Music Room

Music in South Asia

A young man who had studied tabla for two years and practiced two to three hours a night told a foreigner who was attending his class: “I feel like I’m only ankle-deep in an ocean of music there is to learn.”

If you’re an American and someone asks you to define American music, it may be really hard to pin it down to a simple definition. Rock ‘n’ roll, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, hip-hop, rap, heavy metal, classical, Tejano, klezmer, gospel, techno and myriads of other styles could be included in that definition.

Now imagine music in South Asia – where there are cultures that have existed thousands of years, exhibiting many different languages and featuring dozens of different instruments. Many of us may have a very narrow picture of what South Asian music sounds like, but the true picture is actually much larger. Therefore, consider these descriptions only a drop in the ocean of the kinds of music that come from the countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives.

Read about music in South Asia...

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music in specific South Asia countries.