PESHAWAR: A group of artists who gathered at a local hotel here on Saturday advised budding folk singers and instrumentalists to turn to social media for widening scope of Pashto traditional music and creating space for its marketability for earning livelihood to feed their families.

Depending on government or private resources would no more serve the purpose and as such adopting modern techniques, including social media, is inevitable for survival, the artists said and stressed that the upcoming generation of vocalists and instrumentalists must learn how to market their artistic skills.

Young folk artists paid musical tribute to Czech- based popular folk singer, Haroon Bacha, for his contribution to folk music.

The budding singers sang out beautiful Pashto tapas (three liners) in the style of Haroon Bacha as he had pioneered it in the late ’90s.

Young folk singers, including Azhar Khan, Moez Khan, Bilawal Syed, Inayatullah and Shaukat Swati, performed with traditional orchestra in synch with sequential music.

Pashto music would touch new heights once the new entrants in singing availed of a free platform where they would not only earn handsome livelihood, but also promote Pakhtun culture.

Adopting modern techniques termed must for promoting traditional music

“Quality music and content would not be comprised,” remarked Ziyad, Zafar and Ahmed, the trio of sequential composition.

Noted folk singer Bakhtiar Khattak while launching his own YouTube channel (Latoon) said that taking advantage of his long experience in the field he along with his colleagues were determined to provide a platform to young artists so they could become self-reliant and sell out their music products on social media without investing even a penny.

He said that he started a search a month ago for young and old artists who had never appeared on mainstream media and could not use modern tools to market their art.

He said he was able to trace out several young vocalists from different KP districts, including Swat, Malakand, Mohmand and Mardan.

Mr Khattak said he had made out a list of about 250 artists who had no resources to produce their own music stuff on social media.

Shaukat Swati, a young artist and PhD student at the University of Peshawar, told this scribe that an artist had to pay Rs15, 000-20,000 for producing one audio song while a single video song would cost him/her Rs150, 000-200,000 which he said the artists could not afford.

Moez Khan said that efforts would also be made to bring forth the talent of women singers and a mobile team well-equipped with digital studio facilities had planned to visit southern KP districts for hunting down potential artists.

Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2021