Musical Healing in Eastern Tajikistan: Transforming Stress and Depression through Falak Performance

The present article falls within the burgeoning area of medical ethnomusicology, which has emerged over the last several years as a bona fide specialty within the realm of ethnomusicological studies. The field has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers, scholars, and practitioners across diverse disciplines in biomedicine, the social and health sciences, physics, ICAM (integrative, complementary, and alternative medicine), medical anthropology, religious studies, and of course, music and the humanities.¹ Additionally, this article emerges from a long-term research program within the understudied region of Badakhshan, Tajikistan, where certain genres of music, prayer, and related practices that are central expressions of cultural identity and religious belief function in individual and complementary ways to promote health or facilitate healing. Among the multiple applications of specialized music that fall under the broad, local categories of musiqiye shafâi (healing music) or musiqiye darmâni (music medicine, remedy, healing) is the role of music to assuage one's pain or even cure a person afflicted with the ills of stress or depression. A vast body of research across disciplines in the humanities, social, and health sciences shows that stress and depression are pervasive throughout the world, pose major health risks, and can cause the development of numerous conditions and diseases.² After more than a generation of Soviet control and oppression, a subsequent devastating civil war, and a decade of slow struggle to begin the process of rebuilding, Tajikistan is no exception to the ills of psychological distress and depression. One of the most important musical responses to stress and depression in Badakhshan is the performance of falak.

Initial Thoughts on Falak

Broadly, falak (lit. "heaven," "universe," "fortune") is a musical-poetic genre of lament that is intimately linked to local religious beliefs and the related genre of maddâh (lit. "praise"), which is the foremost religious music among the Isma'ilis of Badakhshan.³ It should be mentioned at the outset of this article that there are many types of falak, which are performed in a host of different contexts and serve many different functions in Badakhshani culture, only one of which is to promote health and facilitate healing by modulating stress and depression. For instance, as a remnant of the politically constructed folkloric ensembles that were used as propaganda during the Soviet era, today, falak can be found performed on stage as entertainment or at formal and informal social gatherings, parties, and celebrations. As a particular kind of musiqiye khalqi (folk music, music of the people), as opposed to musiqiye asil (classical music) or musiqiye dini (religious music), which have specific, sometimes strict rules that govern performance, falak is much more flexible in its rules and requirements for performance. Hence, one might find falak being performed in vastly different situations, with varying degrees of seriousness, in both secular and religious contexts.

This article focuses on one type of falak that is approached as a spiritual practice by certain performers who carry the title falakkhân (here khân means "singer" or "reciter"), which most often refers to male performers, but is also a general term for any performer; or falakzan (zan means woman), which is an equivalent title that specifically refers to women performers. The title falakkhân or falakzan usually indicates that a performer has a high level of expertise and fills a social role in the community by performing falak on certain occasions. There are also many performers who do not have these formal titles but who also perform falak as a regular practice of prayer. The falak participants (singers, instrumentalists, and listeners) with whom I worked describe the type of falak that is the focus of this article as being centrally spiritual in nature, and functioning in ways that can promote health and healing by lessening or eliminating stress and depression.

Some Concerns of Medical Ethnomusicology

By building upon local views and interpretations of falak, an equally important concern of this article is to explore principles and processes that underlie this culture-specific genre, which can contribute to the broader discourse in medical ethnomusicology and provide insight to...