Persian Music Meets West

LAHTI UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED

SCIENCES
Faculty of Music
Music Performance
Bachelor Thesis
Spring 2012
Afshin Ardalan

Lahti University of Applied Sciences

Degree Programme in Music
ARDALAN, AFSHIN:

Persian Music meets West

Bachelors Thesis in Music Performance, 33 Pages

Spring 2012
ABSTRACT

I have based my bachelor Thesis on the presentation of a completely different musical world, compared with the western musical world, which is Persian Music.
As a Persian, I started to study music as a Persian Setar player; then I followed
my musical experience through western classical music by playing classical guitar. As an ambition I have always thought about how to express Persian music in
an understandable way for that of non-Persians. In this thesis I began with a short
history of Persian music and then presented Persian Music features such as: Musical intervals, rhythms, instruments, improvisation, and also embellishments which
have a great role in Persian Music. At the end I have mentioned some of efforts to
implement Persian music on western musical instruments and at last I have represented two of my own compositions in Persian Music for the Guitar to compare
the two completely different worlds. I also performed a Persian Music concert
both on Setar and Guitar and put the DVD of the performance as an appendix.
Keywords: Dastagah: In Persian music they use the term Dastgah for mode.
Gushe: there are some melodies to perform a Dastgah called Gushe
Radif: is a series of melodies including Gushes to perform the Persian Music
Dastgahs

Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1
2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ......................................................................... 2
3 PERSIAN MUSIC TYPES ................................................................................ 5
3.1 Persian folk music ....................................................................................... 5
3.2 Traditional art music in Persia ..................................................................... 6
4 INTERVALS AND SCALES IN PERSIAN MUSIC ........................................ 7
4.2 The 22 tone scale ........................................................................................ 8
4.3 The theory of flexible intervals.................................................................... 9
5. PERSIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS ........................................................ 11
5.1 Woodwind instruments ............................................................................. 11
5.2 String instruments ..................................................................................... 12
6 RHYTHMS ..................................................................................................... 16
6.1 Ryhthms in general ................................................................................... 16
6.2 Rhythm teaching ....................................................................................... 20
7 ORNAMENTS................................................................................................ 21
7.1 Tremolos ................................................................................................... 21
7.2 Shalal ........................................................................................................ 22
7.3 Added notes and appagiaturas ................................................................... 23
8 IMPROVISATION ......................................................................................... 25
8.1 Improvisation types ................................................................................... 25
8.2 Rhythm changes ........................................................................................ 26
8.3 Melody or song changes ............................................................................ 26
8.4 Embellishment changing ........................................................................... 26
9 PERSIAN MUSIC ON WESTERN INSTRUMENTS ..................................... 27
9.1 Persian violin ............................................................................................ 27
9.2 Piano in Persian traditional music.............................................................. 28
9.3 Solution for the Persian irregular intervals................................................. 28
10 MUSICAL EDUCATION ............................................................................. 29
10.1 Notation .................................................................................................. 29
11 PERSIAN MUSIC ON THE GUITAR .......................................................... 31
11.1 Bakhtial for guitar solo ............................................................................ 31
11.2 Moaleff for guitar solo ........................................................................... 32
REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 33

II

1 INTRODUCTION
It has always been such a controversial subject: how to arrange/compose Persian
music for western Well-tempered instruments, because of the Persian music features which are completely different from that of western music, considering its
irregular intervals including quarter-tones or lets say three quarter-tones and how
to employ the harmony concept in Persian music.
Several years ago when I started to play Setar I wished to represent Persian music
also for other than Persian people; when I found the Guitar I thought this one
could be the solution. Then I tried to translate my homeland music to the western
musical language. I decided to take some very nice Persian melodies and arrange
them somehow in a way which could be understandable for both Persian and nonPersian people. For sure, by omitting the Persian music irregular intervals it was
impossible to recite all of the Persian music expression. In order to show these
matters I organized a Persian music concert and played some pieces on the Setar
and then I played two of my own composition in Persian music on the Guitar.
The piece Bakhtiari is composed in Homayoun Dastgah and based on a Bakhtiari
folk song: Dast be dastmalom nazan it goes through some variations and reaches to the one Azeri mode and back to the Homayoun at the end.
In the piece Moalef I have used some folk music and composed the whole piece
around them; the first one is the Moalef Gushe in Homayun mode then there is a
modulation to Dashti mode and it reaches the Deylaman Gushe and back again to
the Moalef; In addition I have used some special techniques to resemble some
Persian instruments like Setar and Ud .

2 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
We do not know very much about the earliest Persian civilization music. Great
music scholars like Farabi (tenth century), Ebne-Sina (eleventh century) and Safioddin Armavi have left us very important musical knowledge, but there is not
any credible document before Farabi. The Persian Empire of Achamenean dynasty
(550-331 B.C.) has revealed almost nothing about their music. But Greek historians have written some about Persian music; as Herodotus mentioned the religious
rituals of Zoroastrians which involved a chanting of sacred hymns and Xenophon
in his Cyropedia speaks about the martial and ceremonial music of the Persian
Empire.

The first documents from the Persian music which have come to us are from the
Sassanian Period (A.D. 226 642). In the court of Sassanian they hired musicians
such as Barbod, Nakisa, Ramtin and Barbod the most illustrious musician in the
court of Chosrous 2. Numerous stories have been told about his skills as a performer and composer, he organized a musical system containing seven modal
structures known as Royal tones (Xosrovani), thirty derivative modes (Lahn) and
three hundred and sixty melodies ( Dastan). The numbers correspond with the
number of days in a week, a month and a year. (Farhat 1990, 3)

After the Arab invasion of Persia, for almost six centuries Persia was nominally in
the framework of the vast Islam Empire; Arabs found a more advanced culture
compared with that of their own. Persian musicians were imported to any corner
of the Islam world. When the seat of the Caliphate moved from Damascus to
Baghdad, within the former Persian territory, Persian musicians and scholars in all
fields became the dominant figure in the formation and development of Islamic
culture. (Farhat 1990, 3)

From the sixteenth century to almost the beginning of the twentieth century, musical scholarship seems to have suffered a decline. During the period of Shiite ascendancy, however, the musical performance was patronized by the imperial court
and by the nobility both in the Safavid dynasty (1501-1722) and the Qajar dynasty
(1785-1925). In fact the twelve Dastgah were presented in the Qajar period, but on
2

the other hand musicians were isolated and the music was under a cloud of suspicion. British orientalist writer, Edward Brown, has written: Sultan Ibrahim-Mirza
was a poet, industrialist, calligrapher and musician who was killed by his brother
Shah Ismaeil second Safavi in the year 1976. (Farhat 1990, 17)

( Khaleqi

1955, 18)

At the time of Nasereddin Shah (1264H.GH), Amir-kabir who was the prime minster of Persia, established the Darolfonun School. When Amir-kabir knew about
the academic education system in Europe he decided to improve the education
system in Persia and to study new sciences like engineering math and new medical sciences in order to train specialists in these categories as well as army officers. He hired teachers from Austria and France. Unfortunately he was fired from
his job by the conspiracy of the courtiers, sent to the Kashan and killed there. Anyway, some years later, when there was a need for the military bands, the music
school in Darolfonun was established. In this school they hired a French musician: Jean Babtiste Lemire and two Austrian musicians. The aim of this school
was to train wind musical instrument players for military bands and trainers to
manage these bands. In this time the first music theory book was published for the
students, translated from Lemires lessons to Persian with the original French
texts. Later more European teachers were hired to teach Solfege and theory. It
should be mentioned that Jean Babtiste Lemire for the first time, wrote some Persian songs for Piano, at the period of Mozaffar-eddin Shah.
This music school had been a part of the Darolfonun School but later it worked
under the culture minister and gained the name: Music School which was the first
academic organization in musical education. (Khaleghi 1955, 164)

In the beginning of the twentieth century, during Pahlavis dynasty (1925-1979),

modernization and westernization led such musical happenings as establishing the
Tehran conservatoire and symphony orchestra besides traditional music concerts.
After World War II musical life in Tehran in particular was comparable to that in
large European cities; a very active opera company, a fine symphony orchestra, a
ballet company, chamber music groups, music festivals and concerts by visiting
international artists provided a crowded musical life for the capital.

Since the revolution of 1979, music has been placed once more in a position of
disfavour. Only a certain amount of music activities which are in the service of the
states ideology promotion is being encouraged. (Khaleghi 1955, 170) (Farhat
1990, 17)

3 PERSIAN MUSIC TYPES

In fact there are two main distinct types of Persian traditional music: rural folk
music and urban art music.
The folk music of Persia has a great variety because of its population and diverse
ethnic groups, and the Traditional Persian Art Music is a body of pieces which
have been transmitted from generation to generation by the memory of a limited
number of musicians and it included 12 Dastgah. These are modes and they have
nuclear melodies which the performers perform and modulations, so called Gushe,
which any performer can freely improvise through.
For sure the folk music of different parts of Persia is also subjected to definition
by the Dastgah concept, but it consists of particular songs, like any other kind of
folk music.

3.1 Persian folk music

Iran is such a vast country with many ethnic tribes of people who live in different
parts of the country and each ethnic group has its own culture and music. The music of each part of Iran varies with the language and dialect of the area. Persian
folk music consisted of certain songs which could be used in weddings, funerals,
religious events, harvest, fishing or.it can only be sung by a singer or played on
an instrument or in an ensemble depending on the situation.(Farhat 1990, 2)
Among the Persian folk music types we can name for example Azeri, Kurdi, Baluchi, lori, Gilaki, Mazani, Khorasani, Qashqai, Torkman, folk music of southern
Iran and more.
It is very easy to find the roots of rural traditional music in the folk music. In fact
musicians have gathered the Dastgahs by collecting Maqami music from different
parts of Persia.
There are a great amount of very beautiful tunes in Persian folk music which some
Persian and non-Persian composers have used in their compositions, and which

musicians have arranged some nice melodies for different instruments, singers and
other ensembles, including traditional Persian or other western ensembles.

3.2 Traditional art music in Persia

The tradition of Persian art music embodies in twelve modes: so called Dastgahs.
Each Dastgah contains some certain melodies which a musician can perform entirely, improvise around them or compose some music based on the character of
the Dastgah. Each Dastgah contains some melodies known as Gusheh from which
it is possible to do a modulation to the other ones. Any performer represents
skeletal melodies with great variation, depending on the freedom and his personal
interpretation. Within the modal restraints the music is fluid, subjective and highly
improvisatory. Therefore the wealth of this music is not in complex rhythmical
patterns, nor in polyphony which it does not employ, but in the many modal possibilities and the cultivation of embellished melodies in a very illusive and personal way. Each Datstgah has its own proper name and it opens with an introductory piece; a so-called: Daramad(entry). Twelve Persian music Dastgahs are:
Shur, Segah, Chahargah, Homayun, Nva and Rast-Pandjgah. Four of the five
remaining are classified as Derivatives of Shur: Dashti and Abuata, and the last
one is derivative of Homayun: Byate-Efahan
The pieces which have been collected to represent the skeletal melodies of Persian
music Dastgahs are called Radif. The pieces, other than Daramad, in each
Dastgah are Gusheh in which, as already mentioned, it is possible to modulate to
other Dasdtgahs. Other Persian musical pieces terms which are frequently used
are: Pish-Daramad(overture), Chahrmezrab(four strokes, rhythmic instrumental
piece), Zarbi(Rhythmic), Reng(Dance), Tasnif (Ballad).(Farhat 1990, 2)

4 INTERVALS AND SCALES IN PERSIAN MUSIC

There are three theories about Persian music intervals. The first one, which was
done in 1920 by Ali Naqi Vaziri, identifies Persian musical intervals based on a
24 quarter-tone scale. The second one was done by Mehdi Barkeshli in 1940 and
defines Persian music intervals within a 22 tone scale. And a third one was presented by Hormoz Farhat who is representing Persian Musical intervals within
five intervals with which all of the Persian Musical modes are constructed and
does not recognize any basic scale concept.(Farhat 1990, 7)

4.1 The 24 quarter tone scale

In fact the idea of dividing scales into equal intervals is an outcome of westernization in Persian music. Some of the musicians who studied western music have felt
the absence of harmony in their music and they tried to find a solution. In western
music, the smallest interval is a semitone. They were aware of the fact that it is
not possible to represent Persian music with whole-tones and semitones when
their music contained unmistakably some other intervals, so they represented the
quartertone as the smallest unit.
Western musical influences begin in Persia by the second half of nineteenth century when Naser-eddin Shah who ruled from 1848 to 1896, visited Europe on three
different occasions. He was impressed by the ceremonies where military bands
were performing music. After his first tour to Europe he ordered the establishment
of a musical school to train musicians for his imperial military band.
This school, which was organized and taught by the French instructors, was Persias first contact with the occidental music and led to some results such as:
through the western musical theory they learnt fixed pitches, major and minor
scales, and keys which had no connection with their native music. They found the
advantage of music notation which had never been used. Actually there was not
any written document about Persian music except of some treatises in medieval
times. In the study of harmony they were impressed by the novelty of playing
more than one voice at the same time and the need for a methodical pedagogy in
Persian music.
7

Among these students, Ali Naqi Vaziri was the first student who sought a music
education in Europe and he studied there for eight years. After returning to Iran,
he established a music school of his own and trained young musicians according
to western methods. He composed numerous pieces for solo instruments as well
as songs and operettas, published some methods for Tar and Setar and a book
about Persian music theory known as Musiqi-e-Nazari. In this book he presented
the theory of the 24 quarter-tone scale and wrote about the twelve Dasthgah in his
personal manner. (Farhat 1990, 8)

4.2 The 22 tone scale

Mehdi Barkeshli was a physicist by profession. His theory is based on the theories
of some medieval writers such as Abu-nasr Farabi and Safiaddin Ormavi. In the
time of these medieval scholars the Pythagorean intervals of Limma and Comma
were the basis for fretting the musical instruments, the octave contained two tetrachords plus a whole tone. Each tetrachord consisted of five pitches and four intervals. The five pitches were named after the open string by the name of the fingers which press the string of the Ud. If we take the open string C then other fingers could be:

Motlaq

Sbbabeh

Vosta

Bansar

Xansar

Between the Motlaq( open string) and Sabbabeh( 1st finger) is a whole tone, the
position of Vosta is subject of controversy, but it could be a minor third (according to some research), from Motlaq, the Bansar was located on the position of a
major third from Motlaq and there was a whole tone interval between Bansar and
Xansar.
According to Safiaddin Ormavi the intervals between the fingers positions could
be described within limma and comma in a tetrachord were:

Motlaq

Sbbabeh

Bansar

Xansar

Limma Limma Comma

90 c

90c

24

Limma Limma Comma

90

90

24

Limma
90

The division of this terachord was duplicating for the second conjunct tetrachord
and the whole tone between tetrachord was also two limmas and one comma, so,
the Ormavies octave is:

L+L+C - L+L+C L - L+L+C - L+L+C - L+L+C - L

After several centuries in which no theoretical research was taken, in 1940 Mehdi
Barkeshli did a series of tests among the reputable musicians. He recorded some
songs in various modes and analyzed them. From the results Barkeshli concluded
that the whole tone and semi tone intervals in Persian music are stable and they
are the same Pythagorean intervals. The major tetrachord is 206+204+89=499
which is the same as Pythagorean tetrachord.
In other tetrachords he found three variants of Db and Eb. These three intervals
were 89c, 120c and 180c. By counting them you can see how he introduced his
theory of 22 tone scale. (Farhat 1990, 10)

4.3 The theory of flexible intervals

This theory, represented by Hormoz Farhat in the book the Dastgah Concept, was
opposed to earlier mentioned theories. He frequently mentioned that there is no
such an interval smaller than the semi tone. Unlike Barkeshli who made his tests
among singers he did the measurements on the instruments: Tar and Setar. He
used two Tars and three Setars which were fretted by reputable musicians. As the
result, he found the relatively stable whole tone and semitone. The whole tone was
approximately the same L+L+C (204 cents); the semitone was never larger than a
Limma (90 cents); and intervals which are larger than a semitone but smaller than
a whole tone called neutral tones are very flexible. He found the smaller neutral
tone about 135 cents and larger one 160 cents. He also mentioned another
unstable interval which is bigger than a whole tone as 270 cents called plus tone.
According to Farhat, the scale concept is not employed in Persian music and all

Persian modes can be expressed in a tetrachord or pentachord. The octave is not

significant. In certain modes a range of pitches beyond the limits of an octave is
needed, as in the higher octave some notes are different from what they are in the
lower octave. As you can see the fretting system of Tar and Setar in one octave
below, there are seventeen frets in an octave, but no chromatic is used. (Farhat
1990, 15)

90 c.

Db

45 c.

Dp

70 c.

90 c.

Eb

45 c.

Ep

70 c.

90 c.

65 c.

F|>

65 c.

Gp

70 c.

90 c.

Ab

45 c.

Ap

70 c.

90 c.

Bb

45 c.

Bp

70 c.

90 c.

10

5. PERSIAN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

In this thesis I am not going to present all of the Persian musical instruments but I
just want to present some of the very popular instruments which are related to the
subject of this thesis.

5.1 Woodwind instruments

NEY
The Ney is probably the oldest pitched instrument known by the human being.
The Persian Ney consists of a hollow cylinder with five finger holes and one
thumb hole. Sometimes a piece of brass or plastic is placed at the top in order to
protect the wood from damage. The Ney player creates the sounds by putting the
top of the instrument between his/her lips and blowing into it. The Ney player
controls the pitch and tone quality using tongue and lips. The sound range is about
one and half octaves, depending on the Neys length.

11

5.2 String instruments

TAR

Persian Tar consists of a double-bowl shaped body made of mulberry wood which
is covered at the top by a thin membrane of stretched lamb-skin, a narrow long
neck ends at an elaborate peg box. The finger board has twenty six adjustable gut
frets and there are three pairs of strings which are tuned in unison, only the last
string is one octave lower. The tuning system is C, G and C and its range is about
two and half octaves. It should be plucked with a small plectrum made of brass or
horn.

12

SETAR

One of the most popular Persian musical instruments is the Setar. This string
instrument consists of a small curved body with a lengthy fingerboard and has
four metal strings, two single cords and one double which are tuned as C, G and
C and the last one, like the Tar, is normally is tuned one octave lower. The word
Setar in Persian means three strings and earlier it had three strings; but later a
Setar player called Moshtaq added another string, and for this reason the fourth
string is named Moshtaq. There are several tuning sets for the setar, depending on
which Dastgah (mode) is going to be played. It is played by the index finger nail
which is sounding mainly two cords, the other one is usually a pedal note and for
this reason it should be tuned differently in different modes. Like the Tar, it has
twenty six adjustable gut frets and has the same range of two and half octaves.

SANTUR

Santur is a Persian hammer dulcimer. It has a trapezoid shaped box made of

walnut. The normal eight bridges Santur has seventy two strings arranged in
groups of four placed on two moveable bridges which should be played by a pair
of oval shaped Mizrabs (mallet). It has a three-octave range. In order to play in
different Dastgahs, the Santur should be tuned differently or sometimes bridges
should be moved. For this reason a Santur player needs different instruments to
play in different Dastgahs. There is also a bigger Santur which has eleven bridges
and the biggest one it called a chromatic Santur, but this last one is not so popular.

13

KAMANCHEH

The most famous bowed string Persian Musical instrument is Kamancheh. The
body has a long upper neck and a lower bowl-shaped resonating box made of
wood, which is covered with a membrane made from lamb or goat skin. From its
bottom protrudes a spike for support while playing. It has four metal strings
whose tuning system could be variable. Earlier it had three strings but since the
Violin has come to Iran, Kamancheh players have added the last strings. I should

mention that after the Violins arrival to Persia most Kamancheh players prefer to
play Violin instead of this instrument which is more progressed and comfortable
14

for players; especially because of the skin which makes for some difficulties in
tuning and sound quality in different temperature and humidity conditions.

5.3 Drums

Among the Persian drums The Tombak is the most popular one, especially in
ensembles.

TOMBAK

The Tombak is a single-head goblet drum. Its shell is carved from a single block
of wood which is covered with a stretched lamb-skin or goat-skin. It is held
horizontally across the players lap and is played with the fingers of both hands.

15

6 RHYTHMS
6.1 Rhythms in general
Persian rhythms with its dynamism and great variety create an exciting feeling of
coordination within the vital beating of the body of the listeners. These rhythms
are in two main groups: first, rhythms which do not come from poems, but which
derive from the instruments possibilities, and secondly, music which is inspired
by the ancient dances or pop music. For example, these two rhythms in 2/4 bars

-- Or the rhythm below which is known as Shir-e-madar

The second group, which are rhythms inspired by poem rhythms and are mainly in
groups of three

There are also some other poetic rhythms, like 7/8 in Chahrbagh Gusheh in AbuAta:

-- Or in this rhythmic formula:

16

-which are mainly used in the poetic rhythms, but when a musician is going to
sing a phrase on this rhythmic pattern, it can be adjusted to his own taste until it
could be consider a free rhythm.

Beat is sometimes apparent and sometimes hidden. A musician can be free from
the exact rhythms of the note and manipulate the melody to the point that listeners
cannot recognize the beat structure.

Earlier, when Persian musicians tried to write down the traditional music, they
found that some complicated rhythms were not possible to write using the
European rhythm reading, they thought that this could be the mistake of players,
singers or even that it derived from Persian music. They tried to simplify them
into two and three beat rhythms. Therefore, a big amount of musical pieces lost
their characteristics.
But now some faithful musicians attempted to retrieve pure original rhythms
which do not correspond with the simple time signatures and tried to correct these
mistakes. It is so simple to understand that the time signatures dont not have a
great variety which if we skip the complex time signatures (like 3+4=7 or 3+2=5
etc.) there is only 2/4, 3/4, 3/8, 4/4 for simple time signature and 6/8, 6/16, 9/8,
9/16, 12/8, 12/16 for compound time signature. But Persian Music is such a
flexible music which is corresponding with the inner beats of the performer than
some certain fixed time signatures.
On the other hand it is possible to imagine a melody in 6/8, but in 6/8 rhythms
which are completely different.

For example:
Mehrabani:

Reng

17

Tasnif

Another unusual characteristic

It is so simple that, these beats are not in 3+3 but for example could come as 4+2.
To show how wide a musicians creativity can be, we imagine the same melody in
5/8 and 7/8 time signature:

1. Five beats
A

18

2. Seven beats

Another characteristic of Persian rhythms is the mixing of them without losing the
balance, from one time signature to another one. For example mixing 6/8 and 2/4,
which of course needs good skills. We can see it particularly in Chahrmezrab
form.

In addition, a rhythmic formula could repeat continuously during a piece.

Another rhythmic pattern is used in Zange Shotor (Camels bell) which is
associate with a continuous camel caravan moving in the desert:

It should be mentioned that Saba and Shahnazi, Persian music maestros have
narrated the Zange-Shotor rhythm as above. But maestro Maroufi has written that
rhythm in his Seven Persian Dastgah book in 3/8:

The difference between these two narrations shows two styles of setting the
camels bells. In other words, old caravan riders had recognized that camels are
very sensitive to music and rhythm, therefore they hung special bells to the
camels neck and adjusted them in these two ways in order to motivate the gentle
and continuous moving of camels; Farabai who knew the magic of music, used
the same feature and adjusted the camels bells in a way that their rhythms (unlike
the two rhythms above) motivated the camels to go faster.

19

We should not forget that the improvisation role in the rhythm territory is as important as in melody. The singer or player is always free to use improvisation
within the rhythms frame and add embellishments in order to diversify the music.

6.2 Rhythm teaching

In teaching the rhythms in Persia they only play the rhythm. But sometimes they
teach the rhythms using simple syllables called Atanin as in this formula: tan
tanatan

Or by using melodic syllables without considering their meanings, as in these

two formulas below which are from maestro Hosein Tehrani:
1. Yek sado biso char

2. Bale o bale o bale dige

And for complicated ones used some poem. For example:

1. dowlate eshq amado man dowlate payande shodam

3. eshq ajab alami ast

In some cases they used some comic sentences in order to teach the rhythmic
patterns. (Safvat 2009, 159)
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7 ORNAMENTS
In fact, one of the most essential characteristics in Persian Music is the
development of ornamental musical phrases where their variety and selection is
dependent on the skill and taste of each artist. Ornamental musical phrases play a
big role in all music in eastern countries. In India they believe that: a note
without embellishment is like a night without moon, a river without water, a
flower without smell or a lady without jewelry. This poetic description is also

true of Persian music and we can say that a Persian musician doesnt play any
note without ornaments.

There are two types of ornaments in Persian Music: obligatory ornaments and
personal and free embellishments.

7.1 Tremolos
Persian tremolo includes several groups of embellishments. Usage of tremolos in
Persian music is sometimes like that of the mandolin, to fill the long notes but the
point is that in the mandolin they start a tremolo with a strong pluck and then
equal up and down fast plucks, but in Persian music after the first stroke there is a
very little pause, after which it continues with a very soft tremolo. For example
this small phrase in Kereshmeh Gushe which we can write simply:

But we should write it:

21

And we should play it

One other nice, moving tremolo is shown here:

Sometimes instead of staying on one note during its length it is possible to divide
the tremolo between the principle note and next one:

The musician is free to add more tremolos by playing them faster and also by
giving longer length to some notes, of course when it is possible in rhythm to
make a longer tremolo.

7.2 Shalal
It is very usual when we play a plucked instrument to often play the first note of
the phrase with three four or even five fast strokes which is called Shalal.

Sometimes it is necessary to play these small tremolos before the beat, in order to
play other coming notes on time:

22

In some cases the ornamental notes just come after the principle notes:

Which will be played:

7.3 Added notes and appoggiaturas

In this type one little note will be placed on two principle notes.
If is this phrase is going to be sung:

It should be sung like this:

3
3
3

But instrumentalists not only play each note twice, they also decorate it with
appoggiatura:

23

Which is played:

24

8 IMPROVISATION
Improvisation plays an essential role in Persian Music and it is more based on
interpretation of the Datgah feeling and principles which maestros have made. A
good improvisation needs good skills on instrumental techniques or singing and
complete knowledge of Dastagahs and Avazes, melody and rhythm structure of
their Gushes and their arrangement order.

There are three methods to have a masterly performance of Persian Music

1. Even though it seems that it is not necessary to improvise in order to play the
Radif, the musician does it in some cases because it is not possible to separate

improvisation from Persian music.

2. In playing Phantasy music, they use unusual modulations. Performance begins

in an accidental point and goes throughout the Gushes very freely.

3. Morakkab-Khani is a very difficult style when the musician starts in a certain

Dastgah and then goes through some other Dastgahs and at the end goes back to
the first one.
With the exception of the second one it is necessary to follow the order of Gushes.
Improvisation also needs to know the usage of melodies in the modes degrees and,
as Persians say, should be a maestro of the rhythm. It is also important to use
embellishments based on ones personal sense and logic.

8.1 Improvisation types

There are two improvisation types: the big improvisation and small improvisation.
The big improvisation includes spontaneous innovation of the Gushes and it needs
a very rare skill and inspiration. The small improvisation includes some changes
in the embellishments or rhythm but limited in the structure.
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8.2 Rhythm changes

It is possible to change the accents without changing the rhythm structure, using a
fermata on a certain note and changing the stop points. It is also possible to play a
rhythmic melody rubato or play a rubato melody in tempo.

8.3 Melody or song changes

It is possible to use some certain melody or its rhythm, and improvise through to a
new melody. It is also possible to use a Gushe and change its melodic structure by
adding some passing notes or make passing phrases.

8.4 Embellishment changing

Adding or changing Embellishments is another aspect of improvisation and it
needs the skill and the good sense of the player.

(Safvat 2009, 153)

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9 PERSIAN MUSIC ON WESTERN INSTRUMENTS

So many of the Persian or non-Persian musicians have tried to compose some
music in the Persian traditional music modes or use some Persian melodies in
their compositions; however, it has always been under question how to express
Persian music in western musical system where there are no such intervals as
there are in Persian music; the second problem has been the lack of harmony: how
is it possible to harmonize Persian music.
While military bands were playing simple European melodies, European
melodies, especially march-like melodies became known by Persians ears. Since
then, the European musical instruments were played in Persia and Persian
musicians liked to perform their national music on them. So, whoever was
interested in the violin have chosen their teachers among the Kamancheh teachers
and they didnt use the rules of violin playing. In the case of the piano, because
there were problems playing Persian melodies, for example Mohammad Sadeq
Khan, a Santur Master, changed two notes tuning in each scale.
Among wood-wind instruments the flute was very popular and it was suitable to
play Persian melodies because of its nice sound and similarities to the Ney.
Although there are not Persian musical intervals on the flute, it is possible to play
Persian melodies well by changing the lip position and blowing, Khaleqi wrote
in the book The Story of Persian Music. The clarinet was also very popular
among Persian musicians and they called it Qaraney.(Khaleghi 1955, 178)

9.1 Persian violin

The violin was the most popular western musical instrument accepted by the
Persian musician, because there are no frets to make it limited to playing only in
the western musical system, so it is possible to play any other intervals including
Persian musical intervals.
Persian musicians have invented a completely different style of violin playing so
called: Persian violin, as mentioned before.

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9.2 Piano in Persian traditional music

The piano has been the most problematic instrument to play Persian music on. As
there are fixed intervals and on other hand, it is most often played with two hands
and most probably with some kind of harmony.
Some Persian and non-Persian pianists have tuned the piano into Persian music
intervals so it was possible to play Persian music. I would say, in this style they
only played homophonic and imitated some other Persian musical instruments like
Santur and Qanun.
We can name Javad Maroufi and Morteza Mahjubi as the most famous Persian
traditional pianists who played piano in this style.

9.3 Solution for the Persian irregular intervals

After a while this kind of piano tuning was out of favor, and some other musicians
suggested playing a diminished second instead of an irregular interval in some
cases; or even some other irregular intervals just to resemble that missing
intervals.

On the other hand there have been some Persian modes which do not include such
kind of intervals or it has been possible to replace them with some other, or, lets
say the ears changed to accept new intervals instead of the original ones.

In this case there was a new style of Persian music created which was neither
Persian traditional music nor western music, but a new style of music with Persian
taste.
In this new musical style, musicians/composers favored more the folk songs
which were more known by the ears and in which there was some kind of certain
rhythm and melodies instead of that kind of precise music in Dastgahi music.
There has been and there still are some popular musicians who perform some
Persian folk melodies or songs.

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10 MUSICAL EDUCATION
Before the beginning of the twentieth century Persian music education was
ornamental; from the very beginning the maestro taught the pupil how to take his
or her instrument, then he played some phrases and the pupil should have repeated
it and memorized it. Later, the maestro added embellishments and the pupil tried
to imitate them and go through different levels of Persian Music Radif.
After learning the classical basics, the second step started which was working with
rhythm. In this level the pupil should improvise some melodies while the rhythm
was going on.
Finally, in the third step the pupil should accompany a singer. It was much higher
than the previous level because it needed solo playing. At first the pupil should
play an introduction to show the condition of the Dastgah, then the singer would
begin to sing different Gushes and the pupil should accompany the singer in a way
that doesnt disturb and during the singers pauses he should imitate whatever the
singer has sung. (Safvat 2009, 233)
When I started to study music the system was much more developed but in some
parts there were the same ideas; I learned some lessons by playing some methods
which required music reading and after that I could pass to the Radif sessions
where there was a maestro who was singing the Radif and then it was the pupils
turn. They should imitate it and we instrumentalists should accompany them and
play something rhythmical between the songs in turn with the other players.

10.1 Notation
European notation came to Persia by the end of nineteenth century and at the
beginning it was only used for military music. After that it came to be used in all
of the music types.
Before this, there were some efforts at a kind of music notation based on using the
alphabets for example, in case of Ud, they use some article name for each finger;
but it was not for writing melodies and was only to simplify the descriptions of
the musical intervals. Mokhber-o-saltaneh was trying to lead a kind of notation
based on the Persian alphabet system so called Abjad to write the melody but it
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didnt succeed because people believed that European notation which was very
developed was more methodical. Before the beginning of the twentieth century
there werent any note names like that of the Europeans. They only said for
example: let\s play in the Shur Dastgah. R. Khaleqi has written some names for
Persian notes in his theory book Musiqi-e-Nazari, which is not needed to write
here. But as it was mentioned in the History chapter, Vaziri invented some
symbols added to that of European notation system for the irregular Persian notes
which was Sori and Koron. (Safvat 2009, 235)

Picture is from www.96edo.com

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11 PERSIAN MUSIC ON THE GUITAR

In this Chapter I have represented some pieces which I have composed for the
Guitar in Persian Music

11.1 Bakhtiari for guitar solo

I have composed the Bakhtiari piece on a very beautiful folk song Dast be
dastmalom nazan

The theme is from the Persian Bakhtiari tribes in Homayoun Dastgah. The whole
piece is in D Homayoun and in order to play it I tuned the 6th string to D, and I
begin it with a D major chord by playing a kind of variation on the 4th string on
the Hoamyoun scale which is:

Then it goes to the main theme and the first variation; after the first variation by
using some diminished chord it modulates to an Azeri mode and then back to
Homayoun. The piece finishes with the main theme and a D major chord.

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11.2 Moaleff for guitar solo

The piece Malef begins with some arpeggios which have come from the main
theme in Malef Gushe in Homayoun Dastgah.

Arpeggio:

Theme:

It develops to a second theme by passing an E7 chord added F to the second

theme. I arranged the second theme on different strings in order to let them ring
together, resembling the Santur on which all of the notes are ringing continuously,
or in other words they dont damp strings after playing it. And then, after
repeating the first theme, it goes through the same theme variation in Dashti in A;
which should be played with the open D string ringing while playing on the third
string, resembling the Setar in which the second string is all the time ringing as a
pedal note. The piece finishes with the opening theme.

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RFERENCES
Khaleqi, R.1955. Sargozasht-e Musiqi-e Iran Tehran: Safi Alishah

Farhat, H. 1990. The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Safvat, D. 2009. Musiqi-e Melli-e Iran. Tehran: Ketabsaraye Nik

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