THE PERSIAN MUSIC AND THE SANTUR INSTRUMENTPeyman Heydarian Joshua D. Reiss Centre For Digital Music Queen Mary, University of London Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK {peyman.heydarian, josh.reiss}@elec.qmul.ac.uk ABSTRACT Persian music has had a profound effect on various East-ern musical cultures, and also influenced Southern Euro-pean and Northern African music. The Santur, a ham-mered dulcimer, is one of the most important instruments in Persia. In this paper, Persian music and the Santur instrument are explained and analysed. Techniques for fundamental frequency detection are applied to data ac-quired from the Santur and results are reported. Keywords: Non-western Musicology, Persian, Iranian Music, Santur, Santoor, Dulcimer, Dastgàh, Quartertone, Interval, Fundamental Frequency detection, Pitch. BACKGROUND Most of the efforts in music processing are focused on Western music while there are a variety of subtle points in the Eastern musical systems. This section provides the background material on Persian Music including a brief historical review and explanation of the musicological concepts. 1.1 A Brief History of Persian Music The origin of Persian music traces back to the earliest written histories. According to legend, king Jamshid is credited with the Invention of music. The two Greek historians, Herodotus and Xenophon, mention the use of martial, ceremonial and ritual music in Iran during the Medes (900- 550 B.C.) and Achaemenids (559 – 331 B.C.) dynasties [1]. Remains of an Achaemenids Clay Horn have been found recently and are held in the museum of Pars in the city of Shiraz [2]. During the Achaemenids, Persian territory from China to Egypt and Greece made a common cultural platform. During the Hellenic era from 331-238 B.C. the Macedonians ruled over the former Persian Empire and this cultural platform remained unchanged. The Mace-donians were later defeated by Iranians and the dynasty of Parthians ruled from 238 B.C. to 224 A.D. In this era, sort of popular musicians emerged who could create the poem, compose the music and perform it at once. The peak period for ancient Persian music occurred during the Sàsànids dynasty (224-652 A.D.). Bàrbod, the most brilliant musician of the court of Khosro Parviz, devised a musical system [3,4], containing seven modal structures which were called the Khosravani (Royal Modes) as the days of a week, thirty derivative modes or modulations which were called the Lahn corresponding to days of a month, and three hundred sixty melodies called the Dastàn for each day of the year. There were also music hymns with which the Gàt'hà of the Avestà (the Zoroastrian holy book) were sung. During this pe-riod, music was so important that one of the kings, Bahràm-e Gur (421-439 A.D.) invited 1200 musicians from India to contribute to the musical programmes in Persia [4]. The Arab conquest in the 7th century A.D. spread the Persian Instrumental and vocal music throughout the Islamic empire. Two major schools of music were devel-oped from the Persian music: One in Baghdad and the other in Cordoba which sprang into the North African and the Flamenco music [4]. Persian musicians and mu-sicologists brought their musical concepts and instru-ments to the furthest points in the empire. An interesting event is the migration of Master Zaryàb along with his sons and daughters from Persia to Spain to teach the in-strumental, vocal and dance techniques. He brought the Persian lute or Barbat (Ud) to the Spain which was then evolved to the present day Guitar [4]. Some of the fa-mous musicians and musicologists of Persia in the East-ern Muslim Empire are: Farabi (A.D. 950), Ebne Sinà or Avicennà (A.D. 1037), Ràzi (A.D. 1209), Safioddin Or-mavi (A.D. 1294),Qotbeddin Shiràzi (A.D. 1310), and Abdol-Qàder Maràqi (d.circa 1460) [3, 4]. This era was followed by the disastrous Mongol inva-sion in the 1200s, which brought the Persian Musical concepts to the East [4]. The new golden age of Persian civilisation began with the Safavids dynasty (1499-1746 A.D.), during which the music chambers of the Àli Qàpu and the Chéhél sotun palace in the city of Esfehàn were made. In this and pre-vious eras, musicians were patronized by nobility. How-ever, from that time until the 1850s, Persian music lost its official significance and was frowned upon [3]. In recent decades, Persian music has again found broader dimensions. An urge to create new traditions and an interest in the unique musical structures has emerged. However, the national music of Iran may be represented by the tradition of the past tinged with 19th century per-formance practices. 1.2 The Persian Composition Persian music is often dichotomised into urban (music of the large cities) and ethnic music (music of the different ethnic groups living in smaller cities, villages, and moun-tainous areas). The first uses more ornamentations and free rhythms. Farhat describes the ethnic music with its Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee pro-vided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or com-mercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. © 2005 Queen Mary, University of London 524
