The whole world is busy searching for asian songs online and downloading Thai, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Philippine and Arabian music in the World Wide Web. Not just that, a glance into the history of music reveals the story behind the large variety of asian music.
Asian music history offers multiplicity of instruments, performing arts, well documented events and desires of people with diversified styles.
The asian music history comprises of Music of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan (Central Asia), China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan (East Asia), Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (South Asia), Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines (South East Asia), Arabia, Cyprus, Iran, Israel, Turkey (West Asia)
Musical Instruments
The peculiarity of Central Asian Music is its instruments which include flutes like Sybyzgy, Choor; flutes like Tar, tanbur and Rawap; fiddles like Kyrgyz and Ghijak; drums like dayra, kettle drums and framedrums; Jews' harp, stringed instruments like Rubab, Komuz, Dutar, and Bombra.
It is believed that the string instruments were first used by the nomads who created music instruments with the help of snake skin and horsetail.
Who can think of tuning the sounds of birds with pipes made of bamboo? Well, the legend Ling Lun of China did which marked the history of music in China in West Asian Music History. Historians have traced West Asian Music history even in 1122 BC.
The roots of western asian music history can be traced to Qin dynasty, tang dynasty, Han dynasty etc. Music was given utmost importance in ancient china where kings examined the popular will by sending officials to collect songs from the people.
Types of Music
South Asian music history particularly of India is an assortment of Folk, popular and classical music. The traditional Indian music encompasses Hindustani and Carnatic music which claim their origins to the Vedas.
Purandara Dasa, the profounder of Carnatic music is accredited as the "Sangeeta Pitamaha" (Grandfather of Carnatic Music). The folk music history which covers Bhangra, dandiya, Bauls, ganasangeet, Qawwali, Rabindra Sangeet, Lavani etc., are popular even today.
The culture of West Asia and South East Asia is different and so is their music history. While the west Asians invented the ghazals a mixture of European and latin American styles can be found in South East Asian music history.
The Arabic poetry gave birth to music in Arabia and the slaves and the female harem in Arabia has given a large contribution towards Arabian music.
The Thai traditional music is very much similar to that of Laos and the thai instruments klong thap, klong jin, jhake and klong kaek are greatly influenced by other asian countries like India, Persia, China and Indonesia.
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