Central Asia Music

People imagine Central Asia as desert but there are also fertile valleys, cotton fields and spectacular mountain ranges. Its republics- Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan- cover an area ten times the size of Britain, stretching from the Caspian Sea in the west to the Chinese border in the east. For many years their music filtered out as a peripheral and exotic sound from the Soviet Union, but with their independence the six Muslim states are revealing distinct musical treasures. The Central Asian Republics share a common historical and cultural background in the Islamic faith and- except for Tajikistan – their Turkic roots. The area is a meeting point between Turkic and Iranian people, culture and traditions.

Uzbekistan
In the late sixteenth century, Bukhara finally became an Emirate capital, and a cultured, cosmopolitan city with flourishing trade routes fuelling its bazaars. It was from this court the Shashmaqam , the most elevated musical form of Uzbek and Tajik culture, derived. It began as a royal music- in a world most familiar from miniature paintings- of princesses and pavilions, with women musicians, sitting on floors, playing on instruments like the gidjak (spike fiddle) dutar (long-necked plucked lute) and doira (circular frame drum).

A Shashmaqam ensemble of the classical period might contain two tanburs, a dutar, a gidjak and doira plus two or three singers. Today’s ensembles are much the same. The pre-eminent Uzbek performer ofShashmaqam and Uzbek classical traditions is Munadjat Yulchieva. The leading performer of instrumental maqam music is Turgun Alimatov- a master-performer on the dutar, tanbur and sato (a bowed tanbur) an instrument he himself revived. The main focus for Uzbek (and all of Central Asian) music is the toi – the rites of life and celebrations. Uzbeks have a beshik-toi (celebrated forty days after the birth of a baby), a sunnat-toi (for initiation into Islam) and the marriage toi and so on. A toi is also an important musical academy. It’s where musicians gain their experience of practical music-making.