Uyghur culture: muqam and more

2025-01-02T22:53:00Z

Christy: ?In 2005, I traveled to Kashgar, China, to teach an American Culture course for students from Kashgar Teachers' College. Each morning, before class, the Uyghur students gave us hour-long Uyghur culture lessons. If I have learned anything about the Uyghurs, it is that they are very proud of their culture, especially their traditional music and dance. Even with the recent conflicts that have errupted there, bringing unprecedented global awareness of the Uyghurs, there is still not much to be found on the Web about their vibrant culture. However, I just discovered this web site out of the U.K. that is the most comprehensive site I can find on Uyghur music, including images of their traditional costumes and instruments, as well as a plethora of excellent recordings (including The Twelve Muqam, a piece of music that takes twenty-four hours to perform!). The thing my students asked of me before I came back to the States was that I tell America about Uyghur culture, so it is my pleasure to honor their request. Oh, and one more thing: the Uyghurs love America. They would want me to tell you that, too.?

Uyghur music embraces several distinct regional styles, product of the geography and complex history of the region, whose oasis kingdoms, separated by mountains and deserts, have been subject through the course of history to rule by many different outside forces. The musical traditions of the southern oasis towns of Khotan and Kashgar are more closely allied to the classical Central Asian traditions of Bukhara and Samarkand, while the music of the easternmost oasis town of Qumul has closer links to the music of Northwest China. Each of the region’s oasis towns have to this day maintained their own distinctive sound and repertoire, but they are linked by a common language and overarching culture, maintained by constant communication through trade and movement of peoples. Musically there is much to link these local traditions, in terms of instruments, genres, styles and contexts. The most prestigious and well-known genre of Uyghur music are the large-scale suites of sung, instrumental and dance music known as muqam. In addition to the muqam the Uyghurs maintain popular traditions of sung epic tales (dastan) and other forms of narrative song (qoshaq, leper, eytshish and maddhi name), suites of dance music (senem,) instrumental music, musical genres linked to the rituals of the Sufis, and a large repertoire of folk songs which commonly dwell on the suffering of life on earth and the torments of frustrated love. . . .

from "Music of the Uyghurs," by Rachel Harris and Yasin Muhpul, London Uyghur Ensemble

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Uyghur culture: muqam and more