Transcript: Persian Music
[Howard Spring:] Hi, Reza. Thank you for doing this. Could you introduce yourself a little bit?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Sure. My name is Reza Yazdanpaneh. I’m from Iran. My background is Persian music. And yeah, I’m 52 years old. And what else do you want to know?
[Howard Spring:] How did you learn to play?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, that was — yeah, I was — that was a good experience, I was as a guest in a house in the second floor. So I heard a sound and I was attracted. That was fascinating. And in my whole family, nobody knew anything about music. In all my generation before me, nobody did music. So that was the first time and I didn’t know even the name of the instrument. Afterward, I realized that the instrument is setar. So I got started doing music with setar. I can show you the instrument that’s here. This is the instrument that I got and started and so — and mostly I have learnt this music by listening and listening to the recording that I had access from previous musicians. And yeah, that was the player of cassette, there was no CD in that period, you know that. Yeah, that was this instrument is called setar. Yeah.
[Howard Spring:] Can you play a little bit on it so we can hear what it sounds like?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, of course sure.
[ Strumming ]
[Howard Spring:] And what were you playing there?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] So, I was improvising based on mahur, dastgah-e mahur, mahur is one of the seven dastgahs in Persian music.
[Howard Spring:] What is a dastgah?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, you know, Persian classical music is established based on the repertoire, which is called radif. And radif contains lots of modes and melodies. If we want to categorize radif, we should say we have dastgah, avaz, and gusheh. Both dastgah and avaz include gushehs. But the difference between dastgah and avaz is the number of gusheh. Mostly, avaz has less number of gusheh than dastgah. And we have seven dastgah, shur, mahur, segah, chahargah, rastpanjgah, nava, and homayun. And somehow, avaz is subcategory of dastgah. You know, we have the name of avaz, if you want to know, are bayat-e tork, dashti, abu-ata, afshari, and bayate esfahan. And yeah, we have another avaz, it’s called kord-e bayat or bayate kord. And most of avazes are subcategory of shur, dastgah-e shur is the most important dastgah in Persian classical music. And dastgah-e shur is famous, is known as the mother of other dastgahs, which is interesting.
[Howard Spring:] So when you learn how to play, do you learn the radif or do your learn a dastgah? Or do you learn a gusheh? What are you actually learning when you learn?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I’ve been listening to different recordings based on the musicians, based on the — I think that depends on the approach of musicians. Some musicians’ approach are more traditionally, you know, if they — their approach is more traditional, they follow the repertoire of the radif and use the gushehs and the sentences and the ingredients from radif much more. But some of musicians just were improvising based on the radif. So, I would say I was listening to different approaches. For example, we had a Master Muhammad Reza Lotfi, he was using lots of patterns from the radif. But we have another master, for example, Hossein Alizadeh, who is — who see the repertoire more flexible. He uses the repertoire more flexible and mostly tries to improvise based on the repertoire. Yeah. So — And for example, Ahhmad Ebadi, who was a sitar player, and was the son of the one of the toppest master in Persian classical music. That’s interesting. Although his father was the main — somehow the main presenter of the radif, Ahmad Ebadi was more improviser than follower of the radif. Of course, he was following the taste and atmosphere and modes from the radif, but not specifically following the repertoire. So — And he was a fantastic improviser. Yeah.
[Howard Spring:] Right. Now, so did you study with a master or did you do it all from listening to recordings or?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, so I played setar for seven years. I learnt the elementary technique, I mean, the posture, how to take the instrument, how to pluck, let’s say, for a month or so. But yeah, I would say 19% — 90% of what I learnt, I learnt from listening until seven years. After seven years, I — after my military service, I went to the university, you know, and to study music. At the university, you know, you learn solfege, we call it solfege, which is yeah, ear-turning and other stuff, harmony, [inaudible] and, radif as well. You know, we had to do memorize and present the repertoire at the end of the each semester So, at the university, I learnt different things. And yeah, and I play, I learnt, I wouldn’t say I learnt the radif at the university because during that seven years, I already was enough — familiar enough to the repertoire, right? So yeah, at the university, yeah, I learnt different — other stuff.
[Howard Spring:] So you learnt both Western music and Persian classical music at university?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] That’s right, yeah. You know, there was two direction at the university. Some students were focussing on Western music, Western music, specifically. But the students who were doing Persian music had to have some courses from Western music. And I’m happy that I’ve learnt them as well. Yeah.
[Howard Spring:] Sure. Sure, of course. Now, the instrument that you’re playing, what is that called?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] That’s called setar. And se- means three. This instrument –
[Howard Spring:] So it has three strings?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] No, currently, this instrument has four strings, but one of them are doubled. Somehow, you know, we use this string independently. And this is used individually. But on the top, we have two strings, we play and fingering at the same time, you know, and the interval is octave, you see, while we play like it this. Sometimes that’s not the tradition, but we use this. I’m using the first and the third single string, right, which are the same. But mostly, yeah, when we use the third one, the toppest one, we use both strings simultaneously like this.
[Howard Spring:] Does that instrument have frets?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yes. That’s — It has movable portable frets. You can you can change the spot. Sometimes we change the — based on the mode or we have to change the interval, sometimes, not all the time. But yeah, that’s — you know, frets are movable, portable.
[Howard Spring:] Yeah, and they need to be movable because the different modes have different notes that you will use, is that right?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yes, sometimes. But I would say mostly we have to change them because of the — and that is more happens when we use tar, another instrument that I will show you, I will demonstrate that to you. So, I would say because of the humidity and you will — you know, because yeah, the instrument is built from wood. Sometimes because the surface, this part of the resonator changes and that changes the interval. Yeah, a little bit. But yeah, this problem we have, when we use this instrument, and that’s because of the membrane. I can show you if you want.
[Howard Spring:] Well, let’s — Yeah, let’s take a look at the tar.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, sure.
[Howard Spring:] So, Reza, the instrument you have now in your — that you’re holding is called a tar. Is that right? Can you say something about it? [Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Sure. It’s called tar. You are right. I would say, this instrument is the most common instrument in Persian classical music. Yeah, this instrument has membrane, skin as the — this part of — I mean, compared to setar, this part of the setar was built from wood, as you know. But this is membrane and because — this membrane is natural, so it’s very sensitive to humidity and temperature, you know. And yeah, this part of the instrument is built from berry, the berry, this berry is a tree, that’s not the plant, right? And I haven’t seen that in Canada at all. But the fingerboard is built from walnut tree. Here we have bones as you see. And the bridge and this part are built from horn. So — And in terms of strings, we have three double strings on top, right? On setar, just one string was double. But here, we have six strings as three. We could say three double strings. And we pluck them and do the fingering on both like this. You know, if I pluck them separately, that sounds like this. But — And the frets are the same as setar. They are movable and portable. And yeah, and so we play setar with our nail. But for tar, we use pick. And the pick is built from two materials. Actually, it depends, we have different material in different picks. What I’ve got here is built from horn of sort of goat. And this part, the part that I hold in between my fingers is honey wax, right? Because that’s flexible, you can shape it as you wish, right? But mostly, the part that hit the strings is from metal, different metal, steel and other metals, right? Yeah.
[Howard Spring:] So can you demonstrate a mode or go up and down the neck so we get a chance to hear what the different notes sound like?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Sure, yeah. You know, we have different scales. We have similar scales like Western music, you know?
[ Strumming ]
Right? This is like major, major scale exists in Western music. We use this scale when we play –
[Howard Spring:] And what do you call it in Persian music?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah. So either we want to be and play in mahur.
[ Strumming ]
This is daramad-e mahur, the first gusheh in mahur. Or if you — if we want to play rastpanjgah, somehow the escape for rastpanjgah and mahur is the same.
[ Strumming ]
But one interesting thing is when we play rastpanjgah, mostly we use F as tonic, something similar to F major scale, right? Because of the atmosphere, articulation, and expression of the rastpanjgah. But for mahur, either we play on C, on F, or G. I think I need to explain something. Most of the time, specifically, we want to do the solo. We say C, F, but we don’t mean it. Mostly we tune our instrument a semitone, or a major tone lower. For example, on tar, mostly people tune their tar on B, a semitone lower than C, right? But on setar — Why? Because really, these instruments are not designed to hold a huge pressure. And another thing is, when you played lower, an instrument is more feasible, soft. And when you want to do the technique and ornamentation, that’s more simple and accessible. For example, you see?
[ Music ]
Because ornamentation is very, very important in Persian music. So on setar, probably, because we play it with our nail and our finger, we want to have the strings looser, somehow. So sitar is tuned at least a major tone lower.
[Ryan Bruce:] Yeah, I have a question about the, the modes or the dastgah that you played because you played mahur. And from what I understand, the term mahur is actually — it’s just a coincidence that it sounds like major. It’s — Yeah, those two actual words aren’t related, right? So where did the words come from? The names of the dastgah?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] That’s interesting. You know, we are not sure about the terminology of the name of dastgahs, avaz, and gushehs. Some gushehs are called based on the place, I mean the name of the gusheh is the name of a location. Some names are the name of the people. Some name are the name of expression or emotion. So those are different, but that’s interesting. I was thinking the same about the term of mahur and major. But just so you know, mahur is called hill, right? Let’s say, yeah, smaller than mountain. Yeah. Am I pronouncing it correctly? Yeah, hill, mahur yeah, but major as far as I know means huge, it means big, right? Major compared to minor, yeah. The interval are the same, but the difference here is, you know, in tonal music in Western Classical music or generally, if I call it tonal music, you need to see the octave and consider and determine the function of the degrees, right? For example, the first degree is tonic. And its importance is the same as somehow the octave and then the fifth and then the third, the order that Western music considers for melody, harmony, and all those stuff. But in mahur, we don’t follow the octave. You could present a mode just by using five or six notes and that’s it. I can show you, right? And, yeah, for example, when I played the daramad-e mahur I didn’t go through the whole octave. Let me play this gusheh for you from mahur. This gusheh is called gusheh-ye or avaz and yeah, we could talk about it more. The gusheh is like this.
[ Strumming ]
You see? The tonic — I mean, I wouldn’t call it tonic, we say shahed. Shahed is a term that we use at the most repetitive and use the notes, right? And you heard that — the important note here is this degree is D. Although we are in the atmosphere of mahur and basically the main mode of mahur is based on C. Let’s say — We don’t call it tonic. Let’s say, let’s call it shahed. That’s something similar to tonic, but not exactly. We are in the atmosphere of mahur. And shahed is C here. But when you play avaz or gusheh-ye, shahed changes to D. And as I said, I didn’t — when I was playing this gusheh, I didn’t cover an octave, right? That was less than that. Yeah.
>>[Howard Spring:] So the last thing that you played, Reza, was that a gusheh? And was it composed or was it improvised? What was it exactly?
>> [Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, that was a gusheh and the gusheh was called avaz and this gusheh has another name in different version of radif, which is gusheh-ye. And you know, gusheh, we have different sort of gusheh in radif, but gusheh and in general, radif basically is not improvised. It is something that we have something like inherited from the previous periods. So, somehow those are fixed. Of course, different — we have, as I said, we have different version of radif. In different version, you could see differences. But when you approach to a specific version and you want to learn it, everything is somehow precomposed. That’s not improvised. But when you learn it, you can go from there and improvise, compose, write a song, whatever. Yeah. And –
[Howard Spring:] I see, OK.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] So what is a gusheh exactly?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] You know, we could gusheh — we could define gusheh as the smallest part of the radif. Or let me rephrase it. Radif in general, includes lots of melodies and modes, and each melody and mode is called gusheh. Gusheh is a general name for lots of small melody and mode that exists in radif. But we have different gusheh, as I said. Sometimes a gusheh is a modal and when I say modal, I mean that gusheh changes the mode and changes the interval. Some gushehs are mostly a rhythmical pattern. I can introduce them. So, we could categorize gusheh in at least three branches, right? Some gusheh are — So, you know, most importantly, daramad is the most important gusheh in each avaz or dastgah. And daramad somehow means conversational opening. Dar means door. Dar is the same as door in English, and amad means coming. So when you want to come to a place, you come from a door, so daramad means coming from a door, right? So, when you get started, either in dastgah or avaz, you get started from a gusheh, it’s called daramad. And I’m talking in traditional way, because, yes, some — you can get started from a gusheh, which is in the climax. You can do that based on your emotion and your situation. But traditionally and classically, and when you want to learn it, you will learn it from the beginning. So the first gusheh in each dastgah or avaz is daramad. And then you go through — And you will be encountering with different sort of gusheh. Some gushehs are composed based on the modal gushehs. Some gushes are mostly a rhythmic pattern, they present rhythmic melodic pattern. For example — I can give you example. You know, the most common rhythmic pattern in radif is called kereshmeh. You can see kereshmeh everywhere, you know? So I — And I can play the kereshmeh without using the interval and notes. Kereshmeh is like this. You see? And I can apply this pattern in different scales, different mode dastgahs or avaz. For example, in mahur, in chahargah, bayat-e tork.
[ Strumming ]
You see? You can apply this pattern everywhere, in every mode dastgah or avaz, right? And we have some sort of gusheh that’s combination of rhythmic and melodic pattern like bastenegar.
[ Strumming ]
You know, you can do this sequence and we do this in different intervals and scales, but you need to follow this pattern, right? Like here.
[ Strumming ]
And so on, right? This is bastenegar. And we — So, if we — if I want to categorize it and make it simple, I say, we see three different branches or three different kinds of gusheh. Why — The first category is modal gusheh, and daramad — actually, some of our musician categorize daramad in different branch. They say — Let’s say we have a category of basic mode, right, because daramad is the beginning and the most important gusheh, let’s categorize the — all daramads in basic modes. And we have another modal category, which is the gushehs that change modes and bring new modes. I can demonstrate that. And the third one is non-modal gushehs. They are either rhythmic pattern or melodic rhythmic pattern, or just beautiful melodies that are built based on other modes. And I can give you example of each of that.
[Ryan Bruce:] How many are there in the radif? How many gushehs are there in the radif?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] So, different version of radif has different number of gushehs. So, I think at least, I would say, something around 150 or so. But we have different — Let’s say, newer version of radif, they have more gushehs. And some musician believe they are somehow another interpretation of those gushehs. But, you know, since this tradition has been mostly verbal, right, so that’s not like all musicians believe in a same thing — in the same thing, right? Yeah, there are different approaches — opinions, I would say.
[Ryan Bruce:] It seems like a manageable repertoire of things that a musician can start to learn, like a repertoire.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] That’s correct. That’s what we call it, radif. Radif is repertoire that’s determined, you know where you’re at, where you could get started. And you know when you finish the whole — and you did, and you learnt the whole repertoire, that’s correct.
[Ryan Bruce:] If you were to play a full piece, would you play one gusheh, would you play many gushehs? It sounds like you would play more than one.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah. You — Again, it depends. Whether you want to improvise, whether — or you want to structure a traditional performance. But in a traditional way, we have pishdaramad. Pishdaramad means before daramad, something like prelude, right? In a very old time, I would say, the form of pishdaramad was invented sometimes around 100 years ago, almost. OK? Before that, musician would get started from daramad. But we believe 100 years ago, our musician were influenced by Western music. So they realized in Western music, the Western musicians just don’t jump in the main idea, right? They provide a prelude, something like introduction at the beginning, and little by little, gradually they go toward the subject, the main subject. So, this form was invented by a great musician, his name was Darvish Khan. And Darvish Khan is a very respectful musician in our history and, you know, everybody does respect Darvish Khan. So, Darvish Khan invented the form pishdaramad, something like this.
[ Strumming ]
You see, pishdaramad is a slow song, something like want to get you prepared for listening to vocalizing and the main idea and main subject. So, yeah. After that — So, if we want to design a performance and consider, let’s imagine we are after the time of — invention of pishdaramad. OK? So we have pishdaramad, when we finish pishdaramad, of course, now we play daramad. Let’s say, now we finished pishdaramad.
[ Strumming ]
Now I finished the pishdaramad, I started daramad and depend. If I’m — That’s up to me, if I want to do the — play the radif like this.
[ Strumming ]
I played this before in our previous videos, recordings. Now, let’s say I want to improvise. Again, I’m in the place and atmosphere of daramad, I’m following the daramad of mahur, but I want to improvise, right?
[ Strumming ]
And after daramad, mostly another form, another song is played and that’s called chahar mezrab. In contrast with pishdaramad, which was very slow, chahar mezrab is supposed to be fast, right? And again, this chahar mezrab is from Darvish Khan.
[ Strumming ]
Right? This is chahar mezrab. And then, when chahar mezrab is finished, the atmosphere is provided for the singer to little by little get started. Let’s say chahar mezrab is finished, again, a little bit instrumental layer, give a little bit taste of the daramad, or they could play kereshmeh as a variety, right?
[ Strumming ]
So they provide atmosphere for singer. And the singer gets started like this.
[ Singing ]
And again, based on the interest and opinion of the singer, singer could follow the radif as much as they want, or sing improvisational, right? So, the singer presents the — no, this technique is very important in Persian classical music, and that’s called tahrir. [Singing]. And we believe that this technique is inspired based on nightingale singing.
[ Singing ]
You know? And we — The singer presents ornamentation, tahrir, different thing, a little bit, and then the singer goes to the poem and presents the poem based on the mode — whatever mode is. At this moment, the mode and the atmosphere is daramad, right? So the singer sings like this.
[ Singing ]
Right? And when the singer sings the poem again, the vocalizing of the poem includes tahrir and ornamentation as well, right? So, they don’t sing just a poem, not just the — not just like you put the melody on a board, that’s not like that. Again, you see the ornamentation and, yeah, sometimes melismatic decoration, something like that. And so, let’s say, the singer is singing, very, very important thing in this tradition and in this performance is called javab-e avaz. Now, what is it? Javab-e avaz is like the singer sings, the instrument player should be answering, something like we said call and response, right? Now, I’m going to sing and a response to myself, because I don’t have an independent singer beside me, right?
[ Strumming and Singing ]
You know, something like — You know, the instrument player imitates and tries to imitate and follow what exactly the singer sings. And that’s interesting. Sometimes, based on the delay and the distance in terms of time between the singer and the instrument player, you could hear heterophonic texture, which is interesting. Because the melody and the ornamentation mostly are the same, right? If they are too close, sometimes you can hear that texture. OK. And then when the singer in the climax, so something like here, we have a gusheh, it’s called Iraq, and that’s Iraq, the name of the country of Iraq, our neighbour, right? And you, you can hear the expression of the Iraq, which is — which demonstrates the climax.
[ Strumming ]
>> OK. Singer — The singer here is saying something at the climax. So, sometimes the instrument player, because they want to give a rest to the singer, because they sang something, let’s say, difficult, so they answer like this.
[ Strumming ]
So, somehow this is a javab-e avaz that is, again, that’s call and response, but with playing something metric, rhythmic, right? Yeah. And again, depend on the length of the performance, amount of avaz and singing could be determined. And they somehow end up with tasnif. Tasnif is a piece — a rhythmic piece that include word, poem, something like this.
[ Strumming and Singing ]
You see, that’s rhythmic, metric, it has words, it has word — I mean, a poem. And at the end of the end, we play sort of song that’s called reng-e. Reng these days, you know, dancing is not allowed as a performance, but the reng — this form, reng, more specifically had been for dancing. And people know the reng as a happy song, like this.
[ Strumming ]
You see? So if you know the way that Persian people dance, then you could realize this pattern, this rhythmic and this sort of melody are suitable for Persian dancing. And that’s a happy song for them. And consider, so, we get — we got started from the pishdaramad to the reng. If I want to summarize that, I say, pishdaramad, daramad, solo, not singing, chahr mezrab, avaz and javab-e avaz, either free metric or metric, and then tasnif, which was a song with the poem, with word, and then reng at the end as a finale or final, right? So — And this is traditional. This is totally traditional. You know, nowadays, I would say playing reng is very rare. That’s not played very often. And, yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] Why is that?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Because generation by generation, you know, they don’t follow the tradition. Do they in Western countries? I think that’s the same in the whole world. You know, things changed and new generation mostly don’t appreciate the tradition, not all of them, but most of them, I think. And, you know, because of the media and, you know, social media, different things, people are influenced by taste. And I’m not saying that that is a bad thing. You know, I’m influenced by lots of culture that I’ve heard, I’ve been facing with, right? Specifically, here in Canada, when we talk about improvisation, you know, yeah, sometimes a piano player improvises without using the keyboard. I’ve seen that many times, they use the back of the piano, right?
[Ryan Bruce:] Question. You’ve been playing in this mode, or the dastgah of mahur, do you change modes during a performance?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Of course. You know, although we say mahur and we present a scale for daramad, even through the playing the radif, per se, you can see lots of modes, scales, and intervals changing. And I can explain those to you. You know, when we play daramad, the scale was something similar to major scale, Western major scale. But, for example, we go, we have a specific gusheh called delkash. Interval for delkash is the interval of shur somehow, like this. And I’m going to play the — exactly the radif, you know. I’m going to — I don’t want to improvise. I’m going to just play the patterns from radif.
[ Strumming ]
You see? We are in the mahur, we are playing delkash. And delkash, these intervals are interval of a shur.
[ Strumming ]
Right? And we — When we play in another area in mahur, that’s a group of gushehs, they are called rak. And raq is not related to rock music. Actually, that’s — that is a raag, right? And that came from raga, Indian raga, yeah. And you know, the interval changes like this.
[ Strumming ]
You see? Interval is like — something like minor scale, right, somehow. So we have three-quarter tone here. So if you use this interval, that’s the interval of the shur, you have got two three-quarter tone right after each other. But instead of this, which is B flat, and that’s not actually B flat. I need to talk about all of those things, I don’t know how much time you guys have. But I will explain. Let me explain about B flat later, but for now, OK. Let’s say this is B flat. So we have two three-quarter tones right after each other, somehow — not somehow, exactly, that’s the scale of the shur. But if you, instead of B flat, use B natural, then you have the interval of raag or rak. We don’t say raag. I’m saying raag because I want to clarify this subject for you.
[ Strumming ]
You see? And so these things exist in radif, so of course, when we perform, we change modes. And using these different modes, you could do modulation. You could change the mode, you can go from this dastgah to another dastgah, right? And there are lots of possibilities in different dastgahs and avazs, you can switch from here to there. So, you know, actually, that’s a huge difference between Western classical music and Persian classical music. So, when you are in a scale, you go on the dominant, you go to the minor scale, which is related to the major scale or another major scale or whatever. But we are in the atmosphere of, let’s say, mahur, but we have different scales, you know? And those scales, when we presenting them — when we are presenting them in the context of shur, of course, there are similar similarities, but we do another thing. So yeah, I don’t know how to explain, you know, because they are all different angles about this subject. But anyway, let’s make it simple, of course, to answer your question, Ryan. Even in radif, when we are going through the whole dastgah, many times, scales and modes are changing.
[Ryan Bruce:] Good. You are mentioning — You were mentioning a three-quarter tone. Could you explain what you mean? I think you’re pointing to something that’s microtonal.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah. You know, even us, when we teach our elementary students, we say, you see, this is semitone, this is three-quarter tone. And some people say, in Persian music, we have quarter tone, and we don’t. We do just in one folklore music in a specific area in south of Iran, and I’m not going to talk about it, but in general, when we talk about Persian classical music, there is no microtone. Because when you say semitone, and you talk about chromatic scale in Western music, you really use it, yeah, you do like this. But when — if we say quarter tone, then we are supposed to do this. But we don’t have this in Persian music. So, just to be clear, we don’t have quarter tone, we have three-quarter tone, that’s not three-quarter tone. That’s not like you divide or split a major tone to four pieces and then grab the third. No, the three of them, no, that’s not like that. The interval is mostly less than a three-quarter tone. But we call it, because we don’t want to make it complicated for our students or our people, but, when we — when I’m facing with a professional musician or ethnomusicologist like you and Howard, so I need to mention those specific things because those are important, right? So, yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] Could you give us a demonstration of the difference between maybe a semitone and a three-quarter tone and a full tone?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Of course. First of all, we have different measure tone. For example [strumming] and [strumming], you can hear the second one is smaller, is lower.
[ Strumming ]
And why is that? You know, so you — in Western music, you have equal interval. In this music, you can see that on piano — on the piano. But sometimes we have a degree note in our music less. In my opinion, the reason is we increase the pitch with ornamentation. I was mentioning, I say this is B flat, but that’s not exactly B flat, that’s less, that’s — I mean, lower, right?
[ Strumming ]
You see? [Strumming] For example, when I play shur, [strumming] the third note in the scale of shur is like —
[ Strumming ]
You know, with — vibrating with bending or other technique like three.
[ Strumming ]
The interval is lower and we somehow establish and shape the mode with ornamentation. That’s why I did insist on ornamentation and decoration in Persian music. Ornamentation is a very determinative and important part in Persian music.
[Ryan Bruce:] Great, thank you. That note seems very clear. I’m wondering if we could maybe talk about the rhythmic aspects of the music as well, because you’ve mentioned before some things that are rhythmic pieces, and also, you talked about metric pieces. Could you talk something about the timing or the idea of playing rhythmically when there’s not a metre?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] That’s a great question. You know, first of all, when you — our radif, our repertoire is written now by some people. When you go and look at the notation, you don’t see time signature at all, even though if — when you play you can hear something rhythmic happening. In terms of using the term of rhythmic and metric, in my opinion, all pattern, all melodies have rhythm. There is a rhythm in every melody. But when we say metric, it has to be a time signature, a specific exact spot in our notation. So, we need to be clarified, if we are talking about radif or a performance. And of course, our performance is influenced by radif, right? In radif, for example, we have this.
[ Strumming ]
Something like this.
[ Strumming ]
You know, you see, I changed the pattern, I modified the — something that is, in my opinion, that’s metric, to a free metric pattern. But when you look at the notation, as I said, in radif, you cannot see, you don’t see a time signature for this part. But let’s say, we are at our performance, that’s different. Yeah, people write songs, compose, you see the time signature, and you see different rhythm — I mean, sorry, metric. You can see time signature, two, four, six, and we have five and seven in our music. But again, when we talk about metric or rhythmic pattern, depends on how you interpreted that, we see lots of pattern like bastenegar. I demonstrated kereshmeh. We have zanguleh, we have zang-e shotor, we have [inaudible]. You know, those patterns have a specific name, OK? But if we want to talk about metric pattern, that’s the time that we bring our percussion instruments up, like what I’ve got here, right? You want me to demonstrate one?
[Ryan Bruce:] That’s great, yeah. That would be a great thing to — yeah, thank you.
[Howard Spring:] Yes, for sure.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] I will talk about the daf later, because that’s the instrument that came from folklore music, somehow spiritual music to classical music. But tombak is a more common instrument in Persian classical music, right? And the name of instrument is tombak because of the sound of the technique. This is tom [percussion] and bak [percussion], tom-bak. And of course we have different — other techniques like pelang or eshareh, and combination of those. So —
[ Percussion ]
I should say, the most common time signature somehow, I should call it, in Persian classical music, is six. And we have this from the very slow tempo to a very fast one. Like this.
[ Percussion ]
We call this six-four, and the sixth pulse or beat is silent, right? See, one, two, three, four, five, six, one — [percussion]. In recent decades, musicians don’t use this pattern more often. But I love it. As I said, we have lots of tasnif, tasnif the piece with poem, as I introduced before. And those are beautiful. Like this.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
And so on, right? But if you want to make it faster, that goes like this.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
Like this. So, six-four was.
[ Percussion ]
You can make it faster. [Percussion] Or go like this. [Percussion] Like this. Sorry. [Percussion] Faster. [Percussion] And when we play chahar mezrab, like this.
[ Percussion ]
Something like this. So, six is the most common time signature in Persian classical music. We have got two, four — and that’s interesting. I would say, 90% of pishdaramads, the piece that was invented by Darvish Khan, are based on four. Like this.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
I have to use my voice as instrument, all right? Yeah. And we have seven. We have seven very often in radif and in our compositions. And by the way, I need to explain. I’m singing on these time signatures. But this doesn’t have to be just for tasnif. You know, that could be different songs in different form with or without poem. I thought I needed to explain this. OK. But yeah, we have two, time signature of two, like —
[ Percussion and Singing ]
Or if I want to sing a tasnif.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
Something like this. Oh, I wanted to mention seven, right? We could have different time signature for seven. What we use and we have got it from radif, and of course we have it in our folklore music around the country in many places, but the seven is like two plus two plus three. Like this. One, two, one, two, one, two, three, right?
[ Percussion ]
Something like this. And in terms of tasnif.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
This is the atmosphere of chahargah, which is epic. Chahargah is epic.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
Something like this. And we have different seven, which is, let’s say, four plus three, or — no, no, no, sorry, three plus four, or three plus two plus two. Like —
[ Percussion ]
I’m trying to remember a tasnif for this.
[ Percussion and Singing ]
Something like this. Yeah. And recently, the — I would say, the new generation are more interested in — I’m trying to remember the word in English. What is the word when your pattern is not even?
[Howard Spring:] Asymmetrical?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Asymmetrical, exactly yeah. That’s not even, that’s not — yeah, asymmetrical. So, the new generation are more interested in this, like eight. Eight like —
[ Percussion ]
You know, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Two plus three plus three, or —
[ Percussion ]
Three, three, two.
[ Percussion ]
Something like this. Or other things, yeah. Yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] Are there some patterns that are more common than others?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] In terms of time signature, if you mean that, I said that’s six. But what do you mean?
[Ryan Bruce:] I was actually wondering about the actual patterns of the [inaudible].
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, yeah. Now, I got you. You know, in performance, we don’t have a specific name for pattern like Arabic music. I know what you mean. In Arabic music, they have, for some specific pattern, for example like this —
[ Percussion ]
I don’t remember the name of this pattern right now. But I’m sure it has a name, it has a specific name. No, Persian music is not like that. In radif, yes. If we talk about the radif, yeah, we have kereshmeh, [inaudible] and those are specific patterns. For example, in radif, if we want to play [inaudible], that’s like this.
[ Percussion ]
[ Percussion and Singing ]
You see? This is [inaudible] in mahur again. Today, we are doing everything in mahur, right?
[Howard Spring:] So, Reza, what’s that instrument that you’ve got now?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] So, this is called daf. And basically, this instrument is a Kurdish instrument. And this instrument used to be used in a spiritual occasion, you know, specific group of people in Kurdish area. They were using this and they mostly play in a group, you know, lots of daf players get together and play. And — But a family, a Kurdish family brought this instrument to Persian classical instrument. So — And if you want to learn — see the body of the instrument, the instrument has lots of rings, you know, around. Yeah. And the instrument sounds like this.
[ Percussion ]
Actually, this pattern that I’m playing is a Kurdish one, right?
[ Percussion ]
And what — So, in Persian classical music, musicians use this instrument and they play all patterns that they want. Like —
[ Percussion ]
Whatever you want to play, seven.
[ Percussion ]
Or six.
[ Percussion ]
Something like this.
[Howard Spring:] I was going to ask. So those are the same rhythms — those are the same rhythms that were on the tombak?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. You know — And these days, people use patterns from the folk music in their performance and they combine it with the classical music, right? And they write tasnif based on this rhythm and put poems, for example, from rumi and this pattern, and play it. Yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] I wonder if you could talk about the technique of how you play it.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] So, daf, I suppose, has less techniques compared to tombak, right? [Percussion] This technique —
[ Percussion ]
Right? Techniques on daf are more like a slash, right? Is that a slash? Smash, right? [Howard Spring:] Smack. [Ryan Bruce:] Or slap. [Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah, a slap, slap. You know —
[ Percussion ]
But on tombak, tom, you know, the posture of hand is like —
[ Percussion ]
And that’s more bass, boom, boom. It’s like — It sounds like this. [Percussion] And the sound of rings are as part of the sound of the instrument, like —
[ Percussion ]
Yeah. But this technique that we use on the tombak [percussion] is called riz, yeah. Daf players use riz on daf as well. Yeah.
[Ryan Bruce:] So when you’re lifting the instrument up, it’s almost like you’re throwing it a little bit above. Is that to get the sound from the bells inside? Or is that to free a hand for playing it?
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] I think I do it — I did it — Or I do it subconsciously. [Percussion] If you mean this motion, yeah, I use it because I want to have the sound of rings. I suppose. But I haven’t paid attention to this. That’s interesting.
[Ryan Bruce:] It’s a unique technique to have the drum, you know, up by your face and to be lifting it.
[Reza Yazdanpaneh:] Yeah. And, you know, again, I’m not — I see myself as a beginner on daf. You know, I’m not a daf player. If you see a professional daf player, sometimes they just — you get worried, oh, this instrument is going to fell down — fall down, right? Yeah, and some of them, younger, but mostly younger daf players do a couple things. They, you know, they throw out — up the instrument and grab it. I mean, you are [inaudible]. You know. Yeah.