On Traditional Music of Kashmir and the Attitude of Kashmiri People Towards Music Listening

Abstract

Music is a big part of most people's lives and from times immemorial, has remained the most important medium of expression of human emotions. Music is used by people for many different purposes, for example to relax, to evoke memories, to get into a mood, to express emotions, to create an identity, or to regulate emotions. Only recently have the field of music psychology become cumulative in the understanding of how music express and induce emotions in listeners. Kashmir, Mathura and Benaras, in the bygone times, were prominent centres for learning art and due to ravages of time all the written evidence regarding the kind, type and form of music prevalent in Kashmir in the distant past has perished thus task of preparing a comprehensive historiography on music of Kashmir remained a difficult one. In this paper, we discuss the traditional music of Kashmir and attitude of people towards music listening. Music listening primarily evokes positive emotions in listeners and research has shown that positive emotions may be fundamental for improving both psychological and physical aspects of well-being. Besides from the music itself it is essential to consider individual and situational factors when studying emotional experiences to music. A sample of 400 (200 males and 200 females) respondents were selected for the present study using simple random sampling technique for collection of the data. Finally, suitable statistical techniques were used for analysis of the data and the interpretation of the results.