PESHAWAR: Bilal Khan, a young amateur rabab player, envisions a bright future for Pashto music in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Resident of Malakand, Thana and student of final year, at sociology department in Malakand University, Bilal Khan has recently grabbed first position in a rabab playing talent hunt competition in Islamabad.

“Young people have great talent and passion for music, poetry and art. They need just a spur and a right moment to bring their latent talent out,” he told this scribe. He said that music had a bright future in the province. “Music will help counter militancy and militants because music and poetry keep us intact with roots of our cultural values,” he added.

The young rabab player said that he made use of his talent in his career also. “Fortunately, my discipline allows me to further promote my skill and even train my other young colleagues. I found rabab a wonderful string instrument and whenever I begin playing it, it gives me spiritual solace as it is also considered a Sufi instrument. A typical traditional Pashto orchestra can never be complete without rabab,” said Bilal Khan.

He said that an art academy would help young people to bring out their hidden talent.

Mahmood Khan, director culture, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said that main objective of the talent hunt competition was to revive the old traditional instrument and also to encourage young talent.

He said that round 60 rabab players from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata participated in the first round and only 40 were shortlisted for audition. Tempo, tuning rabab, ability to play various tunes on rabab and understanding ‘string music’ were four points on the basis of which the contest was held.

Gluab Afridi, a noted young rabab player, said that rabab being king of all traditional Pashto musical instruments should be preserved and young instrumentalists should be encouraged to strengthen folk music heritage.

He said that there used to be around 60 musical instruments and senior artists would transfer their skills to their children. However, he regretted that due to philistinism and many other factors, young amateurs could not be encouraged to preserve it.

“We have lost so much when it comes to transferring of traditional music skills. Rabab is one big hope. We don’t have many masters of instrumental music. We need to make it not only possible for our youngsters to own the art of music but also preserve it as a rich legacy,” said Mr Afridi.

The competition, he said, was a great event and should be made a regular feature. He said that event like that should not be a one time show but the provincial culture department should also conduct similar contents for amateur players of tabla, flute and sitar.

The contest was conducted jointly by culture directorate and National Heritage, Lok Versa, Islamabad in two phases. The first round was held in Nishtar hall, Peshawar on September 11, 2015 in which 10 young, mostly students, rabab players were shortlisted for the final round out of 40 contestants while its final round was conducted on September 18, 2015 at Lok Versa, Islamabad.

Bilal Khan said he was in 6th grade when he got attracted to playing rabab as his elder brother used to play it at their hujra.

“I used to sit with him and observe him keenly. After getting a tacit permission from my uncle, I also began playing rabab without any tutor because my own brother was my inspiration and since then I am in love with this wonderful instrument,” he added.

Bilal Khan along with other friends Mustafa (guitarist) and Inam (singer) formed an underground band and made out videos and shared them on social media. “Being a conservative family, my father still doesn’t allow me to play rabab and perform in public. Amjad Shahzad, another of my friends and mentors, who is a good Pashto poet and an amateur singer, has helped me a lot to master rabab playing,” he said.

Bilal Khan said he gave equal time to his studies and music and had plans to promote rabab playing in future. Besides, Pashto he can play tunes of other languages including Persian, Urdu, English and Spanish effortlessly.

Recently, tune of a song in a Spanish movie ‘Desperado’ earned him widespread fame on social media. He said that Rabab was a fast fading string instrument and it should be preserved.

“Different experiments in Pashto music and poetry are being carried out now- a- days but not all of these attempts could benefit it, some even have elements of violence and vulgarity. Instrumentalist music is the most neglected area. We need to work on reviving our traditional music. I favour fusion of rabab with guitar not at the cost our own folk flavour,” said Bilal Khan.

He said that learning rabab was difficult compared to other traditional music instruments. However, he said that passion played essential role in learning a particular skill.

“I love poetry as well. Being an amateur player, I try every known language in the world to play its tune on my rabab. I strongly believe, I can spread love and peace through this talent,” he added.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2015

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