30/12/2015

Persian music, piano, percussion and organ

I started a new series of organ pieces, based on patterns taken from my piano composition Rhythm Pattern Melodies VII. A few years ago, I made a recording of this piece in a version for piano and percussion, with the very talented percussionist Renato Peneda:


 A certain pattern from this piece, representing a 16+9 metre, serves as a loop (or groove, ostinato) for the left hand in a piece called The Loop Man # 16+9, with the feet playing a modal melody and the right hand improvising. The 16+9 metre is subdivided in (3+3+3+2+2+3) + (3+2+2+2). 



The Loop Man # 16+9 is dedicated to Mohsen Mohammadi, an eminent specialist on Persian traditional music, and Bahar Rezaei. During a seminar in Mumbai in 2006 and several times since, Mohsen Mohammadi and I had very interesting conversations on a certain resemblance between Persian traditional music and my way of improvising. Both are based on a clearly organized set of formulae which has to be intensely practised over a period of many years. In Persian music this set is called Radif, which on Wikipedia is referred to as follows:
"Radif (Persian: ردیف, meaning order in Persian) is a collection of many old melodic figures preserved through many generations by oral tradition. It organizes the melodies in a number of different tonal spaces called Dastgah. The traditional music of Iran is based on the radif, which is a collection of old melodies that have been handed down by the masters to the students through the generations. Over time, each master's own interpretation has shaped and added new melodies to this collection, which may bear the master's name.
The preservation of these melodies greatly depended on each successive generation's memory and mastery, since the interpretive origin of this music was expressed only through the oral tradition.
To truly learn and absorb the essence of the radif, many years of repetition and practice are required. A master of the Radif must internalize the Radif so completely to be able to perform any part of it at any given time."

Mr. Mohammadi sent me the following links concerning Dariush Tali, an extraordinary performer and scholar, who is one of the last to have worked with the old masters of Persian music.:


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