hardeep_singh said:
1. the song dhola has a big variety of instruments, mandolin, sitar, dholki, sarangi, flute, and other instruments i dont know of, so you could say it doesn't have traditional punjabi instrumentals. the beat pattern of the song is classic and ancient so you can't say its strictly punjabi.
You were not the person who originally said it was not Punjabi music, but thanks for answering with your opinion. I don't quite get what you mean by "you can't say its strictly punjab." I didn't say
strictly Punjabi, and I was not thinking in terms of "traditional" Punjabi, either. I was just curious why someone would say it was not Punjabi, period. The beat may be classic and ancient (how would we know?), but it is a rhythm used in Punjab in recent times...which happens to be rendered on "modern" instruments, but which is also something that is "Punjabi" music. Most of all, it is a song in Punjabi language which is set to music, which for most people qualifies it as Punjabi music.
i think everyone has their own concepts of whats traditional and folk in bhangra but the truth is no one really knows so its kinda dumb to conclude things. dhol, dhad, sarangi, tumbi, chimta are all ancient instruments and we have no idea how they were used in the past. our current concepts of these instruments come from what we know of the past 100 yrs or so, dhad sarangi are modernly associated with dhadi jathas, tabla vaaja sarangi are associated with kirtan, dhol tumbi chimta algozey are associated with bhangra. i dont see it as going against basic cultural sensibilities to associate dhad sarangi tabla vaaja into a bhangra performance, i see it as progressive. you can't define everything as nonsense because composition is the key factor, some instruments obviously clash and some compliment so it's up to the composer to realize what is going to sound good, i've heard bhangra songs that incorporate vaaja and i think it's sick if done correctly. lol all this talk of basic cultural sensibilities and "traditional ears" is BS, i would love to see a well composed live bhangra performance with like every instrument even remotely associated with punjab, yes even an amplified gharra! honestly i think an electric guitar would be amazing cuz it could easily fill in for vaaja or sarangi.
No one really knows? Ancient instruments? What are you talking about? We're not talking about Martians floating down on spaceships and what hand they scratched their nuts with, we're talking about precisely those last 100 years (or a bit more). We know nothing about whether bhangra existed or not much earlier than the 1880s, so the relevant time period is since then...during which time there has never been any evidence to suggest people played dhadds along with bhangra or that they stuck Cheetos up their nose while dancing bhangra; it's perfectly reasonable to say that while both those things may be enjoyable today, they are not "traditional."
The current concepts of many people do not in fact come from the last 100yrs, they come from last few decades only, fantasies created through media and then sometimes unknowingly recreated in real life. I am putting it in perspective of the "last 100 years" (or whatever reasonable period where historical info is available), not ancient times. Sarangi is not associated with kirtan, and dhad-sarangi are not just "modernly associated" with dhadis. Tumbi is a creation of Yamla Jatt from the 1950s...tumba/king were associated especially with a distinct genre of ballad-singing. This stuff is documented. Just because we don't know every single detail of everything that ever happened, it doesn't mean we know
nothing about the past.
Damn, all you have to do is listen to recordings (being made in Punjab since the 1930s) and you can see how things have developed from pre-recording pre-commercial era--"traditional" (=/= "ancient")--until recent decades...when they started mixing everything together mainly because it seemed to represent "Punjab" but it made no sense from the older musical aesthetic standpoint. It's probably because people, in modern cities and living abroad, were too distanced from those traditional aesthetics to be bothered by the clash. More important to them was that the music gives token effect of being Punjabi ("I hear a tumbi going 'twang-diddlyywang'...ah yes, brrrrrruah! it's Punjabi"). And if it is (now), then it most certainly is; if it sounds sickkkk (to someone), then it does. Hell, in California they seem to think that Ranch dressing should go on pizza. Let them enjoy it, but don't try to serve it to a New Yorker as a traditional pie.
I already acknowledged that whatever you want to do has some sort of validity. You're just dumb if you think it's
traditional. And if you disingenuously pretend you don't care about what is or isn't traditional, while all the while not acknowledging that a lot of the effect the stuff has on the audience is based in their belief (or suspended disbelief) that it
is traditional...then I call your bullshit and raise you.
G.S.
