Pakistan, Islamic Republic of (Islami Jamhuriya e Pakistan).

Country in north-western South Asia. It lies along the watershed of the Indus river system and the surrounding mountains and desert (fig.1). Historically a part of the Indian musical region, Pakistan has developed a distinct musical culture that has links with Afghanistan, Iran and, to a lesser extent, the Islamic Middle East.

1. Introduction.

2. Music and nationality.

3. Music and society.

4. Performers.

5. Instruments.

6. Musical structure.

7. Musical idioms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

REGULA QURESHI

Pakistan

1. Introduction.

Pakistan comprises four culturally and linguistically distinct regions, corresponding roughly to the four provinces of Punjab, Sind, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan. Of these, only Sind is exclusively contained within Pakistan; Baluchistan extends into Iran, the Punjab into India and the Pathan population of NWFP into Afghanistan. Pakistan also controls the northern and western portions of Kashmir, currently disputed territory.

Pakistan’s national language is Urdu, the Muslim lingua franca of South Asia. The main regional languages are Punjabi, Sindhi, Baluchi and Pashto. Historically, Pakistan comprises the Muslim majority areas of India (initially including East Bengal as East Pakistan, since 1971 Bangladesh). After the country’s formation in 1947, massive urban migration of Muslims from India decisively influenced the supra-regional Muslim character of the country. Urdu became the medium for a developing national culture espoused largely in urban centres and by the mass media. Music reflects this constellation; art music and urban entertainment genres fall into pan-South Asian styles, but each of the four major linguistic regions has a distinct musical identity, especially in rural areas.

Pakistan’s population lives mostly in villages and is predominantly agricultural and feudal, with the exception of pastoral tribes in most of Baluchistan and parts of NWFP. The strongly hierarchical, nearly caste-like class structure of rural Pakistan is based on land ownership and occupation. The socially separate classes are linked by common village allegiance and patron-client relationship between landowners, cultivators, craftsmen and labourers. Throughout Pakistan the most important social unit is the extended patrilineal family. Married women provide the essential links between such familes. Influenced by Islam, Pakistan society is strongly male-dominated, and there is considerable separation of the sexes in both social and working contexts.

Pakistan

2. Music and nationality.

Founded on the Islamic presence in South Asia, the new state of Pakistan was guided by the affirmation of Muslim identity and the negation of anything identified with India. Reinterpretations of music history are based on both regional and religious foundations and focus on the ancient Indus valley civilization, on later Graeco-Buddhist cultures and, for more recent periods, on West Asian and Islamic influences on art music. Pakistan’s search for a national musical culture, distinct from India’s and appropriate to its Muslim identity, was further complicated by the contest between the cultural-musical identities of immigrant and indigenous communities.

Initially Radio Pakistan and the ruling immigrant élite, centred on Karachi, served as a hub of patronage for classical musicians who were mostly of Indian origin. The state radio also created and massively disseminated a choral national song genre, named Iqbaliat, based on the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal. More lasting was the use of the Sufi qawwālī as a quasi-national music, retaining its strongly rhythmic, improvisational character and its flamboyant performance style, broadcast on state television from the 1960s onwards.

In the 1970s a shift of power to indigenous élites led to regional musics becoming national and to the preservation of musical heritage. The result of this was the founding of two centres for music research: the Classical Music Research Cell within Radio Pakistan Lahore, a rich if underfunded repository of Pakistan’s own classical traditions; and the National Institute of Folk Heritage, or Lok Virsa, in Islamabad, which sponsors and disseminates research and documentation of the country’s music through festivals, concerts and recordings.

Political Islamization in the 1980s meant musical Islamization of the public media by extensive patronage of religious genres and support for musical ‘Arabization’. In the 1990s the rise of a new generation and a growing awareness of international trends led to the increasing usage of Western popular and electronic instruments in the recasting of traditional styles. Throughout all these shifts, however, poetry set to music in solo songs has remained the nationally preferred genre across musical styles.

(i) Art music.

Among the recognized fine arts (funūn-i-latifa) music occupies an ambivalent position, not only because of religious constraints but also because of its essential similarity to Hindustani music, the art music style of north India. The resulting lack of institutional support (music education and concert organizations) has caused a decline in patronage and teaching. Transmission remains oral and personal, and performing practice is orientated to feudal and personal patronage. Distinct musical characteristics of stylistic lineage (gharānā) and region include the use of many syncretic ‘Muslim’ rāgas, which resulted from contact with Iranian and Turkish music as early as the 13th century; the use of song texts with Muslim religious or historical content; a preference for tarānā, a syncretic genre with an Iranian Sufi-derived text; and an instrumental preference for regionally prevalent bowed chordophones, especially the sārangī (renowned players include Ustad Hamid Husain, Ustad Nathu Khan and Ustad Bunda Khan).

Lahore and Karachi are the two major centres for the performance of Pakistani art music. The former has a rich and diverse regional tradition, the latter a tradition of eminent migrant musicians from India. After a first generation of renowned artists such as sitārist Sharif Khan and singers Raushanara Begum, Ustad Nazarkat Ali, Ustad Salamat Ali and Ustad Feteh Ali Khan, the Pakistani preference for sung poetry has shifted artistic succession to semi-classical song, mainly ghazal, as well as thumrī and dādrā (see India, §IV). The most outstanding exponents of ghazal are three women trained in the courtesan tradition: Farida Khanum, Maika Pukhraj and Iqbal Bano. Outstanding male singers are Mehdi Hassan and Ghulam Ali. Other semi-classical genres include Punjabi and Urdu qawwālī (sung by musicians such as Mubarak Ali Fateh Ali) and the Sindhi kāfī (e.g. sung by Abida Parveen). Classical music has thus become part of an eclectic musical continuum of élite entertainment, a development that was initiated and internationally displayed by the influential PIA Arts Academy in the 1960s and 70s. At a more popular level, certain film songs have attained a semi-classical status, as performed by the prominent female singer Noorjahan.

(ii) Religious and poetic chant.

For Muslims, enhancing religious texts with musical sound is not considered music but recitation. Subject to restraints on independent musical features, especially instruments, such recitation or chanting escapes the censure of orthodox Islam. In Pakistan the recitation of the Qur’an provides a textually based chant that follows Arabic norms (see Islamic religious music, §1(i)); diverse hymn genres in Urdu are musically South Asian, but they too serve to articulate the text structure and meaning through formal, rhythmic and melodic structure.

Linked to their respective devotional assemblies, hamd and na‘t praise God and the Prophet, while sōz, marsiyā, nauha and mātam commemorate the martyrdom of the Prophet’s family. These genres are unaccompanied, although purely musical features are found in the rhythmic chest beats of mātam and the vocal drone of sōz. In qawwālī, the mystical hymns of the Sufi ritual, the articulation of strong-pulsed drumming (on the dholak) and hand-clapping functions as part of the spiritual experience. The improvisational structure delivers the text in accordance with the spiritual needs of the listeners. Chanted Urdu poetry, tarannum (see India, §V, 1), is disseminated by poets at mushā’irā assemblies and follows the same method of textual enhancement as religious chant.

Pakistan

3. Music and society.

In rural Pakistan there are broadly related kinds of music and ways of music-making. The association between social context and musical category may be specific, as in life-cycle songs that are strictly situational and likely to be performed only on relevant occasions; or more generic, as in the case of festival or entertainment music, such as traditional live songs, epics and group dances.

(i) Music in life-cycle ceremonies.

Birth, circumcision, marriage and death are marked by special family gatherings. In the home these are celebrated ceremonially by the women of the family who, together with female professionals, sing a repertory of traditional songs specific to each occasion. Often these songs accompany ceremonial activities. These are usually followed by informal singing, including a variety of appropriate traditional songs, epics and sometimes modern popular songs. The event often culminates in group dancing. Men’s gatherings include group singing and dancing as well as entertainment by professional performers. Life-cycle songs express sentiments appropriate to the occasion and in a wider sense serve to reaffirm family solidarity and relationships. Through teasing and humour, many of these songs also allow the expression of feelings of family hostility that are normally repressed, principally those of a young wife towards her in-laws.

By far the greatest number and variety of life-cycle songs are associated with marriage, the central life-event in Pakistan. Several ceremonies, each accompanied by the appropriate songs preceding the wedding itself, focus on either the bride or groom. The most important of such occasions are the engagement and the mehndī (henna application ceremony). On the wedding day, special songs mark the arrival of the groom’s party at the bride’s home, the wedding feast (which is also the principal occasion for family teasing songs) and later the dolī (the bride’s leave-taking from her family). The couple’s subsequent arrival at the groom’s home is also celebrated with songs. Because of the different social implications that marriage has for the bride and groom and their respective families, there are separate categories of wedding song for brides and grooms.

Professional musicians sing and play at most life-cycle celebrations; their performance, even when unsolicited, is considered auspicious and is always well rewarded. Two types of instrumental music are specifically associated with such occasions: solo drumming, which announces the event (in particular, the birth of a son), and the wedding band of wind instruments and percussion, which heralds the wedding procession. The use of music in life-cycle ceremonies continues to be a relatively stable tradition even in the urban environment, where wedding songs, for instance, play an essential role in the wedding ceremony.

(ii) Music and work.

Music accompanies a variety of traditional occupations. For women’s activities there are songs for spinning, grinding grain or soothing children; for men’s work there are the tunes of the solitary herdsmen and the drumming patterns to solicit and sustain communal harvesting and construction. Some descriptive occupational songs are sung during leisure rather than working hours.

(iii) Festival music.

Harvest festivals and fairs, both religious and secular, are occasions for all kinds of music-making. After the first harvest in spring, men gather to sing harvest songs and to dance. Most popular throughout Pakistan is a circle-dance accompanied by drumming and singing or oboe playing, often interspersed with solo improvisations by paired dancers. Fairs may be agricultural or associated with anniversaries of Muslim saints. For musical entertainment of the assembled crowds, various professional performers present musical plays and puppet theatre, solo singing and dancing, satire, instrumental solo playing and animal shows accompanied by music. Amateur groups of men from the villages may also sing and dance at fairs. At saints’ shrines devotional songs are performed continuously throughout the festival, one professional or amateur group following another.

(iv) Entertainment music.

Music may be part of leisure time entertainment; for example, when men gather in villages or fields on moonlit nights and when women visit each other in the hot afternoons, there is likely to be group singing of love- or teasing-songs, and soloists may sing familiar epics as well as modern film songs. Among amateur instrumentalists flute playing is most common. Itinerant musicians may also be invited to perform.

Pakistan

4. Performers.

The puritanism of Islam and its traditional censure of music are principal factors in the social restrictions on amateur performers, especially at higher levels of the social hierarchy. Apart from ceremonial occasions, performance in the presence of elders or within the hearing of the opposite sex is generally discouraged; young men therefore often sing or dance away from the village, and women sing in the privacy of the home. The more affluent hire professional musical entertainment.

Professional musicians belong to various hereditary classes, all with a low social status. They are generally treated as outsiders, if not regarded as ethnically apart. Most important among these are the Dom (Dūm, Domb), also called Mīrāsī, a caste of musicians found throughout Pakistan as well as in north-west India and even in Iran. Mostly sedentary, the Dom are ranked with menial workers and depend on village support and approbation. Dom and Mīrāsī men sing, dance, play instruments and do female impersonations, while the women mainly sing and dance for the entertainment of their female social superiors. In addition to their role as village entertainers, the Mīrāsī may be employed as village genealogists.

Other performing classes found mainly in Sind and Baluchistan are the Lorī, blacksmiths and tinkers as well as musicians; the nomadic Jat; and the Manganiyār. All three are probably related to each other and possibly to the Dom as well; they are variously said to be the ancestors of the European Gypsies. Other wandering entertainers include snake-charmers, animal showmen and minstrels. The most urbane of these professional musicians are the courtesan ensembles accompanied by male instrumentalists, in the ‘nautch girl’ tradition of entertainment based on classical dance and song.

Pakistan

5. Instruments.

Pakistan shares many instruments with India and some with Afghanistan, Iran and the Islamic Middle East. Partly because of the country’s location at cultural crossroads, the number and variety of Pakistani instruments is considerable. There is little standardization among traditional instruments, and even within the same locality variants abound. Standardized versions of some traditional instruments have found their way into art music (e.g. sārangī, śahnāī), while others have provided the model for instruments used only in art music (e.g. the ektārā for the tambūrā, the rabāb for the sarod). Conversely, some instruments primarily associated with art music have been adopted by traditional musicians (e.g. tablā, harmonium). Various Western instruments are used, notably in modern wedding bands (military band instruments) and in popular music (e.g. bowed strings, guitar, clarinet). Instrumental music is often subordinated to singing in the form of melodic accompaniment, and much instrumental solo melody is based on vocal models.

(i) Membranophones.

The Dholak (dholki), the most widely used drum, is a double-headed barrel drum. The dholak is played with the hands; occasionally the wooden body may be tapped with a metal ring on the player’s right thumb or by a second player. Played by both amateurs and professionals, the dholak is used to accompany dancing and all types of singing, including the whole genre of dholak gīt (dholak songs) in the Punjab.

Similar in construction but larger than the dholak, the Dhol (duhūl) is played with sticks and serves principally as an instrument for outdoor music-making. It is played solo for calling attention to community announcements and work projects. Along with wind instruments, the dhol is used in wedding bands and to accompany group dancing. Historically part of the naubat ensemble of South Asian Muslim royal and religious ceremony, the dhol has a complex performance tradition, especially in Sind and Baluchistan.

The damru (dugduggi) is a small, double-headed hourglass drum, with a cord tied around its waist (see fig.2). The loose ends of the cord are knotted, and their length is so adjusted that as the player manipulates the drum, the knots hit the drumheads alternately in rapid succession. The damru is played throughout Pakistan by mendicants and wandering entertainers, especially animal showmen.

The Naqqāra (naghāra, naubat, bhēr), clay or metal kettledrums of various sizes, are played with two beaters. The larger bhēr and naubat are played singly, the smaller naqqāra in a pair. Historically these kettledrums were the principal instruments of the naubat ensemble; in the 20th century the naqqārā have been the most widely used, especially in NWFP, where their uses are similar to those of the dhol.

The Daff (kañjrī, dā’ira), a hand-struck frame drum, sometimes has brass discs inserted in the wooden or metal frame. Of Middle Eastern origin, it is played mainly to accompany women’s songs.

(ii) Idiophones.

The principal types of idiophone are ghungrū, small brass pellet bells also worn as ankle bells by dancers; dando, a short wooden stick with ghungrū attached; mañjīrā (tāliyũn, kanjiyũn), brass hand cymbals, small to medium in size; chaprī, rectangular wooden clappers, often with thin brass discs or ghungrū attached to one end; and chimtā, metal tongs, derived from kitchen tongs, also with brass discs attached.

The matkā (mangai, gharā, dillo, ghaghar) is a large clay waterpot in household use throughout Pakistan. It is played with the right hand striking the round body while the left covers and strikes the narrow opening. A pebble or ring may be used for tapping, as with the dholak, for which the matkā often acts as a substitute, particularly in family singing. In Sind and NWFP it is also played by professionals.

(iii) Aerophones.

The double-reed Śahnāī (surnā, sharnai) is associated with ceremonial outdoor music. Played by professionals, it is the principal melodic instrument of the traditional wedding band as well as of the naubat ensemble. Both the instrument and its principal uses are of Middle Eastern derivation.

The bīn (murlī, Pungī; see fig.3) is played by snake-charmers all over Pakistan. In Sind there is a tradition of solo bīn playing, which includes rhythmic articulation on the drone pipe. The bīn bājā (mashq) is a bagpipe, with a goatskin bag operated by arm pressure, into which is inserted a small blow-pipe and two single-reed pipes, one a drone and the other a chanter. Found mainly in NWFP, this instrument is played out of doors, often in conjunction with the śahnāī in wedding bands, as well as for Pathan group dancing.

The portable free-reed harmonium, an instrument introduced by Western missionaries, is used mainly to accompany singing. The chang, a jew’s harp, is found in all regions of Pakistan and is played mainly by herdsmen. Usually made of metal, it also exists in a bamboo version (pattī) popular in Punjab.

Of the various flute types covered by the term ‘bānsurī’ the end-blown flute of wood or bamboo is most common, especially among amateurs for solo playing. A transverse bānsurī may also be made of metal. The alghoza (jorī, pāvā, bīnõn) is a double duct flute usually made of wood. One flute may serve as a drone, or the melody may be played on both flutes. Traditionally the double flute is a herdsman’s instrument in Sind and Punjab; it is played by professionals in Sind with great virtuosity, usually to the accompaniment of a dillo (clay waterpot). The nar, an end-blown flute with four finger-holes, is prominent in Sind and especially Baluchistan, where it is used in a varied solo tradition as well as for vocal accompaniment.

(iv) Chordophones.

The most common bowed lute in Pakistani traditional music is the Sārindā (surindo, saroz) with three playing strings, used most widely to accompany vocal and flute music. It is played in an upright position; the player either stands or sits, resting the instrument on the ground. The convex bow is held with an underhand grip.

Like its standardized version prominent in art music, the regional versions of another bowed lute, the Sārangī (sangī), are used for vocal accompaniment, mainly in the Punjab and in Sind (see fig.4).

The Rabāb, a lute plucked with a wooden plectrum (see fig.5), is also a popular instrument in Afghanistan. It is used both as a solo and as an important accompanying instrument, mainly in the adjacent NWFP and Baluchistan regions. The unfretted rabāb is the predecessor of the modern sarod.

The terms ‘ektārā’, ‘yaktāro’, ‘dambūro’, ‘tumbā’, and ‘king’ cover a variety of plucked long-necked lutes with a skin soundboard and a bowl-shaped resonator often made from a gourd. One or more open strings provide a drone as well as rhythmic accompaniment for singers, who vary from wandering minstrels to professional performers at Muslim shrines. The dambūro of Sindhi devotional music is also used to provide melodic accompaniment.

Unlike the Western instrument of the same name, the bānjo or māndolīn belongs to the zither family. It is an obsolete version of the Japanese koto dating from the Taisho period (early 20th century), in which the strings are stopped by metal keys operated by the player’s left hand. It is used in popular and traditional music, mainly in Sind.

Pakistan

6. Musical structure.

In Pakistani music there is a considerable range of performing practice and ensemble structure. Pakistani music is generally monophonic with various types of accompaniment. Its primary dimension is the melodic line, which may be performed solo, by a group or responsorially. Unaccompanied melody exists in epics or reflective life-cycle songs, but most melody is performed with rhythmic accompaniment, whether a simple pulse maintained by hand-clapping or on idiophones, a complex metric pattern played on drums or both together. Instrumental drone accompaniment is usually found in addition to rhythmic accompaniment, as in wind melody-and-drone ensembles, while the plucked open strings of lutes and zithers may provide a combination of drone and rhythm. Melodic accompaniment of a heterophonic type is mainly associated with professional solo singing.

(i) Form.

In Pakistani vocal music the textual structure is the basis for a variety of musical forms. Most songs consist of verses of two to four lines with varying rhyme patterns; accordingly, the musical structure is strophic. Within the strophe the musical unit coincides with the verse line. Often rhyming and non-rhyming lines are musically differentiated, either by varying the beginning or ending of the same melodic line or by the choice of two different melodic lines, in an alternation reminiscent of the sthāyī-antarā pattern of Hindustani music.

Instrumental music based on vocal forms is generally governed by the same structure but may allow embellishment, intermittent improvisation or alternative tune arrangements. Purely instrumental forms consist typically of a flexible series of short motivic tunes, often symmetrical, built into rondo-like structures with intermittent return to one of the main tunes. Simple or sequential repetition of small motifs is characteristic, particularly of music for wind instruments.

(ii) Melody.

Great melodic diversity exists between as well as within the major regions and extends to both tonal inventory and pitch sequence. Pakistani traditional music is modal and includes a tonal centre on the basis of which a great variety of scales can be identified, ranging from three notes to over an octave. The parameters of Hindustani music may be applied to the tonal inventory: common scale-types correspond to popular rāga scales such as bhairavī, kāfī, khamāj, bilāval and others. In the pitch sequence there is a preference for conjunct motion, with scale degrees raised or lowered allophonically according to melodic direction. Within any one scale-type, tunes vary widely in motivic character, although tunes of different scale-types may resemble each other, notwithstanding different tonal ingredients. To some extent regional preference governs particular scale-types and motifs.

(iii) Rhythm.

Pakistani traditional music ranges from rhythmically free and highly melismatic songs to those in which the regular pulse of the melody is reinforced by drum and drone accompaniment. Most Pakistani melody, however, is organized rhythmically into recurring metric patterns with an underlying pulse or ‘beat’. Predominant rhythmic movement is by single beats and by beats divided into two parts, whether of equal or of unequal duration. Syncopated sequences of these units are common, particularly in the Punjab.

Most Pakistani traditional music has some form of rhythmic accompaniment. Whereas hand-clapping and idiophones merely reinforce or embellish the pulse, drummed accompaniment spells out the rhythmic metre in a wide variety of ways. The pitch, quality, intensity and duration of drumstrokes are all variables in the realization of rhythmic metres. The result is a great diversity of rhythmic patterns, some of which may be associated with regional styles and particular genres.

Quadruple metres, predominant in Sind and Punjab, are widespread in all regions and are employed especially in dance music and group songs. Ex.1 shows a sample of quadruple metres from different regions. In quadruple metres, some improvisations include rhythmic cadential formulae resembling the tihāī of Hindustani art music: in its simplest form this cadential formula consists of a threefold repetition of three beats starting and ending on the first beat of a metric unit (ex.1d).

A variety of metres composed of units of unequal duration is found particularly in Baluchistan and NWFP, where they correspond to the verbal and poetic rhythm of song texts. Perhaps the most popular one approximates to a 6/8 metre, usually subdivided long–short–short–long (ex.2a). Known as tengra in Pashto, it is also the metre of the widely known simmī dance-song of north-western Punjab. A type of 7/8 metre subdivided long–short–long–long (ex.2b) is prevalent in NWFP; related is the shādmān (‘wedding measure’) of Baluchistan and Sind. A 5/8 metre, subdivided long–long–short (ex.2c), is found mainly in Baluchi songs. The long–short units of these metres are not always in a strict 2:1 ratio; they may even be of virtually equal length but are still distinguished by dissimilar tonal quality and accentual weight.

Pakistan

7. Musical idioms.

(i) Sindhi music.

Sind is notable for the cultural importance of its many shrines, which are also its main centres of music-making. Sind excels in ‘performance music’ by professional musicians of various communities. The dominant tradition of Sindhi music is the kāfī (wā’ī), associated with Sind’s most revered poet and mystic, Shāh Abdul Latīf (1690–1752). Both his poems and their sur (melodic settings), according to which he grouped them, represent a remarkable synthesis of art and traditional influences. The poems express Islamic mysticism through the themes of Sindhi folk romances, whereas their musical settings are based on melodic patterns derived from both classical rāga and traditional song. Unlike rāga, they are characterized not only by a melodic progression but by a fixed sequence of specific motifs. Within the kāfī these motifs appear in a set progression with measured rhythm as the principal song-tune, the kāfī proper. Between strophes of the kāfī poem, thematically related verses are inserted to a rhythmically free improvisation on the sur motifs; this part is called dohiro.

Kāfī music is performed all over Sind. In the villages it is sung in the form of mystic or solo love-song to the accompaniment of the yaktāro and the chaprī or dando, both played by the male singer, and sometimes accompanied by a drummer. In the 20th century instrumental versions of kāfī music supplanted the simpler instrumental styles of lehrā, especially on alghoza, bīn and nar. One of the best-known kāfī melodies, the kohiyārī, is a traditional tune from western Sind associated since Latif with the Sassui-Punhun romance. In its motivic structure sur kohiyārī exhibits two common Sindhi musical characteristics, sequential repetition and a descending melodic line. In its traditional kāfī setting of a poem by Latif the kohiyārī includes a short dohiro improvisation (ex.3), while an instrumental version (ex.4) stresses lehrā-style rhythmic improvisation on sequential patterns.

Sindhi community songs and dances are musically simpler, but stylistic similarities with sur music may be noted, especially as regards the descending character of many tunes, for example the responsorial dance-song for the popular jamālo dance.

(ii) Punjabi music.

In the music of the Punjab community, songs and dances are more prevalent than ‘performance music’ on account of two factors: compared to other regions Punjab is less conservative (especially with regard to the separation of the sexes), and non-Muslim influence has contributed to singing and dancing being practised more freely. Also, unlike the other regions of Pakistan, Punjab has geographically and historically been part of the culture area of north India; hence its professional performance music consists essentially of the various ‘Punjabi’ styles and schools within the Hindustani music tradition. Sikh religious music, the one Punjabi musical tradition that might be termed ‘performance music’, is strongly community-orientated and shares many of the characteristics of traditional music in that region.

The Punjabi song repertory is characterized by distinctive musical settings and recurring motifs. Most widely known are the improvising songs made up of aphoristic and often humorous verses rhyming with any one of several stereotyped first lines. Accompanied by the dholak or dhol, they also serve as the principal dance-songs. The performance pattern is responsorial: one or two singers, with or without drum accompaniment, intone the verse, and then the group, accompanied by the drum, repeats it, apart from the stereotyped first line. Most popular and versatile among these improvising songs is the māhiya (māhiya bālo, tappa), made up of the favourite Punjabi verse form, the three-line tappa. Māhiya songs are sung at weddings or as leisure time entertainment, often by competing groups, and they may deal with any kind of subject. Ex.5 shows a humorous tappa set to the standard māhiya tune. Bolī (improvised couplets) make up the principal dance-song for the men’s bhangra and women’s gidda dance (ex.6). Here the soloists accompany their recitative with mimetic gestures, and the group dances in a circle while singing the refrain. Motivically close to the bolī, yet of a completely different genre, is the tune pattern serving the epic Heer-rañjha (ex.7). Similar motivic and tonal characteristics in two wedding songs (ex.8) are representative of many life-cycle songs.

 (iii) Pathan music.

In the conservative milieu of NWFP, ‘performance music’ stands out over community singing. The principal Pathan singing tradition is closely linked with Pashtun poetry; its main locale is the men’s gathering place, the hujra. Hujra music is ideally performed by professional singers, usually accompanied by rabāb or sarinda and drum. The chārbait (tang takor) extols love or heroism in four-line verses intoned alternately by two singers and sometimes repeated by all those present. The verses are interspersed with the freely intoned invocation ya qurbān (‘I sacrifice myself’), a typical musical formula of Pathan singing. Ex.9 illustrates both this formula and the mode favoured by Pathan music.

A strong Pathan instrumental tradition is associated with the male group dances collectively, if inaccurately, termed khattak dance. Like wedding music, this instrumental music is played mainly on the surnā and accompanied on the dhol or naqqāra. Its short and strongly rhythmic motifs are arranged within rondo forms (ex.10).

(iv) Baluchi music.

Wandering professional performers are the principal music-makers in this arid region populated by widely scattered herding tribes; līku (love songs) and dāstānagah (ballads) are the principal genres. These songs are most often accompanied on the saroz by the singer himself and consist of short verses sung in a rhythmically free style to one or two recurring melodic phrases, which are often adapted for more than one song (ex.11). Typical of many of these melodic patterns is a nearly rāga-like pitch sequence and a final phrase with a marked tonic emphasis. The saroz provides a heterophonic accompaniment as well as an intermittent open-string drone, repeating freely elaborated versions of the melodic outline between verses. Also played on the saroz are baggay (solo improvisations), in which sequential patterns are played with strongly articulated bowing.

Among life-cycle songs played by Baluchi professionals and amateurs, wedding songs are prominent, such as the well-known traditional halo hālo.

(v) Popular music and the media.

Popular music is widely circulated through radio, film and television, and today most extensively through cassettes as well as CDs. Many popular songs have now become part of the traditional repertory. Initially the main genre was film song, a successor to the semi-classical and courtesan singing tradition. However, popular songs have increasingly drawn from traditional music of different regions, and there are electronic rock and pop versions of tunes from all regions (the melody of ex.5 has been used in this way).

Western rock music is a strong influence on a thriving Pakistani rock scene among the affluent urban young. With the spread of cassette and CD technology, popular genres have diversified and are more widely disseminated within South Asia as well as internationally. Qawwālī by the superstar Nusrat Fateh Ali or Punjabi traditional songs by Ataulla Isa Khelvi are cast as Western pop music; however, hereditary performers also continue to follow inherited models, mixing traditional and Western elements.

Pakistan

BIBLIOGRAPHY

and other resources

general texts

S.A. Dehlavi: Tradition and Change in Indo-Pakistan Classical Music (Karachi, 1952)

S.M. Ikram and P. Spear, eds.: The Cultural Heritage of Pakistan (London and Karachi, 1955)

A. Halim: Origin and Evolution of Khayal in Pak-India’, Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, v (1957), 100–12

N.A. Baloch: Folk-Songs and Folk-Dances of West Pakistan’, Traditional Cultures in South-East Asia, ed. UNESCO (Bombay, 1958), 253–6

A. Enayatullah: Contributions of the Muslims to Classical Music’, Scintilla, i/1 (1960), 12–15

A. Enayatullah: Raushan Ara Begum’, Contemporary Arts in Pakistan, i/1 (1960), 30–31

A. Enayatullah: Sain Marna’, Contemporary Arts in Pakistan, i/2 (1960), 21–2

K. Mohiuddin: Tashkil-i-mausiqi [The scope of music] (Lahore, 1961)

K.K. Muhammad and I.E. Malik: Sur sangīt [The tonal system of music] (Lahore, 1961)

I.E. Malik: Rāg rang [Facets of rāga] (Lahore, 1964)

M.M.K. Kalin: Mausiqi [Music] (Naushera, 1965)

A. Rauf: Renaissance of Islamic Culture and Civilization in Pakistan (Lahore, 1965)

Z.A. Bukhari: Sarguzisht [Life story] (Karachi, 1966)

J. ul Qadr Pyare Mian: Ilm-i-mausiqi [Science of music] (Karachi, 1966)

Bazm-e-Ustad Barkat Ali Khan Souvenir (Karachi, 1968)

F. Nizami: Mausiqi: ibteda aur irteqa’ [How music began], Gulfishan (Oct 1968), 110–19

R.B. Qureshi: Tarannum: the Chanting of Urdu Poetry’, EthM, xiii (1969), 425–68

S.F. Hassan Faizi: Pakistan: a Cultural Unity (Lahore, 1970)

I. Khan: Music (Lahore, 1971/R)

A.H. Dani: Raqs mausiqi ka aghaz’ [Dance, the origin of music], Saqafat, i/1 (1975), 31–4, 52

Q. Zahur-ul-Haq: Rahnuma-e-mausiqi [A guide to music] (Islamabad, 1975)

M.A. Sheikh, ed.: Progres Report-1 (Lahore, 1977) [report of the Music Research Cell]

M.S. Malik: The Musical Heritage of Pakistan (Islamabad, 1982)

Q. Zahur-ul-Haq: Muallam-ul-naghmat [Music instruction] (Islamabad, 1982)

J. Jalibi: Pakistan: the Identity of Culture (Karachi, 1984)

M.A. Sheikh: Muslim Contribution to Music’, Third World International, viii/1 (1984), 70–71

M.A. Sheikh: History of the Gramophone in South Aisa’, Third World International, ix/3 (1985), 51–3

A. Enayatullah: Music in Pakistan (n.p., 1986)

R. Malik: Masail-e-mausiqi [Aspects of music] (n.p., 1986)

N. Nargis: The Musical Heritage of Pakistan (n.p., 1987)

F. Nizami: History and Development of Music (Lahore, 1988)

A. Nayyar and others, eds.: Musical Survey of Pakistan: Three Pilot Studies (Islamabad, 1989)

R.B. Qureshi: Is there a Muslim Raga Phenomenon in Hindustani Music?’, Maqam, Raga Zeilenmelodik: Konzeptionen und Prinzipen der Musikproduktion, ed. J. Elsner (Berlin, 1989), 259–76

H. Iqbal: Abjad-e-mausiqi [ABC of music] (Karachi, 1990)

R.B. Qureshi: Musical Gesture and Extra-Musical Meaning: Words and Music in the Urdu Ghazal’, JAMS, xliii (1990), 472–96

A.A. Khan and Z.A. Khan: Navrang-e-mausiqi (Lahore, 1991)

R.B. Qureshi: Whose Music? Sources and Contexts in Indic Musicology’, Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays on the History of Ethnomusicology, ed. B. Nettl and P. Bohlman (Chicago, 1991), 152–68

M.H. Khan: Islamic Contribution to South Asia’s Classical Music (New Delhi, 1992)

N.A. Jairazbhoy: Pakistan’, Ethnomusicology: Historical and Regional Studies, ed. H. Myers (London, 1993), 294–6

Pakistan: Living Traditions of Arts and Music, ed. Pakistan National Council of the Arts (Islamabad, 1996)

R.B. Qureshi: 50 Years of Building National Identity through Culture: the Sonic Arts in Pakistan’, Pakistan at 50 (forthcoming)

regional studies

H.T. Sorely: Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit: his Poetry, Life and Times (London, 1940/R)

N.A. Baloch: Shah Abdul Latif (1690–1752), the Founder of a New Music Tradition’, Pakistan Quarterly, ix/3 (1959), 54–7, 68

Aitya Begum: Sindi Musiqui’ [Sindhi music], Scintilla, i/1 (1960), 16–23

A.G. Khan: Pushto Folk Songs’, Scintilla, i/3 (1960), 16–20

F. Shah: Panjābi lōk gīt [Punjabi folk music] (Lahore, 1960)

Pathan Folk Songs’, Pakistan Quarterly, x/4 (1962), 17–23

A.S. Kurshid: Punjabi Folk Songs’, Pakistan Quarterly, xi/4 (1963), 42–7

F. Kamaal: Life's Cycle in the Land of the Five Rivers’, Pakistan Quarterly, xii/4 (1964), 23–8

N.A. Baloch: The Traditional Cultures in West Pakistan’, Perspectives on Pakistan, ed. A.S. Dil (Abbottabad, 1965), 167–203

Z.G. Ghulamally: Rural Games’, Pakistan Review, xiii (1965), 36–7

N.A. Baloch: Musical Instruments of the Lower Indus Valley (Hyderabad, 1966)

R.N. Pehrson: The Social Organization of the Marri Baluch (Chicago, 1966)

A. Baloch: Spanish Cante Jondo and its Origin in Sindhi Music (Hyderabad, 1968)

B. Goodwin: The Khattak Dance’, Life among the Pathans (Khattaks) (London, 1969), 21–6

N.A. Baloch: Development of Music in Sind (Hyderabad, 1973)

A.I.I. Kazi: Shah Abdul Latif: an Introduction to his Art (Hyderabad, 1973)

R.B. Quershi: Music and Culture in Sind: an Ethnomusicological Perspective’, Sind through the Centuries, ed. H. Khuro (Karachi, 1981), 237–44

Folk Music of Sind, ed. Institute of Sindhology (Jamshoro, 1982)

J.C. Berland: The [Qalandar] People in Context’, No Five Fingers are Alike: Cognitive Amplifiers in Social Context (Cambridge, MA, 1982), 73–146

A.K. Salim: Sindh men mausiqi [Music in Sind] (Islamabad, 1984)

Z. Yusuf, ed.: Rhythms of the Lower Indus: Perspectives on the Music of Sindh (Hyderabad, 1988)

religious music

R.B. Qureshi: Islamic Music in an Indian Environment: the Shi'a Majlis’, EthM, xxv/1 (1981), 237–44

R.B. Qureshi: Sufi Music of India and Pakistan: Sound, Context and Meaning in Qawwali (Cambridge, 1986, rev. Chicago, 1995) [incl. new preface and CD]

S.B. Abbas: Speech Play and Verbal Art in the Indo-Pakistan Oral Sufi Tradition (diss., U. of Texas, Austin, 1992)

R.B. Qureshi: His Master's Voice: exploring qawwali and “gramophone culture” in South Asia’, Popular Music, xviii/1 (1999), 63–98

For further bibliography see India, §VI.

recordings

Folk Music of Pakistan, FW FE 4425 (1951) [incl. notes by J. Gonella]

Farida Khanum, videotape, Lok Virsa GM-05 (Islamabad, 1980)

Gharanon ki Gaiki School of Music, EMI TCEMCP 5060–79 (1985) [20 cassettes]

Folk Music Festival ’89, Pakistan, videotape, Lok Virsa FP-7 (Islamabad, 1989)

Wedding Song: Henna Art among Pakistani Women in New York City, videotape, Queens Council of the Arts (New York, 1990) [incl. notes by S. Slymovics]