Iranian tuning

John Chalmers wrote:
>I've seen two different descriptions of Iranian music,
>one in terms of commas, limmas and whole tones, the other in 1/4-tones.
>Unfortunately, "1/4 tone" is also used generically by some authors
>for any sort of interval less than a tempered semitone.

Ella Zonis in _Classical Persian Music_ (Harvard UP, 1973) characterizes
these as opposing poles in a continuing controversy among Iranian music
theorists. On the one hand there are the Pythagoreans, as represented by
Mehdi Barkechli (in _La musique traditionelle de l'Iran_, Tehran, 1963) who
divide the 9/8 whole tone into a comma (24 cents) and two limmas (256/243
or 90 cents each). The diatonic semitones are not divided. As John shows in
_Divisions of the Tetrachord_, this results in a 17-tone scale. Barkechli
claims that this scale is both a theoretical and actual description of
practice.

More common seems to be the 24TET point of view, though, according to
Zonis, the theoreticians in that camp recognize that the actual tuning will
vary from player to player. I don't know if there has been any research
into the actual tunings used by players since this book.

By the way, I wouldn't characterize the _radif_ as the Iranian equivalent
of a "fake book." Traditional Iranian improvisation is based on elaborate
variations of skeletal melodies known as gusheh-ha (sing. gusheh). All the
gusheh-ha of traditional Iranian improvisation are enumerated and the
entire corpus is known as the radif. The embellishment of a particular
gusheh will depend on a variety of factors, including what's idiomatic for
the instrument, and, of course, the taste of the performer.

There was a move in the twentieth century to write down the radif in
Western notation, and the government at one time actually convened a panel
of experts to standardize the radif. However, no one could agree on the
exact form of each of the gusheh. Therefore the panel ended unsuccessfully,
and several musicians have gone on to publish their own versions of the
radif.

It is my understanding (which is limited to pre-revolutionary Iran) that
these books only serve as reference works. Comparing them to fake books
(which, admittedly, also contain skeletal versions of music to serve as the
basis for improvisation) is likely to evoke images of Iranian players
reading from a volume on a music stand, which is hardly the case. (Perhaps
with a brandy snifter beside them stuffed with tips :)

Bill

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