Persia is an ancient culture, spanning back to the early ages of civilization. Persia lies today in modern Iran, but the name was only recently changed on March 21, 1935 after the Shah requested it. The Persian empire had many notable rulers and conquerors, such as Darius and Cyrus the Great in the 6th century, and for a short time, Alexander the Great.
Map of the Sasanian Empire in Persia, one of the numerous empires of the Persian Empire:
Islam was brought to the region by Arab conquerors in the 7th century. Over the years, Islam steadily became the prominent religion in Persia over Zoroastrianism. Today, Islamic culture plays a major role in every day life as well as the government, with a democratic theocracy being the form of government.
The historical development of music in Persia dates back to ancient times. Rare and ancient documents have shown that musical culture was extremely lively and popular in ancient Persian empire. These documents have shown a multitude of famous Persian composers, such as Barbod, Nakissa and Ramtin. Most traditional Persian music revolves around a set of 7 modal scales. The construction of Persian modes is based on the concept of conjunct and disjunct tetra chords,remarkably similar to ancient Greek music. Chromaticism is in a sense "taboo" in Persian music and an octave never always contains seven principal tones. As in the case of many non-western musical cultures, Ancient Persian music, and most Persian folk music, has not developed its own harmonic system; it rather took a melodic turn. Because of this, Persian music has acheived a far superior melodic refinement than Western culture. It is lacking however in the harmony region.
2. Analysis of Persian Music
For the analysis of Persian music, we have selected a popular song entitled "No Brick Barricade" by famous Iranian artist Googoosh.
Context-
Googoosh's "No Brick Barricade" is played in the Persian style, with heavy influences from Arabic music due to the culture of Iran. This is evident from the very Middle Eastern sound (coming from the minor scale) and the fact that she is speaking Arabic.
Stucture and Aural Perception
The piece begins with solely the drums and the indigenous setar playing. The setar is playing a short and simple melody, low in the bass line, to begin the piece. Googoosh begins to sing, most likely in the Alto range. The audible Persian/Arabic sound comes from the usage of a harmonic minor scale. After the first verse, the song begins to pick up, with an addition of violins to add an orchestral background. After the first verse Googoosh moves into the chorus, which is relatively simple and unornamented in relation to the rest of the piece. A musical interlude follows the chorus. The second verse of "No Brick Barricade" is more intense than the first verse, due to the addition of more instruments and her vocals sounding more dramatic. The piece then moves into another iteration of the chorus. A longer musical interlude follows this repetition of the chorus. The setar then plays a lengthy solo, reminiscent of the melody from the very beginning of the solo. This section of the piece is very similar to guitar solo's of Western pop music, and was most likely influenced from them. The third verse of the piece is a strophic interpretation of the first verse. A final chorus ends the piece, with a short setar interlude following.
3. Indigenous Instruments
Persian music has a deep and rooted history, with archaelogical artifacts of music dating back to 6,000 B.C. Some of the instruments used in Persian music are:
the bowed spike-fiddle kamancheh
the goblet drum tombak
the end-blown flute ney
long-necked lutes such as the setar
and the dulcimer santur.
Harps were also a major part of Persian music until the Safavid Empire took over, and replaced the harps with the Westernized pianoforte. Almost all of these Persian instruments inspired the creation of all Arabic instruments.
Unique Aspect of Persian Music
Music education in Persia
In ancient Persia as well as modern Iran, music education plays an interesting role, especially with the education on the playing of the setar. Instead of adopting typical Western style musical education programs, such as those found in conservatories, Iranians and Persians still retain their system of a master teaching an apprentice. To learn how to play the setar, a child at a young age will go and live with a master of the setar and become his apprentice for many years. The master will teach his student all of his techniques, strategies, and tricks. This style of teaching is reminiscent of artisan work such as blacksmithing. Even with westernization and globalization affecting the world today, this style of teaching is still prominent in Iran.
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