Country in Central Asia.
JOHN BAILY
Musical life in Afghanistan has been severely disrupted by warfare since 1978. By the end of the 20th century the Taliban movement controlled 90% of the country, including all major cities. In the areas under Taliban control no musical instruments are permitted in public or private, and all forms of music save unaccompanied singing are prohibited. In other areas conditions are little better: most former professional musicians are refugees in Iran, Pakistan, Europe and North America. This article describes some aspects of music culture which are currently dormant, but no doubt music will re-emerge in due course, quite possibly not much changed.
1. Ethnic and geographic distribution.
3. The role of music in Afghan life.
Afghanistan is situated at the juncture of three major cultural areas: Central Asia, the Middle East and India. Each area has exercised a strong influence on Afghanistan at various points in history. In its ethnic origin, language and topography, Afghanistan is more clearly related to Central Asia and the Middle East than to India. The present-day boundaries of Afghanistan (fixed c1895) enclose extensions of the Iranian Plateau to the west and south, the Turkestani steppe-desert to the north and the foothill boundary region of India to the east. All these areas surround the great central mountain chain, which links up with the Pamir in the far north-east (fig.1).
Afghanistan’s peoples embody this mixed background. The majority of the population is ‘Iranian’, falling into two main groups. Some 50% of the total population are Pashtuns (or Pathans), who speak a western Iranian language, Pashto. Pashtuns are mainly found in the south-east. Tajiks constitute perhaps 30% of the total population, concentrated mainly in a broad band extending from the west (Herat) through the north (Turkestan) to the north-east (Badakhshan). The term ‘Tajik’ applies to a variety of Persian speakers of different origin and dialects. Afghan Persian is officially known as Dari. The Hazaras of central Afghanistan, a large group, also speak Persian, but are not Tajik. Their origin is not clear but they are sometimes identified as the remnants of Genghis Khan's Mongolian army which conquered this region in the 13th century. The two official languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Persian; most Afghans can communicate in at least one of these.
Turkic peoples, predominantly the Uzbeks and Turkmens, constitute perhaps 10% of the total population, mainly inhabiting the north. Other minority ethnic groups are Baluch, Turkmen, Aimaq, Nuristani, Pamiri, Pashai, Kirghiz and Kazakh.
In 1747 Afghanistan was established as a nation-state by the Pashtun military leader Ahmad Shah Durrani. It was already a region through which Middle Eastern and Central Asian Islamic culture fed into the Indian subcontinent. There was a reciprocal flow of musical ideas from India: Hindustani music such as the vocal genre Dhrupad must have been performed in Afghanistan when the eastern provinces were part of the Moghul Empire (16th–18th centuries).
The political élite of 19th-century Afghanistan who ruled from the capital, Kabul, were persianized Pashtuns, whose eclectic tastes incorporated Persian classical poetry and North Indian art music. In the 1860s the ruling monarch, Amir Sher Ali Khan, brought a number of court musicians from the Punjab to Kabul, where they and their descendants established a bridgehead for North Indian classical (especially vocal) music in Afghanistan. Court music reached its zenith in the 1920s, in the time of the progressive monarch King Amanullah. Thereafter Afghan court music was strongly orientated towards Hindustani music. Musicians cultivated North Indian styles such as vocal khayāl and instrumental renditions of rāgas. They also developed two distinctly Afghan genres of art music (see §5 below).
Radio broadcasting from Kabul became a viable medium in the late 1940s and had a powerful influence on music-making in many parts of the country. Its effect is shown in several ways. Radio encouraged the development of new genres of popular music, usually Persian texts performed in the Pashtun musical style. This created a pan-Afghan national music which was copied in many parts of the country and adapted to local regional styles, leading to a certain homogenization of musical taste, since nomad shepherds and wealthy town-dwellers listened to the same broadcasts. Radio has played an important role in the unification of national musical standards and in the creation of an Afghan national identity. Radio broadcasting also gave music a certain respectability and encouraged the emergence of a new phenomenon: male and female ‘star’ singers such as Nashenas, Hafīzullah Khyāl, Zaland and Mahwash. Amateur performers also felt encouraged, and a thriving musical culture developed.
During much of the 20th century, music enjoyed great popularity, being indispensable at celebrations and entertainments. Before the recent prohibitions, many cities had small theatres where music, song and dance formed a substantial part of the programme. Music used to be performed in teahouses, especially on market days. It was also an important part of the spring fairs regularly held in many parts of the country (most famously in Mazar, with its 40-day festival), and during Jeshun, the annual celebration of Afghan independence. In the 1960s it became customary to hold evening concerts during the holy month of Ramadan in cities such as Kabul and Herat.
From 1978, with the onset of civil war, a new politicization of music occurred. Many musicians became refugees, while the communist government in Kabul sought to promote music as a manifestation of the new secularism. The communists used music as a means of propaganda to support the regime. They set up a network of television stations, and music formed an important part of their output. Outside Afghanistan, refugees rarely used live music as a form of resistance, but in Pakistan Afghan entrepreneurs produced many audio recordings of songs about the war for sale within the local cassette music industry.
In 1992 the communist regime collapsed. Competing religious-based parties took power, and the public role for music was drastically reduced. Many more musicians left Afghanistan, especially when the musicians' quarter in Kabul was repeatedly rocketed (though perhaps not deliberately targeted). As the Taliban movement seized power, all instrumental music was banned.
Afghan people make an important conceptual difference between music and song. Music implies musical instruments, either used in instrumental music or to accompany song. Song is in a separate category. Poetry is extremely important in Afghan culture, and music is in some respects just one way of delivering a poetic text.
In Afghan life there is a clear gender distinction of musical role. In most cases women do not play or even handle musical instruments except the frame drum and the jew's harp (the latter is also played by children). Men, on the other hand, may play a variety of lutes and fiddles, and generally shun the women's instruments. Outside the small group of professional women singers (urban and radio), there is scarcely any public performance by women; they perform primarily at domestic festivities such as women's wedding parties, when they sing to the accompaniment of the frame drum, and use it to play rhythms for dancing. Despite their limited access to musical instruments, women constitute by far the largest group of performers.
As in many Muslim countries, music in Afghanistan occupies an ambiguous place in the value system, often considered a trivial pursuit, or even downright sinful. The intensity of these negative attitudes has varied over time, and is currently very strong. However, for many people music has strongly positive connotations, being connected with Sufism (Islamic mysticism). Traditionally music has always been considered indispensable in the celebration of rites of passage, particularly weddings, and circumcision and birth celebrations.
Closely related to the ambiguous status of music is the low standing of the professional musician. Members of hereditary musician families, in particular, tend to be low in the social scale. In many parts of the country, musicians are recruited from endogamous communities of barber-musicians. Until recently Pashtuns would never lower themselves to play music, even as amateurs. Their barber-musicians (Dom) are Pashto speakers, but marginalized and not accepted as Pashtuns. However, the hereditary court musicians of Kabul and their descendants enjoyed a higher status than barber-musicians. Many held the honorific title of ustād (master musician).
Afghanistan is notable for having many keen amateur musicians, especially among the educated urban middle classes. There is a well-profiled distinction between amateur (shauqi) and professional (kesbi) status, which relies on two main criteria: recruitment (ascribed or achieved) and economic dependence. The term shauqi implies an individual's predilection for a particularly absorbing hobby (e.g. gun-collecting, kite-flying or partridge-fighting). Shauqi musicians emphasized their deep love of music and the fact of being self-taught, for having a teacher was thought of as a sign of professionalism. With the new respectability of music engendered by radio broadcasting, in the 1960s and 70s many amateurs turned to music as a way of making their living, but they still clung to their former shauqi status. Even a few educated Pashtuns from wealthy families became well-known radio singers, such as Nashenas and ahmed Zāhir, the son of a former prime minister.
Several types of religious singing exist, most of them far removed from any Afghan concept of music. Recitation of the Holy Qur'an (qirā'at) is a prime example. It is based on a complex set of precepts embodying phonological principles and the rules of Arabic grammar. The call to prayer (azān) is also in Arabic; here rather more ornamentation is acceptable. Other kinds of religious singing are in the languages of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan has significant Shi‘a populations, especially in Herat, Kabul and the central region occupied by Hazaras (Hazarajat). The Shi‘as have their own special kinds of singing connected with the commemoration of the martyrdom of their saints, Husayn and Hasan. Rowzekhāni is a style of sermonizing which recounts their martyrdom in a highly emotional manner which leaves the congregation weeping and wailing. This is followed by nowhe, a form of antiphonal singing with a leader and a chorus of men who beat their chests in time with their singing, or flagellate themselves with scourges. These commemorations occur at various points in the religious calendar, most notably during the month of mourning, Muharram, and the month which follows it (see Iran, §III, 2(ii)).
In the past, Afghanistan was an important centre of Sufism. Even in the modern era various orders were represented, with numerous local brotherhoods organized around individual pirs (‘living saints’). The principal Sufi ritual is the dhikr, the ‘recollection of God’, in which the Sufis form a circle and recite together a sequence of religious formulae such as Allah Hu, ‘God is He’. The recitation is performed with forced breathing and complex rhythmic movements of the body and head, and participants may go into a trance-like state which is experienced as union with God. The ritual is regulated by the pir, who stands in the centre of the circle, leading the performance and shouting encouragement to his followers. Otherwise he walks round outside the circle helping those who have gone into trance, and physically correcting those whose movements have become uncoordinated. Also outside the circle are one or more singers of religious songs (na't). They perform these with great passion, spurring on the devotees.
The dhikr does not involve any musical instruments and is not regarded as music, though it is in many respects highly musical. Other forms of Sufi ritual, however, do involve musical instruments. The Chishtī Sufi order has its place of origin in Afghanistan. Its founder, Mu‘inuddin Chishtī (d 1236), came from the village of Chisht in western Afghanistan. Chishtī Sufism is widespread in Pakistan and North India, but not in Afghanistan. Its adherents perform or listen to qawwālī (see India, §VI, 2(ii)(b)), religious texts sung to the accompaniment of harmonium, tablā and sometimes other instruments in a spiritual concert known as samā. Until recently there were several Chishtī gathering places (khānaqāh) in Kabul, including one located near the musicians' quarter. On Thursday evenings musicians came to sing religious songs in the Kabuli ghazal and popular music styles. Many Kabuli musicians, especially those from hereditary musician families, considered themselves as Chishtī devotees, espousing an ideology which gave music an exalted place within a Muslim framework of belief (see Islamic religious music, §II, 6).
In the 1860s numerous professional musicians were brought from the Punjab, and from that period two genres of distinctly Afghan art music were developed at the court of Kabul. These were the Kabuli style of ghazal singing and an instrumental genre known as naghma-ye kashāl.
The ghazal is a principal form in Persian and Pashto poetry, consisting of a series of couplets following a particular rhyme scheme. Ghazal singing is well-established as a ‘semi-classical’ form in Hindustani music, and the Kabuli version is related to the Indian model, but with certain local features (see India, §IV, 2; Pakistan). The Kabuli ghazal generally uses Persian texts, often from great poets such as Hafez, Saadi and Bedil. The music is based on the rāgas (melodic modes) and tālas (metrical cycles) of Hindustani music. The most distinctly Afghan feature of the ghazal form is a cyclical rhythmic organization with fast instrumental sections closed by emphatic rhythmic cadences, interpolated between units of text. The use of parallel and serial polyrhythm and strong rhythmic cadences are features linked to Pashtun regional music. The Kabuli art of ghazal singing requires skill in the interpolation of apposite couplets from other poems. Such an interpolation is called a fard, usually sung in free rhythm. This feature derives from Persian or Tajik music, and may be compared with the folk genre known as chahārbeiti (see §II, 2(i) below).
The instrumental genre of Afghan art music is called the naghma-ye kashāl, literally ‘the extended instrumental piece’ or naghma-ye chahār tuk, ‘the four-part instrumental piece’. It is played at the start of a performance of a set of ghazals, and is also favoured as a vehicle for virtuoso solo performance, especially on rubāb. In its use of rāgas and tālas, this genre has obvious connections with Hindustani instrumental music, yet remains distinctly Afghan.
These two genres of Afghan art music were developed and perfected at the court of King Amanullah in the 1920s. The principal singer at that time was Ustād Qāsem, the ‘father of Afghan music’. He was a master of ghazal singing who combined a deep knowledge of Persian poetry with a broad training in Hindustani music. He and other singers recorded a considerable number of 78 r.p.m. records in India, and these were very popular with people of Kabul. From around that period it became usual for the ghazal singer to accompany himself with the harmonium, backed by a small group including rubāb, tablā, sārangi and delrubā (both bowed lutes), and the tānpurā drone. Apart from the rubāb, all these instruments were adopted from India. Early radio broadcasting in Kabul in the 1920s probably helped consolidate this as an Afghan national music.
In due course, these court genres become more widely disseminated to other cities in Afghanistan, such as Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-e Sharif, where musicians from Kabul would perform and acquire local pupils. In recent times the most famous singer from this court tradition was Ustād Sarāhang, who was also well known in India as a classical singer in the Patiala style. Ustād Mohammed omar was considered the best of the rubāb players, an expert exponent of the naghma-ye kashāl. Ex.1 shows his most celebrated naghma-ye kashāl composition, in rāg Yaman, with its four principal parts: āstāi, antarā, bhog and sañcāri.
Afghanistan has many instruments, being particularly rich in lutes. Some instruments are widespread, others of very limited distribution, and many are shared with surrounding regions.
The Afghan rubāb (fig.2), a short-necked fretted lute with sympathetic strings, is the prototype of the Indian sarod. Afghans consider it with great pride as their national instrument. It is found in all urban areas, used in ensembles and for playing solo instrumental pieces. It has a special connection with Pashtun regional music.
The term dutār (literally ‘two strings’) applies to several types of long-necked lute. The Herati dutār, of western Afghanistan, originally had two strings and a system of fretting which gave certain neutral 2nds. From the 1950s this instrument underwent various modifications (size, number of strings, system of fretting), developing into the three-string and 14-string Herati dutārs (the latter having many sympathetic strings). The original two-string dutār (with its neutral 2nd intervals) exists in eastern Iran as the Khorasani dutār (see Iran, §III, 3). In northern Afghanistan, the Uzbek dutār is organologically distinct, mainly found in Uzbekistan. The Turkmen dutār has a small distribution in Afghanistan; it is found principally in neighbouring Turkmenistan.
The tanbur (fig.3a) is distinctly Afghan, a long-necked fretted lute with sympathetic strings beside the melodic strings. It is particularly found around Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif. The dambura (fig.4) of the north is a long-necked, two-string unfretted lute played largely by Uzbeks and Tajiks but adopted by numerous other ethnic groups. It is also termed dombra (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan) and dombrak (Tajikistan). The ‘Pamir rubāb’, marginally used in Afghanistan, is distinct from the Afghan rubāb.
Bowed lutes are also played. The ghidjack (ghichak) is a two-string spike fiddle with a tin-can resonator, widely used by the Tajiks of Badakhshan and perhaps originating with them. It differs markedly from the Transoxanian ghidjack. The Pashtun and Baluch bowed sarinda (or saroz) is shared with the Pashtun and Baluch populations of Pakistan.
The sornā (fig.5), a type of double-reed shawm found throughout the Muslim world, is widely distributed in Afghanistan. It is played only by barber-musicians and has many negative connotations, sometimes being called ‘the penis of Satan’. The hand-pumped Indian harmonium (armonia) is widely used for urban music-making in all parts of the country. Block-flutes, side-blown flutes and end-blown flutes occur in a variety of shapes and sizes. Long open end-blown flutes are played by the Turkmens (tüidük), Pashtuns and Baluch (nal, ney), and by some Nuristanis. Flutes can be found among some Hazaras (Bamian area), in Kohistan (north of Kabul) and Badakhshan (north-east). Single-reed pipes are represented only by the Turkmen dili-tüidük.
Four types of drum are used. A large single-headed frame drum (dāireh, doira, daria, daf) is widespread as a women's instrument, used to accompany singing and to play rhythms for dancing. Other drums are the domain of men. A large double-headed frame drum called dohol (fig.5) is played with sticks and used to accompany the sornā. Both instruments are played exclusively by barber-musicians. The goblet-shaped single-headed zirbaghali (‘under the arm’) is usually made of pottery, though wooden specimens can also be found. This drum is of Middle Eastern provenance. The two-headed barrel drum, dohol or doholak, is closely related to the Indian drum of the same name, and is used mainly for Pashtun music. Very large drums of this kind are also played with the sornā. The North Indian tablā drum pair is widely used for urban music-making.
Idiophones are principally represented by the popular metal jew's harp (Persian chang, Uzbek changko'uz) and, in the north, by the small finger cymbals used by singers to mark the beat (Persian zang, tāl; Uzbek tüsak). A pair of stone castanets, qairāq, is rarely found today. Northern lutenists often use the zang-i kaftar (‘dove bells’), a set of small metal crotals tied around the right hand, to accentuate rhythmic patterns. Dancing boys wear sets of ankle bells (zang), the sound of which has strong associations with clandestine parties involving bachabāzi (‘boy play’). The duzanga is a pair of rattles, each with a wooden handle projecting into a wider cylinder of wood, to which are nailed a number of small bells. They are shaken or stamped on the ground to imitate the bells of the dancing boy.
1. Pashtun (south and south-east).
Afghanistan, §II: Regional styles
The Pashtuns (the ‘true Afghans’) have been politically and culturally dominant in Afghanistan. They are a people divided into two populations by the political border between Afghanistan and Pakistan (established with the Durrand line of 1893). Those on the Afghan side of the border mainly speak the ‘soft’ dialect (Pashto), while those on the Pakistani side speak the ‘hard’ dialect (Pakhto). The cultural centre of the former group is the Afghan city of Kandahar; that of the latter, the Pakistani city of Peshawar. The Pashtuns constitute a so-called tribal people, and range in lifestyle from city-dwellers to pastoral nomads.
In the past, before the recent imposition of prohibitions against music, Pashtuns were great patrons of music. Traditionally music performance was relegated to their barber-musicians. The typical Pashtun music group consists of a singer who also plays harmonium, accompanied by rubāb, sarinda and dohol (or tablā). Often there are two singers (both playing harmoniums), who alternate verses.
The Pashtun musical style became the national style of Afghanistan, a development much encouraged through radio broadcasting. Pashtun song style shows a regular alternation between verses and short instrumental sections, played at a fast tempo, with heavily emphasized rhythmic cadences, characteristics which were transferred to the Kabuli ghazal. The tonal system used in Pashtun music is essentially diatonic, with a simple system of melodic modes corresponding approximately to the Ionian, Dorian and Phrygian modes of the Greek system.
Pashtun vocal music has a number of genres including the dāstān, landai, chahārbeita and loba. Urban Pashtuns, particularly those from Kabul, have long adopted Persian in addition to their own language, and have added the repertory of Persian poetry and songs to their own.
The dāstān is an epic form, recounting tales from the distant, semi-legendary past, as in the saga of Adam Khan and Durkhana. Equally it could be concerned with historical events such as the Anglo-Afghan wars or, more recently, the holy war (jihād) against the Soviet Union.
A folksong genre common to nearly all Pashtuns is the landai, defined by the Afghan scholar Saduddin Shpoon as a ‘non-rhymed two-lined catalectic verse with five anapestic paeon feet, two in the first line and three in the second, ending in ma or na’. As with another brief poetic form, the Japanese haiku, the landai depends on the opening section to set a scene or mood which is then consolidated in the concluding section. Here are two landais on common topics, love and war, transcribed and translated by Shpoon:
Orrai de yakh kavel keter kerr
Pe meni rraghle salaamat ghwarre guloona.
You
spent all summer in cool Kabul;
You return in the fall and want your flower intact?
Ke pe maiwand ke shaaid ne shwe
Khudaaygo laalaya be nangi la de saatina.
Young
love, if you do not fall in the battle of Maiwand,
By God, someone is saving you for a token of shame.
Most landais are apparently composed by women, as they express the woman's point of view; yet they are frequently sung by men. Landais are sung to a handful of stock melodies, which vary regionally. In a landai performance a group of couplets, usually on a given topic, is strung together by the singer. This creative assembly of free-standing elements is an important principle in much Afghan music-making.
Afghanistan, §II: Regional styles
(west and north-east). The term Tajik embraces most of the Persian-speaking populations, though not the Hazaras of central Afghanistan. Tajiks are primarily concentrated in a broad band extending from the west (Herat) to the north-east (Badakhshan). In the north (Turkestan) Tajiks are closely associated with the Uzbeks (see §3 below).
The Herat oasis lies near the Iranian border in an area that was formerly part of eastern Iran (Khorasan). The city of Herat was an important cultural centre in the past, reaching its apogee under the Timurids in the 15th century. Since 1747 Herat has been part of Afghanistan, though enjoying a great deal of autonomy in the 19th century. In the early part of the 20th century, Herat city was much influenced by the music of Iran. The Iranian tār (a plucked lute) was an important instrument, and the dastgāh principle of Persian art music was understood and performed (see Iran, §II, 3). From the 1930s Herat fell under the influence of Kabuli classical music, with the North Indian idea of rāga and tāla, the ghazal form, and use of harmonium, tablā and rubāb. Persian modes with microtonal intervals were replaced with a system of modes that ultimately derived from Pashtun music.
The most important local instrument is the Herati dutār (long-necked lute), which has developed into two new forms. The three-string dutār is played by amateurs to accompany their singing, whereas the larger 14-string dutār with sympathetic strings has been adopted within the typical professional urban ensemble.
The most characteristic local music of Herat is the style called chahārbeiti. This refers to the singing in free rhythm of quatrains (chahārbeiti, also termed dobeiti), and has a clear connection with classical āvāz and regional singing styles of Iran (see Iran, §II, 4(i)). Chahārbeiti may be performed as a vocal or instrumental piece (usually with the dutār). There are several standard chahārbeiti melodies. The best known is Chahārbeiti Siāh Mu wa Jalāli, a sequence of quatrains composed by the folk-poet Jalāli to express his unrequited love for Siāh Mu.
Jalāli 'asheq-e ru-ye Siāh Mu,
Asir-e cheshm-e jādu-ye Siāh Mu.
Konad sujd-e Jalāli az sar-e sedq
Be mehrāb-e du ābru-ye Siāh Mu.
Alas,
Jalāli is in love with Siāh Mu,
Captivated by the bewitching eyes of Siāh Mu.
Jalāli sincerely prostrates himself
Before the prayer-niche of Siāh Mu's eyebrow.
Badakhshan lies at the juncture of the Hindu Kush and Pamir mountain ranges in a rugged, isolated region shared by Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The music and culture of the Badakhshan Tajiks is nearly identical on both sides of the border. The distinctive ‘mountain Tajik’ style has influenced the music of the Pamir peoples to the east and that of Turkestan (through the intervening area of Kataghan) to the west.
The principal instruments of Badakhshan are the dambura (unfretted two-string lute) and tula (wooden flute which tapers towards the lower finger-holes). Others are the ghidjack (spike fiddle), chang (metal jew's harp) and daf (frame drum), the latter two being primarily played by women.
The predominant genre is the felak (‘firmament’, ‘fate’), an alternative local term for the chahārbeiti quatrain of Afghanistan and Iran. Felaks can be solo songs, accompanied songs, or solo instrumental pieces. The basic style uses free rhythm or a 2 + 2 + 3 metre, a narrow tonal range, and extreme prolongation of the tonic (often at the end of the melodic line). The vocal quality tends to be rasping and strained. There is little sub-regional variation (see Tajikistan, § 1).
Afghanistan, §II: Regional styles
(north). Afghan Uzbek folk music has evolved as an important regional style within Turkestan (a general term for the northern steppe-desert region). This music is strictly local in origin and mainly performed in public teahouses or at large parties. It does not occur in Uzbekistan. Dance tunes from Turkestan are known all over the country, and called Uzbeki. The principal instrument of this tradition is the dambura (unfretted two-string lute); the ghidjack (spike fiddle) is also often played.
The standard Uzbek teahouse ensemble consists of two singers, seated cross-legged face to face with a dambura player between them. The singers mark time with a pair of small finger cymbals and alternately sing quatrains in which they compete in wit, often using members of the audience as targets for satire. This practice is reminiscent of the singing contests common throughout Central Asia.
The purely instrumental tunes of the Afghan Uzbeks are usually associated with dance. They consist of repeated strings of small melodic motifs, with very slight variations of rhythm, pitch and accentuation setting off the repetitions. The dambura player guides the dancer, the variations indicating different stances, gestures or tempo.
The Persian-speaking Tajiks of Turkestan are closely associated with the Uzbeks and have contributed much towards a joint musical culture containing elements from both ethnic groups. The most widespread instrument, the dambura, is mostly made by Tajiks living near Samangan (south-eastern Turkestan). The musicians of Tashqurghan (or Khulm), a town near the juncture of major Uzbek and Tajik populations, have been particularly important in creating a shared Uzbek-Tajik music culture. Tashqurghan has traditionally produced a large number of wandering minstrels who are bilingual in Uzbek and Persian and who have composed and disseminated most of the repertory common to modern Turkestan. Singers might alternate quatrains in Uzbek and Persian or intersperse lines or even single words from one language into the other throughout their performance.
An interesting instrumental form reflects this mixture of cultures: it consists of a series of tunes of diverse origin played on the dambura, sometimes with the ghidjack. The melodies are taken from four basic sources: Radio Afghanistan, Indian films, local Uzbek and local Tajik music, all of which may be combined in a single piece.
The distinctive Turkestani style has influenced the music of minority groups in the area. Teahouse music is often performed by Turkmens in towns such as Aqchah and Andkhui, and northern Pashtuns can be heard playing Uzbek-Tajik pieces. Turkestani music and musical instruments have also spread to the Hazaras of central Afghanistan and as far south-east into Pashtun territory as Ghazni and Jalalabad.
Distinct from this regional music is the immigrant (Transoxanian) classical style of Uzbek art music (shash makom). The two genres are differentiated by their instruments, repertory and audience. Classical Uzbek music is largely performed in homes, and is restricted to immigrant circles in certain northern towns and Kabul. It relies on traditions brought from cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara (see Uzbekistan). The main instrument used is the Uzbek dutār. The town of Andkhui is considered the centre of the classical style.
Afghanistan, §II: Regional styles
(centre). The Hazaras, who number perhaps a million, live mostly in the folds of the massive Koh-e Baba and Hindu Kush ranges of central Afghanistan. Hazara music is predominantly vocal; the dambura lute is occasionally used as an accompanying instrument. The chang (jew's harp) is played only by women, as elsewhere in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Women, men and children have separate repertories which include various genres, but the Hazara recognize only two classes of songs as music: lullabies (female) and love songs (male). Lullabies are most often cast in octosyllabic couplets.
Hazara men's songs, which may be termed beit (‘poetry’) or simply ishqi (from ishq, ‘love’), consist of short quatrains (chahārbeiti or simply beit) connected together. Song texts are basically syllabic: the melodic line follows a combination of everyday speech stress and poetic metre. The following example is a typical Hazara quatrain:
Ma qorbān-a shawom ai duriala
Tanāgak shishta-i zeri nihala
Tanāgak shisht-i aena ba dastat
Sharāra medehat chesma-e mastat.
May
I be sacrificed to you ‘O Sublime Pearl’;
You sit alone under a sapling;
You sit with a mirror in your hand;
Your eyes sparkle intoxicatingly.
Hazara music is most often heard at domestic festivities; there are very few urban centres with teahouses. The main occasions for music-making used to be weddings, Afghan independence celebrations (Jeshun) and major Muslim holidays.
Afghanistan, §II: Regional styles
There are a number of other ethnic groups living in Afghanistan, some very small. They include the Baluch, Turkmen, Aimaq, Nuristani, Pamiri, Pashai, Kirghiz and Kazakh peoples.
The Baluch live in contiguous regions of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, and there is also a small population in Turkmenistan. They are closely associated with Pashtuns and have adopted some Pashtun folk customs. They have three principal musical instruments: the open end-blown nar flute (akin to the Pashtun nal), the saroz fiddle (like the sārindā) and the dambiro four-string long-necked lute. The chief vocal forms are ballads, sung to the accompaniment of the dambiro, and short love songs (dāstāngāh) played on the flute. Among both Afghan and Iranian Baluch the flute can produce solo two-part music; the player holds a low fundamental hum while fingering a high-pitched tune.
The Turkmens live mostly in a narrow strip of land extending some 80 km south from the Turkmenistan border. Though Turkmens have lived on Afghan soil for a long time, the majority arrived between 1917 and 1940 from what was then Soviet Turkmenia. They generally live in villages clustered about a local market town, and maintain their own culture. The three main Turkmen instruments are the tüidük, a long end-blown flute related both to the Middle Eastern ney and Central Asian flutes; the dili-tüidük, a small single-reed pipe; and the Turkmen dutār, a lute similar in structure to the Uzbek dutār but considerably smaller. Turkmen song is highly distinctive. After a long instrumental introduction, the singer begins with an extremely intense, high-pitched passage in parlando rubato, after which the melody gradually descends. The songs are strophic, terminated with a variety of uniquely Turkmen ornaments often based on short, repeated guttural tones (see Turkmenistan, §2).
The Nuristanis, supposedly the descendants of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian army which invaded Afghanistan in the 4th century bce, inhabit a remote mountain area in the north-east. They were converted to Islam in 1895. Nuristani music is remarkable for both its instruments and styles. In addition to the rare vaj, or waji, an arched harp with no nearby counterpart, Nuristanis also play a small leather-covered fiddle and a short end-blown flute. Stylistically, traditional Nuristani music is in part based on a complex stratification of vocal and instrumental lines. A piece may begin with an ostinato figure on the harp underlying two soloists, who are later joined by a chorus holding an interval of a 2nd and, finally, by syncopated hand-clapping.
Melodies constructed over an ostinato figure also occur in pieces for two solo flutes. Here the lower flute may maintain a repeated figure with some melodic and rhythmic variation; the upper flute has its own motif revolving mainly around two notes, occasionally touching on a third. This results in a rhythmically complex stratification similar to that of the larger harp and chorus repertory. Such instrumental counterpoint, like the vocal polyphony, is not found anywhere else in Afghanistan or Central Asia.
J. Baily: ‘Recent Changes in the Dutâr of Herat’, AsM, viii/1 (1976), 29–64
M. Slobin: Music in the Culture of Northern Afghanistan (Tucson, AZ, 1976)
J. Baily: ‘Cross-Cultural Perspectives in Popular Music: the Case of Afghanistan’, Popular Music, i (1981), 105–22
J. Baily: ‘A System of Modes Used in the Urban Music of Afghanistan’, EthM, xxv (1981), 1–39
H.L. Sakata: Music in the Mind: the Concepts of Music and Musician in Afghanistan (Kent, OH, 1983)
J. Baily: Music of Afghanistan: Professional Musicians in the City of Herat (Cambridge, 1988)
V. Doubleday: Three Women of Herat (London, 1988)
J. Baily: ‘The Role of Music in the Creation of an Afghan National Identity, 1923–73’, Ethnicity, Identity and Music, ed. M. Stokes (Oxford and Providence, RI, 1994), 45–60
V. Doubleday and J. Baily: ‘Patterns of Musical Development among Children in Afghanistan’, Children in the Muslim Middle East Today, ed. E.W. Fernea (Austin, 1995), 431–44
J. Baily: ‘The naghma-ye kashāl of Afghanistan’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, vi (1997), 117–63
Afghanistan: the Rubab of Herat: Mohammad Rahim Khushnawaz, rec. J. Baily, VDE Gallo AIMP 25 (1993)
Afghanistan: Traditional Musicians, World Network 28 (1994)
Musics and Musicians of the World: the Traditional Music of Herat, rec. J. Baily, Auvidis/UNESCO D 8266 (1996)
Musics and Musicians of the World: Female Musicians in Western Afghanistan, rec. V. Doubleday (forthcoming)