How Rajasthani Folk band SAZ is experimenting with the sound of the desert

Sadiq, Asin and Zakir | Photo Credit: Courtesy: SAZ

The music of Rajasthani folk band, Saaz (a brief for Sadiq, Asin and Zakir) resides between traditional and contemporary space. Their original compositions create a lot of curiosity between community elders and music masters in the village. Urban listeners (who place them on stage for longer than employed and place them on stage) can inspect the music of that decoration, while their Milliyu and regional folk music are contained in the musical vocabulary, flying from a fresh perspective.

Talking after two demonstrations and a workshop at the recently held Remumbering Venpani Festival of Edishkat Theater, the band members said how the story of his original music is associated with the story of his band’s formation. “Divya Saab (Divya Bhatia, Curator of Jodhpur Rif) sent us to China around the end of 2019. We never thought of us. Riaz And do two shows every day for a week, ”Zakir Khan says Langa, whose dextrous khartal game as well as his singing is also received.

Asin Khan, the exponent of Aga Khan Puruskari and developed singer, Sindhi Sarangi, says, “Sadiq and I felt that when the three of us performed as a team, I was clicked something. We came to know each other’s music styles on that journey.”

Back to India, he played a concert in Mumbai and said he could go to China again but after that there was a long and uncertain break due to the epidemic. In 2021, when things opened a bit, they were in a meeting with Divya Bhatia when they asked him if he had thought of working together. Divya will not only become the creator of her band, but also a close aide and patron. When they welcomed the possibility of working together, they were shocked when Divya demonstrated the band shape on them, even asked him to write new songs.

Zakir says, “None of us have written our songs.” Connects Asin, “We felt that we already have a lot of songs. Why should we write?” Sadiq Khan, a member of the band who cleverly draws Melody with his chosen collision – Dholak, remembering that after the initial resistance, they understood that they could not emerge as a band until they found their signature music.

Band remembering at Venpani Festival. Photo Credit: Courtesy: Adishki

While Divya co-writes and gives place to arrangements, trio, make a story, find words and write the tune together. Divya digging them deeply and finds a more complete representation of the story that is the initial point of the song in her music, because – in the words of the band, “Our songs start in a story.”

Asin explains, “There is no raga, ragini or sa-gi-ga-ma in folk music. A raga, if present, is usually a story. Just as Surut is a queen’s story. Although Sadiq says, although Sadiq says, although the names of raga-like raga are revealed,” They are not an accurate match with classical raga and the rags are not an accurate match. ” In time, music was coded, “Zakir says. As a musician who plays with the ear, the music expression of SAZ is unfit from the theoretical perspective. However, he never learned through structure, with hosting international and local musicians, in various parts of the world, he can work with Western and Indian Center for Indian music.

SAZ members play and sing many instruments. If the online popularity of his original composition ‘Sundar Gori Re’ is anything, the music of SAZ is killing all the right notes.