Keys and modes in persian music

Dear ozan and yahya

in persian music ، if we assume dastgah as the base structure with its own functions and intervalic structure,key is related to it.for example in

(shur – A) we have such an intervallic structure in 24-edo system:

0 150 300 500 700 800 1000 1200 here , A is tonic or shaahid of dastgah

We have different modes in shur due to change in the position of shaahid in this intervallic structure like : dashtee mode which shaahid is the fifth of shur.

The most important parameter is how to knowi the mode by its garvity around shaahid in melodic contour.this melodic contour occure in tetrachord or pentachord , relating to shaahid.by change of mode in dastgah modal modulation has occurred.

The very important thing is the relation between modes and dastgah.you can compose music In dashtee mode but you must and must present the main dastgah (shur)in your composition.

We have 5 modes due to place of Shahid in shur from unison (shur) to fifth (dashtee). May be other modes after fifth but they are lost in shur !!! and we havn't them.

________________________________

From: tuning@yahoogroups.com [mailto:tuning@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ozan Yarman
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 2:16 AM
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [tuning] Re: Keys and modes

Yahya,

----- Original Message -----

From: Yahya Abdal-Aziz <mailto:yahya@melbpc.org.au>

To: tuning@yahoogroups.com

Sent: 29 Ekim 2005 Cumartesi 10:52

Subject: [tuning] Re: Keys and modes

Ozan,

On Sat, 29 Oct 2005, you wrote:

[-------------8><--- snip!]

> > There are many more
> > modal folk tunes from the same mould.
>
> No doubt, in their own respective keys.

No doubt, in their own respective modes.

Upon which their respective keys are based.

> > While you can set these
> > tunes in tertian harmonies from a heptatonic key (and many have),
> > this does much violence to their essentially pentatonic and modal
> > nature.
>
> Huh? They are pentatonic keys obviously. Why do you assume a key has to be
septatonic, or worse, diatonic all the time?

They are pentatonic modes obviously.
Why do you assume a mode has to be a key?

Not the mode, but the piece which utilizes a particular mode to begin with.

If you build triads on each scale degree of a
pentatonic mode, you naturally need to include
the third above the second, namely the fourth,
and also the fifth above the third, namely the
seventh. The resulting gamut is unavoidably
heptatonic. It does not follow that it has to
be diatonic, but then I never said it did.

Septatonic has a diatonic flavor to it, almost unavoidably.

[-------------8><--- snip!]

> > Still, I wonder whether you will hear "Who will buy" as being in
> > the key of E minor, rather than being modal - just *because* it
> > modulates?
>
> I would most likely hear it in the key of E pentatonic minor, simply
because it modulates with gusto.

Your definition of a key is any mode which modulates?

My definition of key is any tonal setting which modulates around a particular mode and uses relative pitch designations for that purpose. I furthermore assert that such a definition ought to be considered universal for all musics. All tunes are based on keys in my eyes, modal or otherwise.

[-------------8><--- snip!]

> > The example I gave of the minor second occurs
> > in some Japanese modes and Indian ragas, most particularly and
> > obviously in those whose scales have a flat seventh or no seventh
> > at all. There's a rag - I forget the name - with a scale like this:
> > take the notes of F harmonic minor, but C is the tonic.
>
> A plagal mode obviously. Furthermore, it bears a striking resemblance to
the principal Devr (mode, or scale/gamut) of Maqam Hijaz.

A mode, you say ... not a key?

Devr is mode, as in octave species of a scale from a global set of pitches. That is why Ilm-i Edvar, or the Science of Cycles/Modes bears a striking resemblance to Medieval music theories of Europe. Maqam is not mode, it is key, as in modal rotations around a tonal center. It is surprising that Maqams came into existence in the Middle East around the same time as keys evolved from modality in the West. The Rast Maqam is the Key of Rast based on the 5-limit tempered Ionian mode as well as other modes around which it modulates.

> > > Lovely! Where can I learn more about these "Usuls" (`Usulun,
> > > meaning bases?) ?
> > >
> > > Have you tried Walter Feldman's `Music of the Ottoman Court`?
> > >
> > Haven't even heard of it before now! Would you recommend it
> > as an accurate account?
>
> As accurate as any orientalist's observation of this genre can be. All the
other significant resources are written in either Turkish, Arabic or Persian
and few in Greek and Armenian. I would suggest that you await my doctorate
dissertation in English. It'll be any minute now! ;)

Still waiting, still eager!

I admire your passion, really!

> > I still haven't heard an example of this, but would like to.
> >
> No matter what I say, I cannot make you hear what I hear. It seems you
have to make the pilgrimage on your own volition. :)

Now that's sheerly perverse of you; I repeatedly bow
at the guru's knee, only to be told "Patience! All will
be revealed ...".

That is what the noble sheik decreed. Behold! It shall all be revealed in due time! :)

> > If you play it with F as the tonic note, the scale is similar
> > to the rag I described before, but without the fourth and
> > seventh. That is, it uses the notes F G Ab C Db. Is this just
> > an impoverished F minor key?

> Nope, it is a composition in the Key of F pentatonic (of whatever category
this may fall into), which happens to be the SCALA 1-4-2-1-4 mode, dubbed
the Han-kumoi-joshi.

F is the tonic; the mode is 2-1-4-1-4. Please tell me why it is a key?

It will become a key once a piece is composed with it. One would have to be a pretty dull composer to labor so that a mode does not become a key. All modes eventually become keys once a good piece is composed with it, unless a modulation is specifically avoided throughout, in which case I would consign it the term mode, avoid calling it worthwhile music and be done with it.

> > I think not, for if you
> > harmonise it using Fm, Bb and C7, you've introduced two
> > foreign notes and given them more weight than the melody
> > can support.
>
> I would do no such thing of course. You do not need those notes in the
polyphony.

I'm glad to hear it. But am fascinated to know how
harmonising this tune with only notes from this mode
can turn it into a key.

First give me a section of the music, then I will try to harmonise it according to its pentatonic key the way I hear it.

> > It's possible to harmonise the
> > melody using only scale tones, but it needs a light touch -
> > and definitely has no leading tone on the seventh!
>
> Granted. But it still is a key if it modulates or tranposes with gusto.

Diatonic transpositions within the notes of the mode?

Modulations as in rotations of the scale, transpositions as in an exact linear pitch-shift while preserving the intervallic structure.

> > > And why should we refrain from calling a Japanese pentatonic a key,
but
> > > not a mode?
> >
> > Because it's not a key, and it is a mode. :-)
>
> And a minor is not a mode???? Come on now, all keys are based on modes.

What is the extra something that says: with this,
we have a key, without it, we have [only] a mode?

We have a mode when it is explained on paper, just as we have a scale when we look at a scala file. We have a key once we do something with them which we call music.

> > I've just shown how one pentatonic scale, with tonic F,
> > has no leading tone. Is it still a key despite that?
> > I don't think so - not unless "key" suddenly has much
> > wider connotations than usual.
>
> What deprives us from thinking in that manner while you agree to
over-stretch the historical definition of ecclesiastical modes to comprise
maqams and ragas?

I thought I was using the term "mode" in the generally
accepted sense of a system of tonality not characterised
by the use of tertian harmonies, and where harmony is
forever the servant of melody. The term "mode" does not,
for me, first and foremost evoke the Dark Ages of Europe,
but rather the Golden Age of Greece.

Just because Ancient Greek Music is based on modal heterophony does not mean that mode itself implies any extra information for tonality, be it tertian or otherwise. We say major and minor, but we correlate them in a system of keys, specifically because they acquire the necessary tonal meaning when utilized as keys. And no, a key does not imply tertian harmony, it only relates modes and their transpositions to each other by certain rules which are subject to change depending on culture and tradition. Late 19th Century European Music differs widely from Classical and Baroque, in that Romantic composers utilize another system of keys (still widely unformulated) altogether. That is why Respigni is so much more different from Couperin, although they are both tonal composers who employed keys in their works.

> > By choosing the note C as tonic, yet using the same
> > scale, we clearly have another mode.
>
> Upon which a key is based.

Again, what's the difference? Is a key just a mode that
you're so unsure of you keep changing and jumping from
one to another?

Are you even following what I've been trying to say since the beginning?

> > Again, try it
> > for yourself; use all your wiles and musical prowess
> > to emphasise the note C rather than any other -
> > particularly Db. Here is another mode of the same
> > scale as before; it, too, lacks a leading tone.
>
> One needs no leading tone to modulate, only wit and gusto. Domenico
Scarlatti himself uses to supertonic as a substitute for the leading tone.
Does he not compose in keys then?

Now there's an interesting question! Ralph Kirkpatrick,
I believe, makes the point that more than a few of
Scarlatti's Sonatas cannot be considered to be in keys.
And that is certainly my experience of some of them.

Balderdash. Scarlatti was a tonal composer whose works are based on keys entirely, be they conventional or unconventional. Would you be kind enough to show me which Scarlatti sonatas are not in keys? If we were to give in to that logic, we would have to dump thousands of tonal works out the window just because they do not conform to a narrow understanding of key, which is oft imagined to be a synoym for mainstream tertian harmony.

> > Ozan, I would like to be able to hear what you hear
> > in maqam music. I would also like you to be able to
> > hear what I hear in modal music. Perhaps we can
> > achieve these aims if we continue to share
> > information to the best of our ability, while avoiding
> > the temptation to score points off each other. :-)
> > (I know I find that hard.)
>
> But it's so much fun!

Grrr.

Regards,
Yahya

Harumph!

Cordially,

Ozan

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________________________________

Eid Mubarak brother Mohajeri! Sorry for my late reply:

I am relieved to see that Dastgah, just like Maqam, is nothing other than `Key` which revolves around select modes of a particular or several special (diatonic) scales. In this same token, I wonder if Carnatic Sangeet is also based on exactly the same concept in an altogether different and refined manner. The examples I've been listening to suggest modulations within a particular Rag's scale by fourths and fifths.

Thus it is my observation that:

Maqam=Dastgah=Rag=Key

Depending on a widely cultural context.

Most people tend to think of modulation in a closed 12-tone system, and confuse it with transposition. True, in a cyclic 12-tone framework, modulation and transposition almost amount to the same thing. Nevertheless, I think it best to avoid the 20th century trend by musicologists who, upon wanting to categorize the esoteric Middle Eastern genres, failed to identify tonality in their prejudice, heard rather something which reminded them of something as foreign as Ecclesiastical Music, and - knowingly or unknowingly - associated Maqam Music with `modal music` (itself an acute jargon which implies not the lack of tonality as much as musical variety). The consequence of that was, a clandestine insinuation that all such `modal musics` were eventually trapped in a lesser stage of development.

Cordially,
Ozan

----- Original Message -----
From: Mohajeri Shahin
To: tuning@yahoogroups.com
Sent: 02 Kasım 2005 Çarşamba 7:58
Subject: [tuning] Keys and modes in persian music

Dear ozan and yahya

in persian music ¡ if we assume dastgah as the base structure with its own functions and intervalic structure,key is related to it.for example in

(shur – A) we have such an intervallic structure in 24-edo system:

0 150 300 500 700 800 1000 1200 here , A is tonic or shaahid of dastgah

We have different modes in shur due to change in the position of shaahid in this intervallic structure like : dashtee mode which shaahid is the fifth of shur.

The most important parameter is how to knowi the mode by its garvity around shaahid in melodic contour.this melodic contour occure in tetrachord or pentachord , relating to shaahid.by change of mode in dastgah modal modulation has occurred.

The very important thing is the relation between modes and dastgah.you can compose music In dashtee mode but you must and must present the main dastgah (shur)in your composition.

We have 5 modes due to place of Shahid in shur from unison (shur) to fifth (dashtee). May be other modes after fifth but they are lost in shur !!! and we havn't them.