[Long] Iranian Music and "Nostalgia" about the past
Navid Badie
: In article <3g6gef$b...@radon.stanford.edu>,
: Kaveh Massoudian <ka...@austin.ibm.com> wrote:
: >
: >As kAmbiz has rightly pointed out, none of us including shAmloo
: >are infallible.
: >
: >I agree. I will say that I do enjoy those works of shAmloo
: >that I have so far read.
: >
:
: [deleted]
:
: I think the best person to takl about Shamloo is our own SCIer Hossein
: Rafsanjani.
: I am surprised that he has kept silent throuout all this discussion.
:
: I personally agree with Shamloo's view that our nostalgia about our past has
: resulted in stagnation, particularly in the development of music.
:
: --jamshid
I have not read the text of Mr. Shamloo's comments about Iranian music,
I have only heard other people who paraphrased him. However I think that
it is unfair to say that what has hurt the development of our music is
nostalgia about the past. This may be true in many other fields, but
not in music.
In music, part of our problem is that music and musicians have been held
in low regard for centuries, certainly since the Safavieh period. As a
result our music has actually _lost_ ground between, say, the 13th
and the 19th century A.D. The patronage of the Kings, the Clergy,
and/or the aristocracy, which would be a source of protection as well
as income, was not available during this period. As a result, many of
our maqaamaat, as well as some instruments, styles of playing, and
work of research and documentation were lost. This trend started to
get reversed, very slowly, during the second half of the 19th century.
The point here is that before you can innovate in an artistic or
literary endeavour (or any other endeavour for that matter), you have
to be familiar with has been done before. It is of course possible that
a genius will come along who has innovation in their genes, but in general,
one cannot innovate in Iranian music before one knows and understands,
thoroughly, what is it that is "Iranian" about this music, where it
comes from, how it has evolved, and in what areas there is the most
opportunity and necessity for innovation and improvement.
This has been said by many people in regard to, for instance, poetry.
Shamloo, Nima, Akhavan Sales, Sayeh and others are (were) certainly
very capable of composing traditional style poetry, and they have
studied the traditinal poets and traditional literature. They are
(were) definitely "saaheb nazar" in literature, not just in "new"
poetry. Now that "new" poetry is well established thanks to the
efforts of people like Shamloo, it is less of a requirement for a
young poet to know traditional poetry before engaging in "new"
poetry. But this is simply not the case in music.
In the art of music, we are just now digging ourselves out from
under the rubble of many centuries of neglect, and the work that
has to be done is simply staggering. Some people are doing research
in the origins of the music, the relationship between the sonnati
music and the other genres (folkloric, religious, motrebi, etc...),
the scales and intervals, the various radifs, etc... others are
establishing the tradition in terms of performance, because that
tradition has not yet been yet completely recovered.
The work of people like Shajarian is of great, great value because
a lot of the various melodies, forms, and styles of improvisation
would have simply disappeared were it not for his efforts. Others
are doing the same kind of work. Sima Bina's efforts in gathering
the popular music of Khorasan are a milestone in our musical culture.
It is this type of work by Shajarian, Bina and others that builds the
foundation for future innovation which has roots in our own culture
rather than blindly copying other musical traditions.
Then there are people who are practising and teaching the music, and
these people are faced with the daunting task of re-creating a method
of teaching Iranian music from scratch. Because musicians were not
highly regarded in the past, and because of the effort that they had
to put into learning the music, which would then not be much
appreciated, these musicians developed a protective attitude that
went against sharing their knowledge. Before one could learn what
they knew, one had to become completely devoted to them, virtually
their servant. There are many stories about this master-apprentice
relationships and attitudes.
Here is one of these stories: When Mirza Ali Akbar Farahani died, his
two children, Mirza Abdollah and Aqa Hossein Qoli, were too young and
were still early in their musical education. Their cousin, Aqa Qolam
Hossein, who was older and had been a student of Mirza Ali Akbar,
married their mother in order to provide support for their family.
He also taught them music and the radif according to their father,
but he only taught them five of the seven dastgaah-haa. They could
not get him to teach them Navaa and Raast Panjgaah! After much effort,
eventually the only way the two brothers found for learning these two
dastgaah-haa was to sneak under his window and quietly listen to
him performing! This is what young people had to do to learn music.
Is there any wonder that we have lost so much of our tradition?
Today, for someone who aspires to learn the radif, or an instrument,
there are many books, tapes and complete performances of the radif
on all sorts of instruments. There are new methods of teaching being
developed. This is just a starting point.
Then there are great masters of our music who are innovating with
new forms of music based on the tradition, who experiment with
orchestration and harmony, and innovate in the art of instrument
making as well in the style of playing the instruments. And all of
this is happening in an atmosphere which is not exactly encouraging
for musicians and their art, to say the very least.
I apologize for going on about this topic, but it is one that is
close to my heart, and I think that one has to consider many
aspects of our history and culture before attacking the painstaking
work that is going on in a given field. Criticism is necessary,
but you do not have to destroy the past to get to the future.
In effect, it is not "nostalgia" about the past that has slowed
down the development of our music, but the partial destruction of
our past achievements and the effort it has taken to recover some
of the lost foundations.
Cheers,
--Navid Badie
Kaveh Massoudian
Navid Badie <nba...@rd.hydro.on.ca> wrote:
>jams...@w203zrz.zrz.tu-berlin.de (J. Naghizadeh) writes:
>: I personally agree with Shamloo's view that our nostalgia about our past has
>: resulted in stagnation, particularly in the development of music.
>
for traditional Iranian music deleted]
>I apologize for going on about this topic, but it is one that is
>close to my heart, and I think that one has to consider many
>aspects of our history and culture before attacking the painstaking
>work that is going on in a given field. Criticism is necessary,
>but you do not have to destroy the past to get to the future.
Very well put and I must say that I agree 100%.
>In effect, it is not "nostalgia" about the past that has slowed
>down the development of our music, but the partial destruction of
>our past achievements and the effort it has taken to recover some
>of the lost foundations.
I am just thankful to God that we have those few masterpieces of
traditional music that has remained and is now the foundation for
better systematic studying and new ways of teaching. Iranian traditional
music provides me with timeless links to Iran's heritage.
>Cheers,
>--Navid Badie
Happy listening,
Kaveh