By: John Baily
Ustad Rahim Kushnawaz (born in about 1943) is one of the most important contemporary players of the Afghan rubab. He is from a family of professional musicians in the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan. His father, Amir Jan-e Khushnawaz, received a training in the art music of Kabul in the 1930s, and from his father Rahim learned much of the classical repertory for his instrument. Two of Ustad Rahim's brothers and his son are also professional musicians.
The rubab is the quintessential Afghan instrument. It is a short-necked wasted lute, the lower chamber having a parchment sound-table. It has three melody strings and sets of drone and sympathetic strings, the latter giving the instrument its very characteristic resonant sound (as though it had a built-in reverberation chamber). The performance technique relies on a heavy down stroke with the plectrum, such that the right hand holding the plectrum often has a percussive impact on the parchment sound-table. The shortest sympathetic string is raised by a protuberance on the bridge so that it can be struck in isolation. In this way it serves as a high drone, used in a special technique (called parandkari) in which the performer provides seemingly endless patterns of rhythmic variations. Analysis shows that these patterns have characteristics in common with the geometrical with which Islamic art is so strongly associated.
Ustad Rahim is fully conversant with the art music of Kabul, which has close connections with North Indian classical music. He plays two types of instrumental piece with tabla drum accompaniment, the naghma-ye klasik ("classical instrumental piece") and naghma-ye Kashal ("extended instrumental piece"). The first is a simplified form of Indian alap and gat, while the latter is indigenous to Afghanistan. In these genres he displays great virtuosity in using the parandkari technique. He is also a masterful rubab accompanist for the singing of ghazals in the Kabuli style, a vocal art music genre that frequently uses texts from the great tradition of Persian classical poetry, often of a mystical nature. In this capacity he worked for many years in the ensemble of the celebrated Kabuli singer Ustad Amir Mohammad, who spent much of his life in the 1970s working in Heart.
The city of Herat is close to the border with Iran, and traditional Herati music has close connections with Persian music, particularly in terms of intervals. Kushnawaz has made a speciality of adapting this music to the rubab, and has added certain extra frets to the instrument in order to enable it to play the neutral seconds of Persian music. It is his wonderful artistry in rendering the traditional music of Heart that really distinguishes his virtuosity.
Kushnawaz's career as a musician has been severely disrupted by the political events in Afghanistan following the Russian invasion in 1979. For long periods of time he has lived in exile in Mashad, Iran. As a result, only a few of his recordings have been published in the West.[National Geographic]
Ustad Rahim Kushnawaz (born in about 1943) is one of the most important contemporary players of the Afghan rubab. He is from a family of professional musicians in the city of Herat, in western Afghanistan. His father, Amir Jan-e Khushnawaz, received a training in the art music of Kabul in the 1930s, and from his father Rahim learned much of the classical repertory for his instrument. Two of Ustad Rahim's brothers and his son are also professional musicians.
The rubab is the quintessential Afghan instrument. It is a short-necked wasted lute, the lower chamber having a parchment sound-table. It has three melody strings and sets of drone and sympathetic strings, the latter giving the instrument its very characteristic resonant sound (as though it had a built-in reverberation chamber). The performance technique relies on a heavy down stroke with the plectrum, such that the right hand holding the plectrum often has a percussive impact on the parchment sound-table. The shortest sympathetic string is raised by a protuberance on the bridge so that it can be struck in isolation. In this way it serves as a high drone, used in a special technique (called parandkari) in which the performer provides seemingly endless patterns of rhythmic variations. Analysis shows that these patterns have characteristics in common with the geometrical with which Islamic art is so strongly associated.
Ustad Rahim is fully conversant with the art music of Kabul, which has close connections with North Indian classical music. He plays two types of instrumental piece with tabla drum accompaniment, the naghma-ye klasik ("classical instrumental piece") and naghma-ye Kashal ("extended instrumental piece"). The first is a simplified form of Indian alap and gat, while the latter is indigenous to Afghanistan. In these genres he displays great virtuosity in using the parandkari technique. He is also a masterful rubab accompanist for the singing of ghazals in the Kabuli style, a vocal art music genre that frequently uses texts from the great tradition of Persian classical poetry, often of a mystical nature. In this capacity he worked for many years in the ensemble of the celebrated Kabuli singer Ustad Amir Mohammad, who spent much of his life in the 1970s working in Heart.
The city of Herat is close to the border with Iran, and traditional Herati music has close connections with Persian music, particularly in terms of intervals. Kushnawaz has made a speciality of adapting this music to the rubab, and has added certain extra frets to the instrument in order to enable it to play the neutral seconds of Persian music. It is his wonderful artistry in rendering the traditional music of Heart that really distinguishes his virtuosity.
Kushnawaz's career as a musician has been severely disrupted by the political events in Afghanistan following the Russian invasion in 1979. For long periods of time he has lived in exile in Mashad, Iran. As a result, only a few of his recordings have been published in the West.[National Geographic]
