Lowell H. Lybarger Collection of Pakistani Music Materials

Dr. Lowell Lybarger is a music librarian, ethnomusicologist, and tabla player based in Arkansas. He serves as the Music/Multimedia Librarian at Arkansas Tech University and is Director of their Music Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Toronto, an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from the University of Washington, a Master in Library Science from Kent State University and a B.A. in Anthropology from Rutgers University.

Dr. Lybarger was born in Lahore, Pakistan and grew up in the United States. He developed an interest in Hindustani music and the tabla while studying anthropology at Rutgers University. After graduating with his B.A., he went on to do a Masters in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington. There he met the well-known Pakistani Sufi musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who suggested that he study the tabla in Pakistan. Supported by the Fulbright program, Dr. Lybarger lived in Pakistan from 1994-1996 while conducting ethnomusicological fieldwork and studying with the renowned tabla master Ustad Shaukat Hussain Khan. During this time, he produced a considerable amount of video field recordings which documented Pakistani Panjab tabla music and collected various related print materials. After graduating with his M.A., he went onto do a PhD in Musicology at the University of Toronto. In 1999, while working on his PhD, he returned to Pakistan to continue his fieldwork on tabla music. His 2003 thesis, titled “The Tabla Solo Repertoire of Pakistani Panjab: an Ethnomusicological Perspective,” utilized the extensive archive of fieldwork that he had collected in Pakistan from 1994-1996 and 1999. After obtaining his PhD, he returned to Pakistan in 2004 and 2007 to work as a UNESCO consultant and professor in musicology for the National College of Arts and Sanjan Nagar Institute of Philosophy and Arts. In 2006, he completed a MLIS degree from Kent State University and soon after worked as a technical consultant and archivist for a preservation project at Radio-Television Afghanistan, a project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2007, he accepted a position as the Music/Multimedia Librarian at Arkansas Tech University where he works today.