Writers in Arabic and Persian have used notions of impression, effect, or influence, ta’sīr, to express how qualities of human character correspond to the sounds of music and poetry, and argued that the latter can actually shape the former.

Focusing on the tradition of singing in the region of Darvoz—literally the gateway to the mountainous historical region known as Badakhshan in Tajikistan and Afghanistan—Richard Wolf, Professor of Music and South Asian Studies at Harvard University, will make two points:  1) the relation of “presence” to “impression” is concretized through different forms of musical transmission, and 2) texts are seen to impress themselves on listeners by particular musical means.