Lemar-Aftaab - Oct-Dec. 1997 - Arts -Ancient Musical Instruments of Afghanistan - Nabi Kohzad translated & edited by Farhad Azad

Ancient Musical Instruments of Afghanistan

By Nabi Kohzad

Translated from Dari & Edited By
Farhad Azad

In ancient Afghanistan(Ariana), there were three distinct types of musical instruments: dandweehi, wanaa, and yunaa. The windowed instrument, dandweehi, is the present toula (flute), the string, wanaa, is the current tar, and the bass, yunaa, is the modern dowl. All three instruments were heard in the prominent court of Yama (the first king of Ariana) four thousand years ago.

The toula(flute) is perhaps the oldest and simplest instrument that is still played throughout Afghanistan. It is regarded as the instrument of the shepherd. The toula is wooden and painted in decorative colors, and it has six fingerholes on the frontal plane and a single thumbhole on the dorsal plane.

The oldest string instrument in northern-eastern Afghanistan is the tar. The simplest appearance of this instrument has two strings which is still found in the villages of Nuristan. The songs and melodies that the people of Nuristan sing have not altered when they were first sang four thousand years ago and where and are accompanied with the tar instrument.

The most common and widely played bass instrument in all parts of ancient and present Afghanistan is the dowl. In day to day life of rural Afghans from weddings, to work, or to farming the dowl is regularly played. It has always accompanied the attan(dance) since antiquity and in present times the dowl is played while performing the national dance which originated form the province of Logar.

In time, these unique, three instruments evolved into other forms and migrated to different parts of the world. The tar evolved to diverse, distinct forms: dutar, sitar, shashtar, tambour, and later made its way to the West as the guitar. The ancient flute(toula) of ancient Baakhtar(northern ancient Afghanistan) reached China via the silk roads. It is said that the ancient mountains passes and valleys of Afghanistan where once filled with tunes of these rhythmic instruments, and if you listen to the wind at night in an Afghan valley, you can hear the ancient, harmonious melodies played out in the breezes that blow.