Research Guides: International Music Resources by Country: Pakistan

Map of Pakistan

Citation (2)

Books

Rock and Roll Jihad by Salman Ahmad; Robert Schroeder "The story you are about to read is the story of a light-bringer....Salman Ahmad inspires me to reach always for the greatest heights and never to fear....Know that his story is a part of our history." -- Melissa Etheridge, from the Introduction With 30 million record sales under his belt, and with fans including Bono and Al Gore, Pakistanborn Salman Ahmad is renowned for being the first rock & roll star to destroy the wall that divides the West and the Muslim world. Rock & Roll Jihad is the story of his incredible journey. Facing down angry mullahs and oppressive dictators who wanted all music to be banned from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Salman Ahmad rocketed to the top of the music charts, bringing Westernstyle rock and pop to Pakistani teenagers for the first time. His band Junoon became the U2 of Asia, a sufi - rock group that broke boundaries and sold a record number of albums. But Salman's story began in New York, where he spent his teen years learning to play guitar, listening to Led Zeppelin, hanging out at rock clubs and Beatles Fests, making American friends, and dreaming of rock-star fame. That dream seemed destined to die when his family returned to Pakistan and Salman was forced to follow the strictures of a newly religious -- and stratified -- society. He finished medical school, met his soul mate, and watched his beloved funkytown of Lahore transform with the rest of Pakistan under the rule of Zia into a fundamentalist dictatorship: morality police arrested couples holding hands in public, Little House on the Prairie and Live Aid were banned from television broadcasts, and Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers proliferated on college campuses via the Afghani resistance to Soviet occupation in the north. Undeterred, the teenage Salman created his own underground jihad: his mission was to bring his beloved rock music to an enthusiastic new audience in South Asia and beyond. He started a traveling guitar club that met in private Lahore spaces, mixing Urdu love poems with Casio synthesizers, tablas with Fender Stratocasters, and ragas with power chords, eventually joining his first pop band, Vital Signs. Later, he founded Junoon, South Asia's biggest rock band, which was followed to every corner of the world by a loyal legion of fans called Junoonis. As his music climbed the charts, Salman found himself the target of religious fanatics and power-mad politicians desperate to take him and his band down. But in the center of a new generation of young Pakistanis who go to mosques as well as McDonald's, whose religion gives them compassion for and not fear of the West, and who see modern music as a "rainbow bridge" that links their lives to the rest of the world, nothing could stop Salman's star from rising. Today, Salman continues to play music and is also a UNAIDS Goodwill Ambassador, traveling the world as a spokesperson and using the lessons he learned as a musical pioneer to help heal the wounds between East and West -- lessons he shares in this illuminating memoir.
Call Number: ML419.A34 A3 2010
Sufi Music of India and Pakistan by Regula Burckhardt Qureshi For the Sufis of India and Pakistan, the Qawwali songs are 'food for the soul', a means of attaining union with God, the ecstatic culmination of mystical experience. Regula Burckhardt Qureshi's study carefully describes and documents the performance of this music in the traditional Sufi assembly, the ritual of sama', first presenting the rich musical repertoire of Qawwali song, and then exploring everything else that is relevant to an understanding of the ritual: the profound belief system and its powerful articulation through mystical poetry in three languages (Farsi, Hindi, Urdu), the social and economic relationships between Sufi listeners and musicians, and, finally, all the specific rules governing the making of and listening to Qawwali in the Sufi assembly. All this leads up to a moment-by-moment account of actual Qawwali performances where the interplay between the musical sound and the diverse and often dramatic audience responses is described and analysed by the author.
Call Number: ML3197 .Q74 1986
Music, sound, and architecture in Islam by Frishkopf, Michael Aaron, editor.; Spinetti, Federico, editor.
Call Number: ML3849 .M9393 2018
Dhol : drummers, identities, and modern Punjab by Schreffler, Gibb, author.
Call Number: ML3917.I4 S35 2021

Pakistani Music

Garland Encyclopedia of World Music-Pakistan

Pakistan
Read more about Pakistani music!

Facts in Brief

Capital: Islamabad

Languages: Punjabi, Pushto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu

Population: 225,199,929

Area: 796,095 sq km

Climate: The climate is dry and generally hot, with an annual average temperature of 27°C (80°F), except in the mountainous areas, which have very cold winters. Temperatures in Karachi are generally between 13°C (55°F) and 34°C (93°F), with negligible rainfall.

Religion: Islam

Citation (3)

Music in Pakistan

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.

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. Life-cycle songs express sentiments appropriate to the occasion and in a wider sense serve to reaffirm family solidarity and relationships. By far the greatest number and variety of life-cycle songs are associated with marriage, the central life-event in Pakistan. 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.

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. n 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. 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. 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 traditional music has some form of rhythmic accompaniment.

Citation (4)

Performer Highlight: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

1948-1997

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, (born October 13, 1948, Lyallpur [now Faisalabad], Pakistan—died August 16, 1997, London, England), Pakistani singer who is considered one of the greatest performers of qawwali, a Sufi Muslim devotional music characterized by simple melodies, forceful rhythms, and energetic improvisations that encourage a state of euphoria in the listener. He did not begin to devote himself to the qawwali tradition until he sang at his father’s funeral in 1964. Two years later he gave his first public performance as a qawwal, singing with his uncles, with whom he continued to perform until 1971, when Ustad Mubarik died. Nusrat believed in the universality of the musical message and strove throughout his career to make his music transcend religious and cultural boundaries.

Citation: Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Britannica Academic. Retrieved March 9, 2022, from https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Nusrat-Fateh-Ali-Khan/384181

Listen to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Online

Find Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan at the Music Library:

A voice from heaven Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the most beautiful voice in the world (ML420.K397 V653 2001)
Megastar, by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (M1808 .K38 1990)
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan en concert a Paris, Ocora Records (M1824.P3 K5)