March 13, 2008

  • Fana-fi-Allah

    I thought they had to be on youtube, Tahir and Amena Chishty Qawwal.   The recordings are not outstanding in quality, done in a large echoing open space, with people moving around all the time. It's a tradition to shower the musicians with money....and traditionally, at least, South Asian audiences are much more participatory than Western ones, and in one of the youtube videos, there is a young girl 7? 8? dancing a few feet from the singing troupe the entire length of the video.

    But this brings me back....

    Watch, then think upon that I'm as comfortable in such a situation as I am shopping at Macy's, perhaps even more so.  I could slip into place next to the singers and feel as at home as I do now typing at my Dell in Chicago, my posture and gestures altering almost instantly, loosing the need to translate as I go and slipping into a monolingual state with Urdu in a few minutes.  Oh, I wish I could go back, even for a short time, oh so much do I wish that, so much so that it nears longing.  I find myself remembering lessons on the very different placement of the singing voice in this tradition, singing along when I can catch the words, singing open tones when I can't. 

    If I've got it right, the fellow with the white hat with the stripes around it singing  is Ustad Dildar Hussain, the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's tabla player, and Amena's teacher.  Remember is Nusrat's nephew and successor, Rahat, who teaches Tahir, the singer.

    I prefer a different clip to the one embedded here, so click if you don't mind going directly to youtube.  Embedding this one is disabled.

    my deepest regards to you all

    pearlbamboo.