Music
Traditionally, there are three types of Kurdish Classical performers - storytellers (çîrokbêj), minstrels (stranbêj) and bards (dengbêj). There was no specific music related to the Kurdish princely courts, and instead, music performed in night gatherings (şevbihêrk) is considered classical. Several musical forms are found in this genre. Many songs and are epic in nature, such as the popular Lawik's which are heroic ballads recounting the tales of Kurdish heroes of the past like Saladin. Heyrans are love ballads usually expressing the melancholy of separation and unfulfilled love. Lawje is a form of religious music and Payizoks are songs performed specifically in autumn. Love songs, dance music, wedding and other celebratory songs (dîlok/narînk), erotic poetry and work songs are also popular. Kurdish folklore is a very rich one. Kurds have their own national attire. The women usually wear colored dresses.These dresses differe from area to another area. One can tell from which province or city a certain lady is by looking at her dress. As to the men, they have the "shalûshepik" or "rengûchox" a sort of baggy trousers "shirwal" with an upper shirt. Round the belt they tie a long piece of cloth. The men also use "shashik" or "cemedanî" with a "claw" on their heads. Kurds love to dance and they have hundreds of folk-dances.The music usually have speedy tacts and high tuned. They mostly use the "zurna" (kind of flute) and "Dehol" (drum". While kurds also enjoy melancholic maqams or ballads that usually tells about events from the past. Many historians use these ballads as oral history passed through the generations.
Read more about this topic: Kurdish Culture
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment—like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears;
Yet slower yet, oh faintly gentle springs:
List to the heavy part the music bears,
“Woe weeps out her division when she sings.”
Droop herbs and flowers;
Fall grief in showers;
“Our beauties are not ours”:
Oh, I could still,
Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,
Drop, drop, drop, drop,
Since nature’s pride is, now, a withered daffodil.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“But the dark changed to red, and torches shone,
And deafening music shook the leaves; a troop
Shouldered a litter with a wounded man,
Or smote upon the string and to the sound
Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)