimi, now a musical emissary and teacher in Ottawa. “In India, what is known as the raga is makom in Afghanistan. But it’s the same rules and same notation.”
Klasik is the umbrella term for Afghanistan’s traditional musical styles. Much of it has an Indian sound, thanks to common instruments such as tabla, tanpura and harmonium. Put in simple terms, the music of Afghanistan straddles Persian and Indian musical cultures. Differences have evolved over time, however.
–snip–
Mushfiq visited Afghanistan in early January. He says the flowering of music there is remarkable. “People kept their instruments. Now there are concerts. Everything is like before.”
He adds there is also a burning desire there to get reacquainted with traditional music. Mushfiq says he had a chance to give workshops at the university in Kabul and a music school developed by the Aga Khan Foundation.
“Indian music is more developed (than Afghan) because there was no war,” says Mushfiq, who left his native country 18 years ago, journeying through Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia and other stops, before settling down in Ottawa five years ago. Each country left its musical mark.
More at the source.
Ismailimail 