Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music

Subject: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 07:00 AM

Greetings to old friends here after a long-ish absence.

First and foremost I would request that this thread remained non-political even though my next sentence may appear to stray from that path.

I am attempting to support a hands-on music program for refugees who are being held in various detention centres throughout Australia, but specifically (and initially) for those Iranians at Port Hedland in extremely remote north-west Western Australia. I have recently visited there and am keen to obtain a source of Persian folk songs - preferably in electronic format, but will convert other input into traditional western notation (if indeed that is possible).

My initial needs are modest, but I would hope to extend this support to Sri Lankans and Afghanis in the future. Needless to say I have had only fleeting exposure to the music of these cultures, so please pardon my inadequacies in this regard. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated from the Mudcat community.

Best Wishes

John in Brisbane

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 11:30 AM

John
I cant offer any specific sources, only support. I am working in Stoeke-on-Trent, England, with refugees a lot at the moment. From all over, but chiefly Iraqi Kurds, Afghans ,some iranians, and many from Africa(mainly Zimbabwe). I go up to the hostel (where they are put in Stoke on first arrival) carrying asssorted drums (manily African djembes because that's what I've got). Plus my guitar and squeezebox. Kate Barfield comes as well with her fiddle, and a spare fiddle. We lay instruments out invitingly on the floor, play a couple of tunes or songs ourselves, then grin. And see what happens.
    Which has been a lot over the years,leading to all sortsd of recordings, gigs, social get-togethers, etc etc. We've never needed to know foreign songs ourselves, people seem to bring them with them, and the availability of drums and other insturments to have a go on loosens things up, even if people are non-players.
Give us a progress report. Send me a PM and I'll send you a recording of things that have happened here.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: M.Ted
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 12:23 PM

"We've never needed to know foreign songs ourselves, people seem to bring them with them" That's the great thing about folk music!

A couple thoughts--

There are a lot of music sites on line, and many places that you can find MP3's of different kinds of music from the cultures that you are interested in--thing is that it is hard to figure out what is what--it helps to know someone who knows the music--

There is a Middle Eastern tendency for musicians to be seriously schooled in traditional music, and if you ask around, you'll often find people who know the music really well and are polished musicians. For reasons that we know only to well, musicians and performers tend to be political exiles as well, and there are a few names whose repertoire has great emotional meaning--for a lot of Iranians, this person is the singer, Googoosh--

Nother thing is to figure out when the religious festivals are and how they are celebrated in the communities you are looking at--These a very good time to get to know people and make musical connections--if there are musicians, this is when they'll appear(plus there will be lots of good food)--

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: greg stephens
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 05:24 PM

At the moment it is Ramadan, which has its own set of rules which I xpect youre finding out about.
   The main thing I've learnt is, be patient. people may not want to sing when you would like them to. They may not be in the mood. And dont expect songs to start, go on for a bit, and then stop three minutes later. Some last for two seconds, some for twelve hours. And dony expect to be able to whistle the tunes. Iranian music is,well, Iranian. It all takes time! And the more time you take, the more you will be rewarded in every way. Have fun!!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 10:22 PM

What wonderful work you are all doing! John, if you click here it will take you to a page of a bunch of radio programs of Iranian/Persian music; some are live shows, others archived, some modern, some trad. I am listening to a really wonderful trad one right now. I found this through a "Iranian music mp3s" search on google.

You folks are really great for reaching out. Hope this helps,

kat

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Nov 03 - 10:56 PM

There's a particularly beautiful, long song which starts about 25-30 minutes into this program. Lots of intricate guitar(?) work with a little voicing now and then. Gorgeous music.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 12:17 AM

John,
In Brisbane there are some "World Music" things happening - details in The Folk Rag - but I would expect you mat have already noted these.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: Kaleea
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:20 AM

As a Musician, I have always enjoyed the folk music of any indigenous peoples. At the risk of being suspect by Scotland Yard, the FBI, CIA, ABC, DEF & GHI, etc., when the current war/conflict/police action/whatever in Iraq began, I was curious to hear some music from the region, so I nosed around on the www to hear what I could hear. I believe I went to dogpile or some other multi search engine & kept at it till I came up with some wonderful Music midis & Music from that part of the globe. We Musicians have often blazed trails to share Music with others from around the world before the politicians & diplomats could even think about it! It goes beyond tolerance, even beyond respect--as a Musician & lover of the Arts, I relish the differences in our varied world cultures! I truly enjoy hearing instruments, melodies, tonalities, rhythms etc. of other cultures.   When we share our Music, we are sharing a little bit of ourselves with others. Those of us who claim to be "Christian" should be fascinated to hear Music which is very much like that written of in our Old Testament.
    A couple of summers ago, some friends & I were performing at a local living museum representing a "western" (wild west aka cowboy times) town of the Mid West, when a couple came in & listened in fascination to the Hammered Dulcimer. They told us that many folks back home in their country of "Persia" play Hammered Dulcimers.   
    Anybody know how many times the word "dulcimer" is in the King James version of the Bible?
    American Jazz greats (like Louis Armstrong)& other Musicians (like John Denver) went to the former USSR many years ago, & were truly appreciated. If we keep focused on our common bonds--like the arts--we will have Peace much faster than any wars could bring about!
    If anybody finds a good site with Middle Eastern Music--especially any written music!--& an English speaking/reading person answers with plenty of info, PLEASE!! Let me/us know! Catters?
                   Kaleea

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 01:33 AM

Thanks for the responses to date. I am making other progress and am learning to respect that some things take a little while to accomplish. I'll let you know.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 07:57 AM

Of course there is some doubt as to what instrument exactly the old testament is referring to as a dulcimer.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 11 Nov 03 - 09:47 PM

There are a large number (perhaps 100)of 'pop' MIDIs at iranianmidi.com and a music discussion group at iranmidi.com which I have just joined. The MIDIs I've looked at to date have been input via a piano keyboard and are fairly fickle when converted to sheet music - particularly when it comes to note duration. I'll need some more experience before I can indiscriminately quantize the note lengths without risk of killing the soul of the music.

Still no luck with any traditional music just yet. I have no idea whether trad/classical Persian music can be effectively translated to MIDI, which I surmise was developed for Western musical genres.

The local State Library is a phenomenal resource for Western music - I'll be there tomorrow to check how good their Eastern collection is.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 05:15 AM

There wasn't even a crumb of Persian music at the State Library when I visited today. We Aussies (or some of us at least) congratulate ourselves on being such a multi-cultural society - No.2 behind Irael is the claim. I guess it'll take our libraries a decade or two to catch up.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 09:11 AM

Kaleea, The word dulcimer appears 3 times in the King James version, all in the book of Daniel. It's talking about Nebuchadnezzar, so the Persian origin sounds plausible.

I'm not up on Persion music but I hear a lot of Lebanese music. I don't know how the music is written down but it has a lot of notes that would be difficult to represent using European notation.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: GUEST,wyllow
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 06:40 PM

the Persian dulcimer is called a "santur" or "santoor". it is basically a hammered dulcimer but tuned differently. it possibly has a different number of strings, also. I knew a great Persian santur player in Texas.

Persian music uses modes, not scales. It also relies heavily on quarter tones, as does most middle eastern music. I don't know how they would notate those quarter tones. The santur player i knew mostly played by ear. he was also a classically trained pianist in the Western tradition.

wyllow :)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 13 Nov 03 - 08:17 PM

And to make matters worse, an Iranian friend who plays piano, guitar, tar, and some santur (don't some people just make you want to spit) tells me that there are, to his knowledge, at least six "local" traditional musical systems, each one specific to particular cities or country areas. Each one has diferent tuning and requires the instrument to be adjusted differently for music from different places. This is, he says, the reason why the santur has no fixed bridges and santur players go bald prematurely.

John in Brisbane, there are two amateur santur players in Pine Rivers and at least one semi-professional Iranian music group in Brisbane. If you can't trace them, let me know and I'll find a contact number for you.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Nov 03 - 02:32 AM

I've done a lot of reading in the last few days about classical Persian music, which I won't attempt to condense for the moment.

Fortunately I'm not attempting to play the music at the moment, just finding a source of the notation. For those with an interest I've located a French site which provides some revisions to the Freeware packages of abcm2ps and abc2midi which seem to provide quite elegant and simple solutions to the notation of quarter notes using some (unofficial) variations to the abc Notation Standard.

That site is http://anamnese.online.fr/iran/persian_music.html There are also some PDF pages of modes and notation examples. This site takes a bit of experimentation in order to navigate.

I know that abc-users has wresteled with this subject in the recent past (which I largely ignored) and have written to them for a source of music.

If I get the chance to investigate the abc freeware modifications I'll drop a report on the ABC Notation Permathread. This will only be worthwhile if there's a large enough body of Persian music using the unofficial vriations to the abc Notation Standard. More anon.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 05:52 AM

The old fable about searching for four leaved clover in your own backyard has certainly proved true on this occasion. Bill Anderson from Brisbane has very kindly provided the following links.
 
http://www.persianartmusic.com/weekly_notation.html
sheet music

http://www.rhythmweb.com/persia/forms.htm
Rythmic theory

http://www.xs4all.nl/~kvandoel/ney/technique.html
persian ney,scales etc

http://www.persia.it/html/musica.htm
music background-regionalstyles

http://tehran.stanford.edu/audio.html
audio files

http://www.duke.edu/~azomorod/persian2.html
Theory and history

http://www.ahmadborhani.org/sanindex.htm
Learning Iranian music

http://www.santur.com/Index2.html
Audio files and learning info,heaps of info here,sheets of various modes etc.

http://www.shayda.net/bibliography.html
bibliography

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From:
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 08:39 PM

dear sir
according to your request,there are many iranian follloric music sources which are available such as:
the northern folk music:baharmona(composer:A.Mohsenpoor)
                        doodooktika(composer:A.Mohsenpoor)
                        baharaneh(composer:A.MOhsenpoor)
                        shevar (composer:A.Mohsenpoor)
                        mahteti (composer: A.Mohsenpoor)
                        migilan (composer:H.Hamidi)
                        gilelo (composer:H.Hamidi)
                        shabash (composer:H.Hamidi)
if you are in emergency need for your request I can send you the CDs of above sources.
I am the leader of an iranian folk music group. if you need any informations about base of iranian folk music and instruments I can help you, also we can participate in folkloric and traditional music festivals for extending Iranian music.
best regards
Azad Omrani

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 03:04 AM

Azad Omrani: where do live? I am in Stoke-on-Trent, England, where there are quite a lot of Iranian people, and I play a lot of music with them. It would be very interesting to meet you.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: rich-joy
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:54 AM

Hi John!

Have you tried talking to the guys from KHIDIR (Brisbane/Gold Coast-based), who do the wonderful Persian Sufi music and poetry - perhaps you've seen them at Woodford Folk Festival? Or at one of the Sacred Music Festivals in Brisbane? They have a website :
www.khezr.com and a lovely CD "Between the Known and the Unknown" ...

Or maybe Sim & Pat Symons, who organise the Folkloric Programme at Woodford could advise (PM me for their details if required)...

See you next Friday at the Top Half!!

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Iranian/Persian Folk Music
From: GUEST,brisbane iranian
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 01:42 AM

hi john
i dont suppose you are still doing this? because if you are i also liv in brisbane and i am an iranian.. i know many persian folk music players that i know will be more than exstatic to help you! if you are still doing this.. send me an email to [e-mail]
cheers!