Music is a sign of life. One of the most significant sound based tools, humans invented, is musical instrument which constitutes a half-mark of human civilisation.

Music is a collective endeavour designed to give expression to the deepest human feelings and experiences. It is an abstract art in its structure but very concrete in terms of impact it creates. It has magical power to bring people together.

Creating ambiance of togetherness is what music has always been about and still is. It is a uniting link between nature’s audio-landscape and man's ability to create expressive and meaningful sound. It creates a method in apparent noisy madness of our world.

Sound humanised in the form of music, silences the conflicting shades of human noise by expressing what is common and universally sharable among humans. Hence it carves out space for celebrating the unity of humans and their connectedness with nature which they are part of.

The tradition of music in Punjab is at least as old as Harappa civilisation. From folk music, simple and natural, evolved the highly structured and complex system of Ragas which to date caters to our moods which keep changing day and night in unending cycle of seasons.

Pure music, the music that does not need support of vocal, has been and still is a part of the tradition but it is generally appreciated by connoisseurs and trained ear. Vocal is the rage. Go anywhere in Punjab you will invariably hear the reverberations of music being sung or played somewhere. Folk music is the firm foundation on which stands the most elegant and intricate structure of our Ragas.

The very names of the Ragas explicitly hints at their origins, says the maestro of classical music Khan Sahib Bade Ghulam Ali Khan in his rare lecture recorded by Lahore Radio Station. The sweetest of classical singers of 20th century explores how folk music evolved into classical. The ragas are inexorably linked with the folk music of different areas and tribes. Raga Multani is the refined and structured expression of folk music of Multan and its surrounding areas. Similar is the case with Raga Jaunpuri.

Raga Marwa is based on the folk music of Marwa tribe of Rajisthan. Our music traversed a long distance from the fields to boudoirs. Since the classical music is highly complex, its learning demands decades of training and practice which in turn require patronage. In the changed historical conditions the patronage provided by Rajas and traditional aristocracy is no longer there. The state being indifferent and novo riches being philistines treat classical music as detritus of a decadent culture which has outlived its aesthetic function. So Punjab’s classical music with their ‘Asthais’ (first verses of the vocal/refrain) in Punjabi is dying if it’s not already dead.

Our folk music, thanks to the modern technology, is alive and kicking. Being a product of collective effort it opens the doors to human heart by touching the deep subliminal longings.

Singers like Tufail Niazi, Reshman, Surayya Multanikar, Attaullah Essakhelvi, Mansoor Malangi and Allah Ditta Lunewala revitalised the folk singing with such verve that it has now become an integral part of our rural and urban audio landscape.

Film industry with a view to reaching to the maximum number of people discretely used simple but charming patterns evolved by folk musicians. We find innumerable film songs produced by Bombay and Lahore studios that have been directly inspired by Punjabi folk songs and are hugely popular.

Young pop singers too borrow from the folk music and create new sound with the western instruments they are comfortable with. The tunes have an aura of freshness though the lyrics are awfully bad.

The repertoire of folk music is immeasurably huge as it continues to re-generates itself. Each coming generation adds to it. ’Dhol’ (kettle drum) based rhythmic patterns are what lifts the soul and creates ecstasy. Dynamic beat is the defining feature of our people’s music.

The Bhangra beat initially introduced by Punjabi bands in England is now a part of international music all across the globe. Many musicologists and researchers claim that ‘Tabla’ without which we cannot imagine the sub-continental music, originated from Lahore which has always been one of the leading centres of performing arts.

Music and poetry are organically linked in our literary tradition in such a fashion that it is almost impossible to separate one from the other. In the absence of modern printing technology in the past, the classical poetry, be it a legend, epic or lyrics, was transmitted from generation to generation through singing. It is not only that the classical verses of all hues can be sung, the greats like Baba Farid, Guru Nanak, Madho Lal Hussain, Sachal Sarmast and Khwaja Ghulam Farid employed Ragas as an element of their poetic compositions. The literary device informed by Ragas helped create ambiance that aimed at making the nuances of poetic expression accessible to the people.

Music preserves and promotes not only our literary heritage but also constantly explores the dynamics of the Punjabi as a living language which lacks official patronage due to the complete alienation of our elite from its cultural and spiritual roots. The Punjabi language has such a bond with music that young non-Punjabi pop singers also use Punjabi tunes and lyrics creating freshness of tone and tenor.

Our music cannot die as long as we speak our language and our language cannot disappear as long as keep singing. Sound and word define the specifics of a society. The society that loses its sound and word loses its soul and mind. Our elite can afford to live its cultural aloofness in sick silence but the people with their esprit de corps always go beyond the parameters of a soulless and mindless world. But going beyond does not necessarily mean that we drown ourselves in a commercially driven cacophony of electronic and digital sound lacking any cultural and aesthetic substance. The commercial incontinence that soiled our tradition of music must be resisted by reviving the acoustic music that embodies the distinct spirit of our culture. Elite’s cultural impotence is a shame which only their liberal support for aesthetic sound can expiate. If we disown our music we disown all we have. ‘Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life,’ Beethoven reminds us. — soofi01@hotmail.com