Traditional / folk music of Pakistan
Pakistan is a nation in south-central Asia, divided into four linguistic and cultural regions: Punjab, Sindi, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier. Being in neighbor of India, Afghanistan and Iran and accepting lots of music and cultural elements from these countries, mixed them and give a new character to them, make folk music in Pakistan rich and exceptional. Since Pakistan got independent, under the rule of Islam, music has been restricted except for ceremonial use. However Sufism has an exceptional official rule. So one of the most important genres of music in Pakistan is Qawwali. Qawwali is the Voice of Divine power. The purpose is get the artist and audience closer to Allah by repeating the trance-like words and phrases until they get exhausted and only the form remains. As Qawwali brings from Iran and Sufism of Iran in old times, most of the lyrics are in Persian.
Ghazal is another folk music in Pakistan which are love poem songs in Urdu (official language in Pakistan).They are a synthesis of Persian/Farsi language songs from Persia, which brought to India by the Mughals and transforms in their indigenous Indian languages. Also it has root in classical Arabic poetry. "Ghazal" is an Arabic word which means "Talking to women".
Also the folk music in Pakistan can be categorized by regions: Balochi music, Punjabi music, Potohari music, Sindhi music.Kashmiri music, Saraiki music, Pashto music, Hindko music. They consist of telling folk stories, love stories or rituals like Qawwali or performing in the weddings. As in all of these regions, different people and tribes talk in many different languages, it gives a huge diversity to their folk musics and traditions.
Pakistan has many music instruments in common with India. Here are some examples of music instruments in Pakistan: Dholak, Duff, Harmonium, Idiophones, Rabab, Sarangi, Surna, Tabla.
Some other traditional music instruments in folk music of Pakistan are:
Alghoza: It is a pair of woodwind instruments adopted by Punjabi, Sindhi, Rajasthani and Baloch folk musicians. It two fluet joined together and the performer blow into both of them at the same time.
Bulbul tarang: It is a string instrument from Indian and Pakistani Punjab which evolved from the Japanese taishōgoto, which likely arrived in South Asia in the 1930s. The strings run over a plate or fretboard, while above are keys resembling typewriter keys.
Chimta: Literally means tongs. It is a kind of idiophone common in folk music of South Asia.
Chitrali sitar: It is a long-necked lute played in northern area, Chitral of Pakistan. It is not related to the Indian sitar and its name is probably a corruption of setar in Central Asian and Iranian long-necked lute.
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Traditional / folk songs for Pakistan
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