Afghanistan MUS 206

Ethnic Groups

42% Pashtun

27% Tajik

9% Hazara

<9% Uzbek

Languages

• Dari (official language)

• Pashto (official language)

• Uzbek

• Turkman

• most people are bilingual

1978 Communist Coup

• soviet invasion 1979-1989

• civil war 1989-1995

1996-2001

Taliban Regime

Oct. 2001

US Invasion

Aug. 2021

US leaves Afghanistan and Taliban returns to power

Music Before 1978

Musical Genres:

• classical

  • khyal

  • tarana

  • ghazal

  • qawwali

• Folk Music

• Popular Music

Islam and Music

• religious chants not considered music

• lullabies and wedding songs, work song (music not allowed)

• military music is allowed

• vocal/instrumental improvisations is haram

Radio Afghanistan

• regular broadcasts begin 1940

• source of employment for musicians

• listen to radio outside coffee houses

• nation radio established 1960 (radio afghanistan)

  • music primarily from pashtun musicians

  • muhammud omar directed

  • Kabul became informal conservatoire

• pro musicians considered lower class, radio changed that

• tape archive

• radio became a symbol of modernism

Ahmad Zahir

• 1946-1979

• afghan radio star

• king of 70s afghan pop

• “leili-Jan”

• murdered in Kabul

Ustad Mahwash

• afghan radio star

• woman vocalist

• classically trained

• given the title of “master musician” (Ustad)

• fled afghanistan before taliban

• “Oh Fairy Come and Meet Me”

Under Soviet Control

• increased state control of media

• many afghans fled to pakistan

• cassette recordings of revoultionary songs

Afghan Musicians in Pakistan

• shared pashtun culture and language

• refugees during soviet inasion all along pakistan border

  • camps run by mujahdeen

• religious restrictions on music making

• refugee musicians in Peshawar

  • Amir Muhammad (1933-1997)

Life Under the Taliban

• restrictions on social and cultural life

• radio afghanistan renamed Voice of Sheri’at Radio

• TV’s destroyed

• women veiled, men need beards

• women not able to keep jobs

1747

Afghan State Founded

Major Urban/Music Centers

Kabul, Herat, Kandahar

Music After the Taliban

• Music shops return

  • instruments had to be rented, people were too poor

  • sold western and traditional instruments

• music teachers return

• music schools

  • Afghan National Institute of Musical Youth create

  • taught western and Afghan music

• return of Radio Afghanistan

Ghazal

Musical Genre

• poetry dating back to the middle ages

• couplet (a-a, b-a, c-a, d-a, etc.)

  • poet will put their name at the end

• cyclical form

  • alternating verses and double time instrumental interludes

• usually about religion and divine love

Rubab

• 3 main strings

• 3 or 2 drone strings

• sympathetic vibrating strings underneath

• “keliwali” Mohammad Omar

Dutar

• long neck lute

• 3 strings w/ chromatic fretz

• sympathetic strings

• “Aushari” Aziz Harawi

Ghijak

• spiked fiddle, played upright with a bow

• “Ai Delbari Khamosh”

Dilruba

• upright bowed fiddle

• multiple strings and fretza

Zirbahgali

• drum

Sarinda

• small upright fiddle

• up to 30 strings

• “Logari Medley”

Tabla

• pair of drums with black center

• similar to indian tambura

Daireh

• flat round drum

• had jingles around it like tamburine

Sorna

• Sadohol ensemble

• double reed horn

Dohol

• Sazdohol ensemble

• large double headed drum

• played with malets

Homayun Sakhi

• Afghan rubab player in US

• “The art of the Afghan Rubab”

Afghan Star

• Rafi, Lema, Hameed, Setera

• influence on the role of music, gender, and media in Afghan society