Jamming with faqeers

I'm convinced that the term 'faqeer' (fakir, fakeer) needs some clarification here in Europe. What people associate it with is nothing more than a bed of nails, even though the issue is a bit more complicated. Unfortunately, even a google search would result in a majority of links related to asceticism. 

I'm lucky enough to have heard a lot about musician faqeers on my wanders. In the case of faqeers, instrumental and vocal skills run in the family from generation to generation, and talent is paired with a performing style to which listeners attribute transcendental, even spiritual wisdom. Faqeers transmit a passionate love for life with much emotion and authenticity, through the channel of Baul poetry which cannot be separated from music itself. Of course, all of this can also become a mere routine, I have seen such examples. However, playing music with the Baul faqeer Das brothers was an experience for me that was so much more than a gesture of cultural diplomacy - it was a real 'feast'. The collaboration took place in Joydeb, West Bengal, and was organized by banglanatak dot com. 

One just has to come to terms with the idea that in the far-away Eastern landscapes the seven beat as we know it is structured as 3/4, not 4/3. Having learned from my experiences in 2017, I came with a list of Hungarian folk songs in major scale, minor scale, or mixed variations, so that I would be able to find the right tune when the time came to respond to my partners' musical phrases.

In the course of these collaborations there is not an opportunity to prepare for the actual moment of sharing music. One must respond immediately to the other musician's playing. The random fusion that is thus originated, of course, cannot be compared to a composition, a work of art. It would be a mistake to evaluate it with the same means. This is rather a moment when one can experience the encounter of two cultures.

One of the brothers played a dotara (a small stringed instrument), while the other was strumming a percussion so far unknown to me, called khamak. It had a bulky, open drum body, with a string stretched out of it. As he kept changing the length of the string, the instrument made a uniquely mystical sound.    

After a few minutes of faqeer music, the dotara player removed the rattle from his toe, and handed it to me. Finally we started our shared song, into which I 'smuggled' some Csángó Hungarian tunes. Experimenting with parlando-type melodies and forcing them onto the grid of rhythmical accompaniment would be in vain. It's a much better idea to throw in a song that the partners are able to follow, whose structure is easy to comprehend. After a while, we reached the moment when the dotara was more or less able to follow my singing, and what we got was - with a bit of an exaggeration - just as much Hungarian as it was Baul.

The result sounded something like this:

A retreat to Bhawaya land

The only thing that I find physically challenging in India is long train journeys. And in a state the size of West Bengal, you cannot get away with less than 10 hours of travelling if you want to reach landscapes where not only the climate, but the culture is also different.

I visited a place in the Darjeeling area, near the Nepali border - but Bhutan or China were also quite close. I felt a bit confused at the sight of ladies dressed in saris, but singing in a style and tone reminiscent of the Far East - even China. Although the dhol was also present here, the dominance of the stringed dotara recalled cooler, more Northern lands.

The Bhawaya – as they call themselves – sing in the Kamtapuri language, but they also speak Bengali and Hindi. I sat down with a Bhawaya group to pair three of their songs with Hungarian folk tunes. Again, I had to restructure the beat patterns a bit, but was pleased to hear that the scale was suitable to take in Trans-Danubian folk melodies. The Bhawaya artists - each one a soloist of their own - put their performing egos completely to the side, singing as a choir - and I responded to their music with Hungarian tunes.

As always, my flutes were with me from the five-hole kaval to the 'holeless' tilinkó. The Bhawaya flutist tried them each, and immediately formed a 'symbiosis' with my six-hole Gyimesi flute! It didn't bother him that he had to play it holding it the European way, rather than sideways. He played fantastically, even used it for the video shoot. 

Here's how:

This collaboration project was also staged by banglanatak dot com.

Next I will share about my time in Pakistan... more short videos are constantly uploaded onto my facebook page.

As I prepare to fly to Pakistan and do a concert in Karachi, songs of the Sindh area echo in my mind. It's time to mention one of my absolute favourites, and although he is no longer alive, even the youngest generation of Sindhis would agree that he is the greatest icon of Sindhi folk.

This person is none other than the legend Alan Faqeer, who sang the most beautiful Sufi songs in the velvety Sindhi language, and who had the ability to joke with his audience with as much ease as he could make their eyes well up with tears. In the following video he does the latter, although he cannot hide his naughtiness either. This video also teaches us how to tie a Sindhi turban... Alan Faqeer presents songs in a very typical, Pakistani Sufi style, which to me is reminiscent of the somewhat further away located Azeris and Turks... more specifically, the ashiq singers... the ones enamoured with life. 

So, here is the song Tiri pawanda tarien... and the performance speaks for itself. I don't only mean the rough vocals, but the revealing of the white of the eye, a sign of ecstasy.

To make the picture more complete, let me introduce you to Alan Faqeer's son, a true nurturer of this heritage. We immediately sense that he is a completely different personality, but sometimes the tone of his father's voice glitters through his vocals. 

Let me also add a happier song performed by the father. It's about falling asleep... hence the reason he is seen pretending to snooze. The audience always expected him to do this "stunt", which made the performance quite unique. (The most interesting part of the show starts at 1:57.)

As a conclusion, here is the same song performed by representatives of a younger generation... a Sufi rock band, The Sketches. Falling asleep in this version is not so keenly accentuated: 

It happened more than a year ago. I was staying in India, not long after Lahooti Melo festival (Hyderabad, Pakistan) ended, where I represented one of the colours on a beautiful palette of cultural extravaganza. The festival had taken place in a part of Pakistan where various ancient Sufi shrines are located, each one bearing the name of a famous Sufi personality - just like the shrine where Latif's (Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, 18th century poet) compositions are performed several times a day. I had not visitied it, but the faqeer musicians who do their daily service there, were transported to the festival venue, so I was able to witness their performance.

As I said, I was in India when this shrine was shaken by a bomb blast with several casualties and seriously injured. People were queuing at the hospitals to give blood, and soon the shrine's community joined forces to come together and fill the walls of the shrine again with music and dance, standing up against extremism. 

Musically speaking, the singing of faqeers is everything but "velvety", and yet, anyone who has heard it, believes to have taken a plunge into eternity... The song emerging from strong male throats - an essence of Latif's Sufi poetry and Sindhi folk music - does take us back a few centuries. 

The poems stem from a love story of Sindhi and Rajasthani folklore. The tragic tale of Momal and Rano is mingled with Islamic mysticism... The stringed instruments (ektari) and throaty voices weave a "carpet" of sound, which is often rended by high-pitches cries... signs of ecstasy.

Let me show you what I mean. Here is a group of faqeers in a studio/living room in Jamshoro, presenting a composition in the usual structure: starting with free style, and then joining into a beat (the latter starts at 8:27.)

Here is how the same musicians performed in a Coke Studio production:

The one-year anniversary of the bomb blast was celebrated not long ago. To make the story complete, let me add a video from the celebration. It's a Sufi dhamaal performed by a contemporary Sufi singer, Arieb Azhar. The atmosphere speaks for itself. It would be great if the people who talk about Pakistan anywhere in the world, would also remember to mention this kind of humanity, love for life and matchless unity against evil.

As I promised, I will present some more instruments from the depths of Tharparkar. Not only because they can produce tunes that are melodious and mystical at the same time, but because  - interestingly - these instruments are familiar to the people of my own homeland as well. Hungarians do recognize them, and immediately assume a cultural link between this area and the Carpathian basin and around... perhaps forgetting that it's more difficult to mention an area on the globe where the jew's harp has not been know since ancient times, than a place where it has always played a role.

I met Ali Mohammad Roonjho last year in Hyderabad. Inside a tent, at the backstage area of the Lahooti Melo festival he was preparing for his performance. Killing time, he kept picking jew's harps of various keys out of a basket (from now on, let me just refer to the instrument as 'chang'). I took the courage to fish out a chang from the basket as well, and placing it to my mouth, I began to play it. He immediately signalled that I was holding the chang the wrong way. I should finger it from the outside inwards, not from inside out... even though that was the way I had learned to play back home!

Here is a short presentation of how he and his brother play the chang together. They look so similar... I'm actually in trouble telling which one is Ali Mohammad. Judging from the hand position, my guess is the one on the right.

And now, for another duo.

I am utterly shocked every time I see two-handed playing style in Sindhi music. 'Two-handedness' is a phrase I coined when I first saw that a musician happily played two instruments at the same time, even though another musician was sitting next to him... who, in a far from economical manner, also played two instruments simultaneously. And, what do you know? He played the same two instruments. Sharing of chores in music seems to be an unknown concept in this area. To add a bit more thrill, in the video below, both musicians are playing three instruments. A rattle always comes in handy to make the sound more complete. And who would dare say that the rattle is not an instrument?

(Let's ignore the fact that the sound was recorded before the video itself. That is why the image is not in perfect sync with the music.)

I will introduce another instrument that needs no introduction in Hungary. It's the boreendo, a wind instrument. Compared to the bheen, it's really just a play thing. Yet, it produces the sound that makes any Sindhi man's eyes glitter.

Next time I will tackle shrine music, although in much less detail than I should. I genuinely hope one day I can visit one of the shrines. That will be a future project.