Uplifting Nepalese Society with Music

good afternoon

it’s such a wonderful opportunity it’s a

privilege for me to be here in front of

you

to talk about music so as i’ll be

talking about

the role of music in society especially

the society where

we are raised up

where we were born that’s uh the

nepalese society

and also about musical heritage

and some of my experiences as a musician

may have the slide please

so to begin with that’s the place where

i was born

that’s uh eastern nepal it’s a pastor

district

and the village is called mihil bhuti

so he is one of my elder musician

brother who played

the my music and symbol

as a child he played for

the entire village for auspicious

occasions or during

wedding ceremonies etc you know

but later i came to know that he donated

one of his

kidneys in order to save life of

one of our villagers and then

uh so i decided to

meet him after several decades two

decades indeed

meet him so i went back to pather and we

recorded some music

which was later produced even

post-produced by

some several grammy-winning record

producers so

this is uh the kind of exchange that

we have been doing in the field of music

so as a child

there was no music in the village

music as in performance uh

i mean the contemporary music there was

no media

the radio in nepal was established in

1950s or only 1951

so therefore i was not able to learn

any music theory but i was fortunate

enough to

learn from the friends and elders

the musicians local musicians and i was

able to witness

the local music tradition of my village

so that is how

maybe that music

was somehow

in a way indirectly cognitively

helping me out to become a musician

because my initial goal was

not to be a musician

you know so

and gradually my parents

they decided to send me to

some good school so i was

after my grade five i went to virat

nagar

and then i saw my first guitar when i

was in class

eight i mean i was able to touch that

guitar and i was self-taught

guitar player since then and later to

become a medical doctor when i came to

kathmandu

i studied science here at saga

one of the boarding schools

music was already a big passion in my

life

i had already recorded some music when i

was in school

so i thought why not continue

music as a career so i was not able to

express that interest to my

family or to my elders to my parents

but i found this beautiful place

at carfunny university the department of

music which offered

fully fleshed courses in ethnomusicology

in south asia so there i started to

study bachelors in ethnomusicology

meanwhile i was also

you know recording music performing with

bands like loser

it was kind of participatory observation

because i was playing music i was

producing pop music

i was winning highest national awards i

was

achieving a big success in the field of

popular music in nepal even

with rock bands when i played uh we

really enjoyed the concerts

but i was learning uh by then you know

so i was

in that way manor i was introduced uh to

the popular music scene on the other

hand

i had deep love towards the local music

tradition of our country

and i was very lucky that

i started to study ethnomusicology at

kaufman the university

so the academic approach the performance

and everything was there in my life so

i decided to de-learn a little bit

because uh uh

you know i decided to

figure out my own responsibility as a

human being

as a nepali citizen towards my own

country or

towards the society or towards the

people

and warm people like uh

you know the musicians from my village

so i decided to um

learn their music so for that i had to

travel

uh from places to places and i chose to

do my

uh psd in ethnomusicology therefore i

was

able to travel seven different districts

and many other places in nepal

and i was able to learn some of the

instruments like

saranghi arbajo or some newar

drums and certain other local musical

instruments and i was also able to uh

learn how to

uh make the musical instruments

so therefore your you know it’s just

i would like to remember all these

people you know who are extremely

talented than

us and uh uh it’s a

it’s it’s already a very pleasant

uh it’s very pleasant to think

you know even think uh that nepal has

125 ethnic groups with vast

and diverse uh musical traditions

uh cultures so and then

some ideas popped up in my mind that is

how i learned sarang actually

it was learning by doing i was playing

sorry but i was also writing

a song so sometimes it’s really

hard to learn such small instruments

locally made instruments

and thanks to all the musicians from all

over nepal

so later i started to record

and produce music by incorporating such

instruments

uh like sarangi arabajo or some other

kind of instruments and also having some

poetry song songs included

in the music and it was kind of

very inspiring and also i was able to

learn every day you know

uh investigate different instruments

learn new sounds so that is how i’m

spending my life and i hope

uh i’ll continue this way but

there was a big question uh always on my

mind

that was since 2011

after i started to travel across the

country

you know combinedly we taught the

department of music african university

my supervisor and

you know we always discussed about

how can the musical heritage of nepal

be documented analyzed

uh not only archived or not only

preserved but also applied uh

process so these were the ideas that

popped up

on our minds always every day

and we decided to

we came with an idea of amalgamating

tangible heritage with intangible

musical heritage

for the future generation you know in

order to

not only create an infrastructure or a

platform but also

to continue the musical traditions of

nepal

so next slide please

so those were my pop rock days

i was performing uh some of the concerts

with some guitar player there’s hari

maharaja

next please so that was the idea

uh the amalgamation of tangible heritage

with intangible musical heritage

next please so in order to do that

we decided to

not only think you know come along with

some action plans

and we decided to restore and rebuild

a heritage site

in order to incorporate blend

the intangible musical heritage of

and an academic institution like

karfundi university

definitely plays a vital role that is

what we thought because

university what we believe is we

university is

that platform it’s a laboratory for

knowledge it’s

uh you know the knowledge can be

transmitted

endlessly uh through

any universities so that’s the uh

basic principle we kept in mind and uh

so while uh

and then the university leaders

or uh we musicians

i started to work at kaufman university

by then full time

we decided to restore tripura sundari

that’s a

place built by queen lalit

tripura in 1800 1880

in memory of her husband

next last slide please so that was the

situation of

temple post earthquake that’s april

2015 earthquake effect of the earthquake

next one please that was the situation

subtles and the complex before the

earthquake

so it was

it was not built as it was in 1800 1880

so we started doing some certain

research work we

worked with some architects we worked

with some uh

you know experts in the field of

heritage restoration

and then we decided to restore it

uh in in the meanwhile we were

documenting we

had been documenting the musical

heritage of nepal musical traditions

so these are the ideas and later my next

slide please so now we are in this

state we have 115

workers and colleagues

who are working with musicians like us

but the greatest thing is they are

greatest artists you know

the wood carvers and and it’s a

malachalin

malla period architecture so it’s very

fascinating for us

the next please

so the pinnacle of the temple you can

see that

it was completely destroyed by the

earthquake now we have

so one of our colleagues he worked for

five months he and his team

and it was restored it’s again kept

there

next please

that’s the outfit of pinnacle now uh the

gajur

next and uh

not to forget you know for such projects

because music in nepal for us

as a musician since childhood days like

i said earlier we did not have

music education set up for music

education or research or

even set up for psd studies in nepal so

these were very challenging but now

there are

big leaders even thanks to the

university vice chancellor

who has been great supporter uh

for this uh work and they also

have supported uh this idea amalgamation

musical heritage with tangible heritage

next please so that was

uh the vice chancellor dr ram

he went and he met an instrument maker

he’s a

he uh he’s the last remaining instrument

maker of this instrument called

pantervanam it’s in east nepal japan

district

but now we are trying to restore their

tradition also the santal tradition

next please so that was the picture i

took

five years ago almost uh

and that’s phantorvanam and that’s

katvanam

you know the transmission of music how

music transmits from one generation to

another

so nepal is a big example for oral

tradition

nepal doesn’t have any specific

kind of musical guidelines for music

learners or or the nepalese instruments

uh they are not yet

standardized properly so

we are trying to

formalize the musical tradition of

all these local musicians

by keeping alive their musical heritage

the rich musical heritage

next please so

musicians from different communities

they work with us these days

under the umbrella of kathmandu

university department of music

that is one of the biggest staves in the

field of uh local music

and ethnomusicology in nepal i think so

the future

uh is

it seems it’s very very hopeful we can

remain very hopeful it’s very bright the

future of music and

music education in nepal next please

so these are the rich traditions i just

wanted to show you some pictures

next so that’s the infrastructure that

we have

envisioned uh that’s the first draft

because in nepal musicians uh

normally uh it is believed that they

have to play

music only or they have to

but but music as an academic subject or

music the the research areas in music

it’s vast you know

it can be interdisciplinary it can

musicians can collaborate with any other

fields in

a way so we have been collaborating with

engineers architects

and so on in this project

uh so that’s the

queen tripura sundari who built

tripureshwar

so there are two basic things that i

wanted to share today

one is the multi-ethnic nepal

the music of nepal can play significant

role

not only you know to entertain

people or for the contemporary

medias or musicians but uh

in order to promote

inclusion the federal

nepal you know and we please we are

seeking

so much of identity so if we are able to

apply our own heritage our own skills

and uh create new dimensions in any

field

i think nepal will progress a lot uh

thank you so much and at the end i will

be playing another song for you it’s

called

samaz thanks a lot

[Applause]

so this is uh this instrument is called

arabaza

uh it’s also known as arbajo and arbaj

this is the male counterpart of female

sarengi as per the kandarva musicians

this instrument uh was rarely played

in 50s and 40s 1950s 40s

but later on the gander was they stopped

playing this instrument

and the reason behind that they said

during interviews

is because of the size and because of a

limited

you know uh it’s it’s not that versatile

that surrenders

that’s what they said

but it was such a great opportunity for

me to

uh learn how to make this instrument

i collaborated with hari gandarva in

kasky took us

29 days and then i wrote a song for a

movie

the song is called samaz i would like to

play that song for you

[Music]

but

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casing

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the

[Music]

thank you thank you so much

you