Music: the Case of Afghanistan by JOHN BAILY
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from Popular Music 1, CambridgeUniversity Press 1981 Cross -cultural perspectives in popular music: the case of Afghanistan by JOHN BAILY The problem of definition It is inevitable that the first issue of this yearbook will raise questions about the use of the term 'popular music'. I do not believe that this question is going to be easy to answer and, as a precaution, I think we should regard quick and seemingly clearcut solutions with suspicion. In fact, we may eventually have to operate with intuitive, poorly defined and rather elastic definitions of popular music. Before we resort to that expedient, however, the problem of definition must be considered and discussed from various points of view. The editors have offered the following two definitions (the number- ing is mine): (1)From one point of view 'popular music' exists in any stratified society. It is seen as the music of the mass of the people ... as against that of an élite. (2) From another point of view there is at the very least a significant qualita- tive change, both in the meaning which is felt to attach to the term and in the processes to which the music owes its life, when a society undergoes indus- trialisation. From this point of view popular music is typical of societies with a relatively highly developed division of labour and a clear distinction between producers and consumers, in which cultural products are created largely by professionals, sold in a mass market and reproduced through mass media. (P. i above) The first of these definitions is very general, the second very specific. Within the Western world they are perhaps appropriate. But are they valid at a cross -cultural level? Consideration of varieties of world music suggests that 'popular music' is a transcultural phenomenon. In this wider context the definitions seem more questionable. The first is too loose, too unspecific, and does not distinguish between the possibly separate analytical categories of 'popular' and 'folk' music. The second definition is too tight because it implies that 'popular music' is charac- teristic only of industrialised societies. We shall return to this matter later. In this paper I shall describe in some detail a kind of music typical of the cities of Afghanistan that I believe can be legitimately labelled 105 io6 John Bally 'popular music'. Beyond the ethnographic data I am also concerned with the theoretical issue of the basis on which we labela genre of music as 'popular music'. In justifying the use of this labelcross - culturally one is in effect having to define the characteristics of popular music. Two points should be made in relation to this theoretical issue. Firstly, the ethnomusicological approach suggests that labels suchas 'art music', 'folk music' and 'popular music' can be used with justifica- tion in a cross -cultural context only when the society concerned makes such distinctions itself. Otherwise we are in danger of distorting the data to fit preconceived analytical concepts and definitions thatmay be totally inappropriate. We must try to understand a music system from the inside, from the point of view of the people who create anduse the music. For example, in the case of the term 'art music' it seemsper- fectly justified to use this term for those musics of Asia thatare considered to be 'art' by the people themselves. Use of the term 'art music' implies that the society concerned distinguishes at least two kinds of music: 'art' and something else that is not 'art'. The music of an hypothetical society that has only one kind of music could not be analytically labelled as 'art', 'folk' or anything else, for there isno contrast, it is simply 'music' as opposed to 'non- music'. Secondly, even if we agree that we should only use the term 'popu- lar music' when it corresponds to a native category in the folk view,* we are still left with a definitional problem. We have to put forward some criteria in order to test whether what appears on the surface to be a 'popular music' category in another music system really doescorres- pond to our own analytical concept of 'popular music'. Some possible criteria for identifying 'popular music' will be suggested later in the paper. These criteria amount to a partial definition of 'popular music'. Major categories of music in the thinking of Heratis The ethnographic data to be described were collected in Herat Province inwestern Afghanistan during two years'ethnomusicological fieldwork in the mid- 197os.t Most of my fieldworkwas carried out in the city of Herat, the third largest city in Afghanistan, eighty miles * By 'folk e I refer tthe perceptioiis acid cognitions of the people themselves. I'he important distinction between native and analytical evaluations is discussed in Mer- riam 1964, pp. 31 -2. Where Merriam uses the term 'folk -evaluationI prefer 'folk view'. t This research was funded by the Social Science Research Council of the United Kingdom, whose generous support is gratefully acknowledged. Fieldwork was car- ried out in 1973 -4, when I was an SS R o Post -Doctoral Research Fellow, and again in 1976 -7 under an ssRC Conversion Fellowship Scheme. Cross -cultural perspectives in popular music: Afghanistan 107 from the Iranian border. Reference is also madeto Radio Afghanistan, broadcasting from Kabul, the capital (ineastern Afghanistan), but extensive research has not been carriedout at the radio station.* Any musical ethnography mustgo into the question of how the people classify the different kinds of music that theyuse. This matter is of crucial importance, for, as already explained,we can only talk about a genre of music as 'popular music' if it corresponds toan equivalent native concept. For various reasons the folk classificationused by a people is often difficult to elucidate. Distinctionsthat may appear obvious to the outsider may not be apparentto the people (suggesting that the outsider has failed to understand the folkview), or a category may be found to exist in their thinking but to haveno generally agreed label. A faithful representation of theways that Heratis distinguish and label different genres of music would be rather complexand beyond the scope of this paper. As a simplification letus accept that amongst their categories the four shown in Figurei are of major importance. In Figure i the four categories are representedas being at the same level of a system of classification. Musiqi -ye klasik refers to Hindustani vocal music ofthe khayal and tarana genres, which is widely known in Afghanistan andis per- formed by some Afghant musicians. In Afghanistan thisgenre is regarded as 'art music'. The word klasik is the English word'classical', probably derived from India, where Hindustani musicis often referred to as 'Indian classical music'. Ghazalkhani refers to the singing of serious Persianpoetry in the ghazal form. Some of the poetry usedcomes from the great poets of the past, such as Hafez and Sa'di; some is ofmore recent provenance, penned by Afghan and Indian -born poets writing inPersian. Similar ghazals (in Urdu rather than Persian)are performed in India and Pakistan. In certain contexts this is also regardedas 'art music' by Heratis. Musiqi -ye mahali refers to 'local music'. In Herat, thislabel refers to those kinds of music that the people identifyas Herati. Certain kinds of mahali could be regarded as 'folk music', being handeddown through oral tradition over the generations and beingperformed by non- * In writing about the use of music in Afghanistan, I have adopted the convention known as the 'ethnographic present', in which a state of affairs that existedin the past is described in the present tense. Political events in Afghanistan since1978 make it highly unlikely that the situation I describe persists unchanged. t I use the term 'Afghan' here to refer to inhabitants of Afghanistan irrespective of ethnic origins. The two main ethnic groups are Pashtuns and Tajiks; most inhabitants of Herat are the latter. The two official languages are Pashtu and Persian. Persian is the language of Herat. io8 John Baily musigi 'music' I i 1 musigi -ye klasik ghazalkhani musigi -ye mahali kiliwali 'classical music' 'ghazal singing' 'local music' 'popular music' Figure i.Four categories of music distinguished by Heratis specialists. 'Local music' from other regions is often identified by Heratis in ethnic or geographical terms, viz. Uzbeki (Uzbek, an ethnic group) or shomali (northern). Kiliwali is tentatively labelled in Figure i as 'popular music'. The major characteristics of this genre will be described in the remainder of this paper. Essentially, the term refers to a kind of urban music broad- cast from the radio station and copied over the rest of the country, especially in the towns and cities. A few words of qualification are needed about my use of the term kiliwali. This Pashtu word means 'of the village', and whenused in Pashtu properly refers to Pashtun regional music, the 'ethnic'music of the Pashtuns. In Herat, which is Persian- speaking, the termkiliwali is used by some people, especially by musicians, to refer to those genres of music which are discussed below, and which have beententatively labelled 'popular music'. They probably use this label becausethe main formal and structural characteristics of the music wereoriginally de- rived from Pashtun regional music. I use the term forsimplicity of expression, and because it is used by some Heratis. Main features of kiliwali music Musical aspects Kiliwali has a distinct musical style: two of its most dominant features are the constant alternation of vocal and instrumental sections, and the frequent use of rhythmic cadential devices. As with other genres of Afghan music, kiliwali is monophonic in concept (i.e. linear melody with no vertical harmonic or poly_ phonic component) and hetero- phoa..c in execution (because the instruments that accompany the singer each play the melodic line slightly differently).