Rhythmic Structure in Iranian Music

"Rhythmic Structure in Iranian Music" is a book by Dr Mohammad Reza Azadehfar.

Abstract

This book looks at Iranian Music through rhythm. Most previous studies of Iranian music focus on melodic systems (Farhat, Zonis, etc.) or on instrumentation and the transcription of folk songs (Massoudieh, Darvishi, etc.). This book examines the so-far neglected rhythmic structure of Iranian classical music. Nonetheless, this book is not simply a rhythm book. This research has adopted a multidisciplinary perspective, employing approaches from the psychology of music, Western and Iranian music theory, historical musicology and the ethno-musicological approach of participant-observation to view the issue of Iranian classical music including improvisation from the perspective of the rhythm.

In order to investigate the rhythmic aspect of Iranian music and attempt to relate it to other aspects of this music, this book examines different issues related to the rhythmic structure of Iranian music, including the rhythmic structure of the Persian poetry, the old rhythmic cycles and the rhythmic characteristics of both improvisation and composed music. Analysis of more than fifty improvisations and composed music in this book shows that the rhythmic organisation of "gūsheh-ha" and musical genres with any rhythmic profile (such as free metre, stretchable metre or fixed metre) may be influenced by the shape of Persian poetic metres.

A wide exploration of music-related manuscripts from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries provides an opportunity to compare more than thirty different rhythmic cycles recorded there. Although this system of rhythmic cycles is no longer explicitly used in Iranian music, examining several examples of contemporaneous improvisation and composed music reveals that a taste of the old rhythmic cycles is still felt in this music. An adaptation of the old rhythmic cycles examined in this book to current techniques of tombak performance is another outcome of this book. Moreover, presenting a case study of contemporary performance of Iranian classical music at the end of this book provides an opportunity to exhibit the role in a real performance of most of the theories raised in this book. On the top of all, the reader can enjoy a demonstration of nearly all pieces examined throughout the book on two audio CDs consisting of 101 tracks.