Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to identify and describe some of the key influences of music within contemporary culture. The museum offers two examples: a qawwali written for a Hindi film, and a qawwal whose music reached audiences far from where his art began. Music in advertising, the tastes of young people and other influences your class must bring from elsewhere. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- C3.1 identify and describe some of the key influences of music within contemporary culture […]
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Where do you meet music outside a concert?
List the places where you heard music this week: a film, a shop, a bus, a home. For each, ask what the music was doing there.
How does music travel from one place to another?
Follow a route in each of the two examples: from a scene to a song, from one country to another audience. Compare what changed and what stayed.
Go deeper
In the film Rockstar the hero, Jordan, can express himself only through music, and his music takes in the places he passes through. 2 When he is thrown out of his house, he goes to the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, spends time with the qawwals and plays with them. 2 Out of that journey into music and life, the article says, the qawwali 'Kun Faya Kun' was composed. 2
Think about it
The song was written for one scene of a film. What would a song need so that someone who has never seen the film still feels it belongs to that scene, and why?
Into the museum
- Kun Faya Kun: who composed and sang it, how long the track is, and the award it won.
- Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: his work on film scores and the albums that took qawwali to wider audiences.
- Mirchi Music Awards: the ceremony of 21 March 2012 where the song was honoured.
Try this
Read about the qawwali Kun Faya Kun. Make a table with two columns: what the film scene needed, and what the song gave it.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Kun Faya Kun (Rockstar, 2011) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A qawwali written for a film scene. 'Kun Faya Kun' is a qawwali composed by A. R. Rahman for the 2011 Hindi film Rockstar, directed by Imtiaz Ali, and dedicated to the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya. The article recounts that when the film's hero is thrown out of his house he goes to the Nizamuddin Dargah in Delhi, spends time with the qawwals and plays with them, and out of that journey the qawwali was composed. What can a song add to a scene that words alone cannot?
In your own words: what does Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A qawwal and a wider audience. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948–1997) was a Pakistani singer above all associated with qawwali, the Sufi devotional song of Pakistan and India. In 1988 he worked with Peter Gabriel on the score of The Last Temptation of Christ and in 1989 signed with Real World, reaching a wider audience with albums such as Mustt Mustt (1990). He also scored Indian and Pakistani films and performed in over forty countries. Who listens to music that comes from far away, and why?
I can now