Thursday, August 16, 2018

Carpe Diem #1499 Food For The Soul, music from Afghanistan


Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

We are staying in Asia for a while, because of the richness of the music of Asia. Recently I took care of a very ill patient from Afghanistan. He listened almost every evening to music from is motherland and I can say without a doubt that Afghan music is really beautiful. So today I love to challenge you to listen to an Afghan piece of music for your inspiration, but first I will give you a little bit background on this music from Afghanistan.

The Afghan concept of music is closely associated with instruments, and thus unaccompanied religious singing is not considered music. Koran recitation is an important kind of unaccompanied religious performance, as is the ecstatic Zikr ritual of the Sufis which uses songs called na't, and the Shi'a solo and group singing styles like mursia, manqasat, nowheh and rowzeh. The Chishti Sufi sect of Kabul is an exception in that they use instruments like the rubab, tabla and harmonium in their worship; this music is called tatti ("food for the soul").

Afghan rubab
I have chosen an example of Afghan folkmusic to inspire you.


A wonderful song I think. I loved listening to it and I hope you can appreciate it too. Of course I hope you will be inspired too by this song. This song inspired me to the following tanka:

along the river
I walk barefoot and listen
the voice of water
telling me stories from faraway
cherishing my tearful soul 


© Chèvrefeuille

As you all know tanka isn't really my "cup of tea", but I think this one has become beautiful (how immodest).

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 23rd at noon (CEST). I will try to publish our new weekend-meditation later on. For now ... have fun!


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