PESHAWAR: A popular six-member music band has come up with new ideas to enrich traditional Pashto orchestra by adding new instruments that has been either alien to Pashto music or dead long ago.

Since its inception, every member of the band has been trying to do innovative experiences to enlarge the scope of the Pashto music and also to make it pleasant to ears of worldwide audience. Every member can play more than one musical instrument and the vocalist leading the band has sung new Pashto literary genres.

The Karan Khan music group formed 10 years ago with an objective to bring about drastic changes in Pashto traditional music orchestra without compromising its indigenous flavour and also to introduce and assimilate new musical instruments to enrich and expand canvas of harmonically-rich Pashto folk music. He said that experimentation was the soul of music.

In a chat with this scribe, the noted vocalist, Karan Khan, said that his band comprising of young artists had planned it during its inception to experiment with new tools and melodies agreeable not only for local audience, but also to the music buffs of other cultures . The artist said that modern musical instruments, including Baglama, Italian guitar, Cajon and oboe, had been integrated into Pashto orchestra.

We will continue experimenting with new ideas so that Pashto orchestra could compete with world music chart, says Karan Khan

Shaukat Panyal, member of the Karan Khan music band, said that he adapted just two months ago a new musical instrument with a French origin ‘Oboe’, which was a double reed instrument in the woodwind family. He said that it was one of the most beautiful, important and unique musical instruments. He said he had recently revived an old musical tool ‘Surna’.

Haroon Pakhtun, a tabla player in the band, introduced ‘Cajon’ a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front or rear faces with the hands, fingers, or sometimes implements such as brushes, mallets, or sticks. He said that he could play drum, dholak and table, but also added Cajon to Pashto orchestra to lend more spice to music.

Waqar Atal, rabab player, was no short of skills as he could also play every kind of stringed instruments. He said that he adapted Baglama since it was the most commonly used folk string instrument in Turkey . He said the addition of the Turkish to Pashto orchestra lent a new oriental touch cherished by listeners.

Shakir Arman like his colleagues remained busy doing new experiments and revived old skin music tool ‘Naghara’ a short-sized drum dead long ago. He said that he could play all types of skin tools and wanted to contribute to Pashto orchestra by reviving the old drum. He said that without rhythm no orchestra whether western or eastern could register its wholesome impact.

Mohammad Asif Khan, a young music composer, digitalised Pashto folk music tunes to keep alive original tunes even if tools were lost. He said that Pashto orchestra scoreboard got richer with inclusion of instruments from different cultures around the globe.

Karan Khan said he sang more than a dozen new literary genres of Pashto poetry and also synchronised his voice with English and German music.

“Pashto has worldwide audience because of the sweet melodies borrowed from their cultures. We would continue experimenting with new ideas so that Pashto orchestra could compete with world music chart,” Mr Khan said.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2019