Thesis on display: NCA students worry about lack of research on music

Artist explores problems resulting from increasing use of virtual instruments.

LAHORE:

National College of Arts Musicology Department students worry about the lack of research in the country not just into eastern music but also western music.

Some of the musicology students displaying thesis work spoke about lack of social approval of their decision to learn music.

The thesis display started on January 16. Most of the thesis are based on experiments with virtual instruments, local music and orchestra.

Naveed Ahmed has explored the dilemma faced by the local music industry owing to the increasing use of virtual instruments and sound-based technology imported from the West. Ahmed says his research explores how virtual instruments evolved.

Ahmed, who hails from Gilgit, says research in music is often brushed off as something “not so serious”. “We have had to face several hurdles in our research because music is not taken seriously in Pakistan”, he said. Ahmed says he interviewed 10 music producers from across the country. He says the local musicians were frustrated with the growing use of virtual instruments. “They feel threatened,” he says.



He hopes more research in this area. He aspires to pursue a Master’s degree in sound designing.

“A lot needs to be done on awareness front,” said Rufus Shahzad about lack of appreciation for classical music in the country. “People just don’t want to learn about themselves, their culture and their traditions or others’’, he said.

Shahzad’s thesis titled Translating Emotions into Music has seven compositions themed on seven emotions. Named Worship, Peace, Aggression, Heroic, Horror, Love and Sad, the compositions try to portray the emotions he says are felt by all. Each of the compositions is accompanied by a visual presentation. It took him 6 months to complete his compositions all produced using virtual instruments.



“My major concern is that musicians in Pakistan don’t experiment,” he said. A keyboard player for 10 years, Shahzad has been performing with local bands in gigs. What most worries the young musician is that there is research on orchestral music. He says orchestral music has never been studied in Pakistan. He says musicologists in Pakistan have failed to study other genres of music too. “To be quite honest, we don’t even study our own music. How can we study someone else’s?’’ he said.

His compositions produce orchestral music using virtual instruments. He hopes that in the coming days, the local music industry will open up to other genres, especially classical eastern and western music.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2013.