Notes
My sincere gratitude to the ethnomusicologist Danilo Lozano for his valuable comments and generous suggestions.
Bazm-e Qajariyyeh (parties from the Qajar era, 1795–1925) often took place in the extensive gardens of the rich and are documented in memoirs, paintings, and photographs of the period. As a vocal performer of music of both the classical and popular genres for more than forty years, I have personally experienced the powerful hold these 6/8 rhythms in all their manifestations have over their Iranian listeners. Early in the 1950s, when I began learning songs from both the motrebi and the classical traditions, I was struck by the unique 6/8 rhythms found throughout the Iranian world, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan, all of which are connected through important elements of dance, music, literature, and shared history, among others. In this vast region the 6/8 rhythm was or is performed in its many variations, including a nearly 7/8 rhythm in the eastern parts of this area. Iranian musicians told me that this rhythm ran in their veins and was called shir-e madar (mother’s milk) because, like mother’s milk, the rhythm was imbibed as young children. For a sampling of 6/8 rhythms found in Persian music, see Faramarz Tehrani’s Ritm-ha-ye varzeshi (Exercise Rhythms 1991), a manual on how to play the tonbak, a goblet-shaped drum. Some scholars will perhaps argue that it is the poetry or music that excites the interest of an Iranian audience, but personal experience has shown that when the audience hears a 6/8 rhythmic introduction of a reng (dance piece) or song, even before any lyrics are sung or any melody is played, they begin to snap their fingers (beshkan) or clap in time to the rhythm in happy expectation of what is to follow.
1. For an excellent discussion of what constitutes highbrow and lowbrow, Lawrence W. Levine (1988) details not only how cultural canons are constructed but also how the cultural hierarchies of what constitutes “high” and “low” are dynamic categories that mutate under changing economic and social conditions. [BACK]
2. The most detailed and important study of the tasnif is Margaret Caton’s Ph.D. dissertation (1983). However, it should be noted that, like many ethnomusicologists, she limits her study to tasnifs, which belong to the classical canon in the opinion of most ethnomusicologists and Iranian classical musicians. [BACK]
3. Motreb, a word of Arabic origin meaning “one who gladdens or makes happy,” refers to public entertainers who variously and in combination acted, played musical instruments, sang, and danced. Historically such a category of performer dates back at least to the fourteenth century, where the term is found in the poetry of Hafez. These entertainers were linguistically and conceptually set apart from the serious musicians of the court. In the twentieth century, when public performances of all kinds of music became available, motreb came to refer, disparagingly, to those who play light music. It needs to be stressed that the designation “motreb” in the twentieth century constitutes a loaded insult, and those performers who consider themselves classical musicians are very sensitive to its negative connotations. I have personally heard numerous musicians disparage one another by using this term.
Truly low-class street musicians, as well as certain types of itinerant rural performers, were often called luti. The depiction of parties in Persian miniatures, accompanied by dancing and wine, and Europeans’ shocked descriptions of wild drinking bouts, as well as the untimely deaths of several rulers of both the Timurid and Safavid dynasties (1501–1725) from overconsumption, graphically demonstrate that these gatherings were not contemplative philosophical affairs but revels calling for entertaining, rather than serious, music. [BACK]
4. An exception to Westernized popular music containing “safe” lyrics were some songs performed by Dariyush that contained covert political criticism. [BACK]
5. Ruhollah Khaleqi suggests that because women “went in search of decorating themselves to captivate hearts…they made little effort to acquire art and leave some traces of it and therefore the pages of history are filled with the names of male artists” (1974, 466). Khaleqi’s portrayal of women as artistic lightweights extends through his chapter “Women and Art” (465–86), in which he characterizes women as more likely to inspire art than to create it. [BACK]
6. As an example of this, I was recently interviewed on Radio Seda-ye Iran, the twenty-four-hour Persian-language station and asked by the host, Ali Reza Meibudi, to sing “Yek hamumi sita sazam, chehel sotun, chehel panjereh” (I Built a Bathhouse for You with Forty Pillars and Forty Windows), an old tasnif that hovers perilously between the classical and motrebi traditions and that has become associated with my performances. After I sang a verse, he segued into a new version, replete with synthesizers, by Shamaizadeh, an older popular music performer from Iran. [BACK]
7. Regarding context, certain classical musicians insist that the setting for the performance of classical music must be intimate, contemplative, and spiritual, a setting where both performer and listener may concentrate. Thus songs performed at weddings and cafés cannot be considered classical. During, Mirabdolbaghi, and Safvat advise that classical music should be performed that “suggest[s] an element of hal, contemplation, and concentration to younger generations by striking a balance between poetry and music, helping them liberate themselves from the ill effects of the age of the machine and the culture of money, violence and sex” (1991, 248). [BACK]
8. In fact, one of the most successful attempts to “popularize” classical music was made by the immensely popular classical avaz singer, Golpayegani, of whom Lloyd Clifton Miller disparagingly writes: “Golpayegani was a promising vocal master who recorded on the UNESCO album entitled ‘Iran’ wherein he was accompanied by Borumand on tar. Sadly, he later fell victim to the applause of audiences and eventually decayed into a pop singer who crooned to audiences, milking them for cheers by exaggerated and contrived expressions of emotion” (1995, 229–30). While Golpayegani was reviled in some soi-disant elite classical circles, many Iranians praised him for saving classical music by performing it in new contexts for audiences who would otherwise never have listened to it. Reactions to Golpayegani’s performances are not unlike those that criticize Luciano Pavarotti’s “popular” appearances. [BACK]
9. In an interview (December 23, 1996), Jamshid Sheibani told me that, in fact, he was the first singer to incorporate Western elements in his songs. He sang for the official opening of Radio Tehran in 1940 where he sang “Bi to” (Without You) and “Delbar-e tanaz” (Flirtatious Sweetheart). Sheibani insists that these songs and others he later recorded were “in the seven dastgahs [modal systems], but the rhythms, a slow rhumba and a tango, were Western.” [BACK]
10. An excellent sampler of four tapes dating back to the 1950s is available. It is titled Shabi dar kafeh-ha-ye Tehran (A Night in the Cafés of Tehran, 1987), published by Iranzamin Publishing Co. (P.O. Box 16234, Irvine, CA 92713), with the assistance of Morteza Varzi. [BACK]
11. When Mahvash was killed in an automobile accident, thousands of bereaved fans attended her funeral. [BACK]
12. Issari’s work gives a year-by-year entry for every film made in Iran during the period, with complete credits, including all of the major actors, singers, and, occasionally, dancers involved. [BACK]
13. For a more detailed discussion of the types of lyrics found in this genre, see Shay 1995a. [BACK]
14. See also Pechey (1989, 51) on the importance of Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque in literature. [BACK]
15. For a full discussion of the topic of Islam and music, see Choudhury 1957; Nelson 1985. [BACK]
16. Some writers claim that this music is so spiritual that only Sufi poetry should be used for its performance: “But any traditional poetry with mystic and metaphysical meaning written in the metric system could be used. Yet one should choose Sufi or spiritual works such as those of Rumi, Hafez, Saidi and similar writers. Works of Omar Khayyam might not be suitable for song texts in the radif” (Miller 1995, 227–28). [BACK]
17. Even with these changes, certain classical musicians disagree:
[BACK]The current tendency is to compensate for the disappearance of light music by arranging classical or popular airs in a pleasant and novel manner. Some traditional musicians completely disagree with this method, which, ironically, they call pop-e-erfani, “mystic pop.” What the purists criticize is not the music itself, which performs its function—to entertain—but the fact that it is presented as an expression of the learned tradition. (During, Mirabdolbaghi, and Safvat 1991, 54)
18. Morteza Neydavud, perhaps more wisely than those claiming pre-Islamic origins, states, “I don’t know, and I don’t think anybody else can. Even if you ask Darvish Khan, he would say that he got it from another master.” He adds, “The origin, and originators of the dastgahs, modes, and the gushes are actually unknown” (During, Mirabdolbaghi, and Safvat 1991, 202). [BACK]
19. In Iran contexts for performing in secret, and even publicly, in defiance of the Islamic Republic’s ban on this dance form, supply ample evidence that the performance of this dance creates a space for resistance to the regime. It is significant that Iranian women from throughout the diaspora chose to taunt the Islamic regime through the vehicle of dance at the International Women’s Conference in Beijing in September 1995 (reported on Radio Seda-ye Iran, September 1995). [BACK]
20. For an in-depth discussion of the Iranian recording industry and other issues of media in the Iranian diaspora of southern California, see Naficy 1993. [BACK]
21. Music with patriotic themes, such as the well-known “Ey, Iran,” constitute a single genre of music called sorud (hymn or anthem). Musically the sorud differs from all other forms of Iranian music: it is played in 2/4 and 4/4 rhythms and intended to be sung by groups, and it is often taught in school. [BACK]
22. See Naficy 1993 for a full discussion of how nostalgia permeates Iranian music and television. [BACK]
23. For a discussion of a similar intergenerational discourse on the topic of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll” in another Middle Eastern context, see Armbrust 1996. [BACK]
24. A sampling of such performances of siyah-bazi and mardomi music and lyrics can be found on Tanin Show, No-Ruz 1373 (1992), published by Caltex Records (9045A Eton Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91304). [BACK]
25. The AVAZ International Dance Theatre is a repertory dance company that performs a large repertoire of dance and music from the Iranian culture sphere. [BACK]
26. Ardavan Mofid, pers. com. January 27, 1994. [BACK]