A Few Seconds Ago of Central Features As Characteristic Elements in Iranian Classical Music*

Relevant repertoire of Iranian classical music tradition in recent century concludes many diverse music works which have different paradigmatic relation with Radif as source repertoire of tradition. Works of The century repertoire are also different to each other and so various in terms of musical material. Despite the processes of change which happened in past century in musical life, as ethnomusicologist Bruno Nettl reports in a study on Iranian music (1977), nowadays there are some characteristic elements which Depends on Iranian aspect of a musical piece. According to Nettl (1978), certain elements of a musical tradition are more central than others, as indicated by their pervasiveness in a repertory, the degree to which members of the society accord them primacy in their verbal statements, their tenacity in times of change. This study focuses on searching characteristic elements in Iranian classical music tradition based on these three features above. The method considers two kinds of references. The First a study on written references in Iranian classical music to find which terms are most noticed. Books that discuss Iranian classical music elements and features are two groups in approach. The first are books on theory of Iranian music which come from various types of discourses and viewpoints on case like Vaziri, Farhat, Pourtorab [and others] and Talaei. Rest of references discuss on tradition by Analytical descriptive method like Nettl’s or During’s study. The second category of information about characteristic elements in Iranian music comes from two interviews with Abdolmajid Kiani and Dariush Talaei, two outstanding characters of tradition which answer the question “what is/are the central feature(s) of Iranian classical music?” this verbal approach is more directly rather than written category because of answering straight question about characteristic elements. Next step is to categorize of defined terms and put together Converge terms. Every term which defined and focused on refers to a certain musical element. The conclusion is attaining to five categories of elements which the references stressed. These features by respectively Abundance are: a group of concepts Focused on structure and variety of Modes which is around some terms like Radif, Dastgâh, Âvâz, Gusheh, Maghâm, a group focused on theoretical scale of musical system and intervals evident in some terms like scales, Microtones, Dâng, Iranian special intervals, a group of concepts focused on musical expression like ornaments, accents, hâl, a group on rhythmic features focusing on some concepts like nonmetric perform (âvâzi), linguistic based rhythmic structure and a group concepts focused on Iranian classical music genres cognition like bedâhe-navâzi and composed pieces. These five groups of concepts agglomerate to five central features are structures and variety of Modes, theoretical scale and intervals, musical expression, rhythmic features and certain musical genres. The last problem is a comparison between these characteristics with some middle-east traditions which are cognate musical traditions. Many common characteristics are evident between Iranian music and these traditions which lead to categorize two groups of characteristic elements. The first, familiar elements focused on common Modes, Intervals and Genres. The second is unfamiliar elements which are musical expression and rhythmic features.