In recent years, a large number of young writers have attempted to pen their thoughts on the system of music currently in vogue, in Pakistan, and about frontline practitioners of its classical modes.
While a few of them seemed to have some knowledge of the rudiments of classical music, there were many who were not even familiar with its diction, a shortcoming that was starkly evident from their stories.
In the words of Khalid Hasan, a stylist Washington-based writer of Pakistan of much national and international repute, "Writing is difficult work and writing about music is the most difficult of all". One cannot agree more with the observation he has made so succinctly about writing on music.
The first and foremost thing required of a writer on music is his knowledge of the fundamentals of this performing art, along with a grasp over its diction, otherwise any write-up on this subject will suffer from inadequacies both in its substance as well as structure, converting his piece of writing into something to laugh about.
EXAMPLES: A young reporter of a national English daily, while writing about a Lahore-based dhrupad singer has written something, which exposed the penury of his knowledge about this sophisticated art form. Describing the background of the gharana of the vocalist, he has written: "The repertory of the Talwandi gharana includes many genres of vocal music such as alap, dhurpad, dhammar, asthai-antras, kheyal, ghazal, dadra, kafi, etc."
As a practising musician, I have had the privilege of knowing and befriending a large number of frontline gharana musicians of Pakistan during the last 60 years, including the dhurpad singer about whom the writer has penned his thoughts.
I can say, from my personal experience and long years' friendship with vocalist Hafeez Khan that what has been attributed to him in the referenced article is not correct. Moreover, his gharana musicians do not practice kheyal, ghazal and kafi modes of classical vocalisation. Also, alap is not a musical genre. The term is used to describe slow progression of the raga theme in a dhurpad or kheyal rendition. Asthai-antara means a two-part composition of dhurpad or kheyal and like alap, is not a musical genre.
Another reporter of a national Urdu daily, writing about a vocal rendition of raga Maalkaus some time ago, stated that when "the Khan Sahib touched the note Pancham (Pa, the fifth in a scale) and stayed there, while delineating theme of the raga, it created a hypnotic spell on the listeners. She did not know that Maalkaus was a pentatonic raga in which use of the fifth note (of the Bahirveen scale) was totally prohibited.
When I showed that Urdu write-up to the late classical vocalist, it first provoked in him a hearty laughter, but later he became somber and vented his frustration in these words: "That is why classical music continues to suffer from all kinds of misinformation and conjectures. The writers who try to enlighten their readers, themselves, do not know the abc of music".
A couple of year ago I noticed a caption beneath a photograph of a vocalist published in a national newspaper as follows: "Khan Sahib (so and so) sings a kheyal in dhurpad", which betrayed the ignorance of the caption writer about classical music. I had to write a long letter, which the editor was kind enough to publish, to explain what were kheyal and dhurpad and that they two different modes of classical vocalisation.
A few years ago, as a member of the organising committee and also as Chairman of the National Planning Committee that set up the Pakistan National Council of the Arts, I participated in a number of meetings held in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, which decided to hold the National Ghazal Festival in Karachi.
Thanks to the Karachi-based members of the committee, the festival attracted large audiences on all the four days, winning enthusiastic appreciative responses from the knowledgeable and culturally enlivened Karachi audiences.
A few days later, a write up appeared in a national daily, written by a female member of the staff of the newspaper in which she stated that ghazal singer Ghulam Ali regaled the audiences by rendering so many ghazals from his rich repertoire.
The factual position was that Ghulam Ali did not participate in the festival at all, as he was in the United States and all efforts to get his participation in the ghazal festival had failed. Understandably, the write-up was based on hearsay, as obviously the learned lady writer did not attend the session of the National Ghazal Festival to which she referred to her article.
Music is rightly called the language of sound. It is like any other language and has its own grammar, syntax and diction. The difference between language of musical sound and other languages is that its alphabets are not tangible, hence invisible. One has to see these alphabets with the eyes of one's mind. That is why a good musician first tries to develop tone perception so that he can develop phrases, sentences, paragraphs and passage (like in other languages) with ease and dexterity.
Similarly, for a writer on music, it is desirable that he familiarises himself with the diction and vocabulary of the language of music, so that he can compose his write-up without letting it be confused by the use of words, which are not related to music.
Another shortcoming, often noticed in articles on music, is that a majority of writers tends to praise the musicians in hyperbolic terms while talking about their expertise, and/or the nature of responses/reaction of the attendees at concerts. Instead of making critical evaluation of the styles of the performances, the types and texts of the compositions and pointing to its strong and/or weak aspects, they use such words as 'hypnotised, enthralled and other superlatives', which are not truly reflective either, of the melodic prowess of the artistes, or the kind of impact they create on the audiences.
Their objective seems to indulge in the production of goody-goody write-ups, without caring much either about the talent of the musicians or the technical aspects of the presentations such as the melodic movement in capturing the essence of the raga.
Last year, I was invited by a literary organisation in Lahore to make an evaluation of the art of composer Naushad Ali, soon after his death. To the best of my knowledge, I tried to make an incisive analysis of his compositions by singing different portions from some of those for the enlightenment of the uninitiated audience a and also to tailor my presentation to meet the comprehension level of the audience.
After my extempore presentation, a "connoisseur" stood up to give his opinion about certain compositions of late Naushad Ali, and the ragas (according to his perception) on which they were based. His effort seemed pegged just to show off his (very poor) knowledge of music of which he blurted out incessantly. Most of what he said was not even remotely related to the art of composition, music or the expertise of the late composer.
I have referred to the event, as analogous to some of the examples of poor knowledge of music I have cited above. It is my earnest desire and wish that writers on music should study at least the rudiments of this sophisticated performing art so as to be in a much better position to express themselves through their write-ups.
Otherwise, the already prevailing confusion about classical music in the minds of the people and readers of newspaper articles will get worse, causing a further dip in the popularity of this art form, when its was once a supreme example of Muslim creative genius in the sub-continent.
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