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Quraishi


Twenty years of war and the Taliban’s systematic repression have taken an incalculable toll on Afghanistan’s instrumental music world. With a little searching, you might be able to find historical field recordings from thirty years ago, or current synthesizer pop music made in the Afghan diaspora. But as the world music scene continues to explode around the globe, the vitality and immediacy of traditional Afghani artists making traditional Afghani music for our times has been conspicuously absent. Until now. Quraishi’s father made him his first rubab, an ancient instrument belonging to the short-necked lute family. It is traditionally made with a single piece of mulberry wood with a skin face, often richly ornamented with inlay of bone and ivory, and even occasionally encrusted with lapis lazuli or mother of pearl. There are typically three melody strings (now usually made of gut or nylon) and as many as twenty sympathetic strings that are variably tuned to the modes or ragas, imparting a deep resonance and unique timbre to the national instrument of Afghanistan. Indeed, his family lineage and earliest influences include musicians and instrument makers. While growing up in Kabul, the self-taught artist quickly became well-versed in the folk styles and regional genres of the numerous ethnic groups, including the Pashtu, Uzbek, and Tajik. Quraishi also steeped himself in the discipline and formalistic principals of classical Hindustani music theory that constitute the ...

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