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The Mark Slobin Fieldwork Archive, Music in the Afghan North, 1967-1972 (49)
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The Andkhoi Series (3)
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DescriptionAndkhoi is the town closest to the then-Soviet, now Uzbekistan border. It seemed the most remote, with the only public water supply being a common pond in the middle of town and a more pronounced Turkmen population signaling closeness to the border.
- MS62. Andkhoi V (1)
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MS68. Andkhoi XI (2)
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DescriptionContinuation of Ghafur Khān, Uzbek dutar.
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The Saripul and Qizilayāq Series (1)
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MS94. Saripul III, Qizilayāq I (1)
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DescriptionQizilayāq series, 4/12/1968: Recorded in a large purely Turkmen town, the only time Mark Slobin managed to be invited to that milieu, courtesy of the head man, a young fellow in his 20s, who hosted them, with a partridge-hunt in the tall grass, barbeque, and allowing Greta a chance to mix with Turkmen women, trying on their wedding clothes and jewelry. The music here, as with other Turkmen music Mark Slobin collected, is, by all accounts, pretty badly played by Turkmenistan standards, but does offer a benchmark for what people knew in a border area isolated from its homeland, with no training or support for professional musicians. Musicians were brought to them in a reception hall. Saripul III, 4/10/1968: Songs of a Jat woman and her daughter, copied from a tape made covertly by Mr. Rasul of Saripul. An unusual opportunity to hear another set of women's songs for celebrations.
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MS94. Saripul III, Qizilayāq I (1)
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The Southern Pashtun Series (1)
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DescriptionIn early 1968, not being able to travel north due to snow-blocked passes, Mark Slobin went south, accompanied by friends with contacts in Pashtun country, a region not covered by ethnomusicology to this day. It was the scene of fierce fighting and American engagement for years.
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MS118. Naim-Rezā I (1)
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DescriptionBābā Naim was one of Mark Slobin's major collaborators. He lived in Kabul, playing in the Radio Afghanistan orchestra and at the downtown Spinzar Hotel, so was readily available for taping and interview. He was a bit anomalous, being a Pashtun from Badakhshan, in mountain Tajik territory, but as a result, was versatile, as well as helpful. He often played with Malang, one of the great drummers on zirbaghali, the vernacular pottery vase-shaped drum (as opposed to the more urban Indian tabla).
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MS118. Naim-Rezā I (1)
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The Ziā Khojā Series (1)
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MS132. Ziā Khojā II (1)
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DescriptionContinuation of 10/6/1967 session.
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MS132. Ziā Khojā II (1)
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The Laghman Series (1)
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MS144. Laghman (1)
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DescriptionPlace: Laghman valley, Mark Slobin invited by Aziz Kakār, anthropologist, to visit his kinfolk during the winter when Slobin couldn't go north. Musicians: Rahman, from Diwa, Alishang valley, dambura. Aminullah, from Diwa, ghichak. Alāgul, drum.
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MS144. Laghman (1)
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The Radio 1972 Series (1)
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MS154. Radio 1972 (1)
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DescriptionThis was taped at the home of the Taymuree family, wonderful friends and collaborators of Mark Slobin.
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MS154. Radio 1972 (1)
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Film Footage and Monographs (11)
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DescriptionIn the mid-1980s, when VHS tape was available, Mark Slobin decided to transfer and edit some of the original Super8 footage into a film, for classroom and academic use, as there was no such survey of Afghan music available (and still isn’t). With virtually no budget, Slobin economized, making title cards by hand. The stock was ¾ inch video tape, "UMatic," the highest standard at the time. This was converted to dv format in 2016, so now the film represents three generations of film: Super8, VHS, and digital. Slobin found this conversion issue problematic, as he felt the aura of the original footage had been lost, particularly in the digitization that you see for all the footage, where decisions about color, sharpness, brightness, etc. had to be made for the pixel-by-pixel replacement of the Super 8, making it hard to get a sense of the original film stock’s visual narrative of the scenes inscribed on it by his small Canon camera. To flesh out the silent footage, I added sounds from my field tapes, sometimes arbitrarily (aerial footage, partridge fight), sometimes as close to sync as I could get for the music performance footage. For a closer, I picked a sunset shot and left open the question of what would happen to Afghanistan, which at the time was under Soviet occupation. Overall, it might be said that there is a slightly sentimental, if not nostalgic, tinge to the film. The content was designed to parallel topics in the book Music in the Culture of Northern Afghanistan.
- Musicians (2)
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Settings and Landscapes (9)
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DescriptionAs opposed to the musician footage to fix technical details of performance, Mark Slobin also shot a few places, thinking ahead to classroom teaching as well as fixing place memory for his work.
- Miscellaneous Field Cards and Photos (30)
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The Andkhoi Series (3)
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