Iranian music has a millennia long continuous history comparable to that of the Indian or Greek music traditions. The earliest records come from Herodotus and Xenophon about the Zoroastrian religious hymns and ceremonial music of Achaemenid Iran (550 - 331 BCE). During the Sassanid period (226-642 CE), we get first-hand accounts of the music scene in Iran with a music system of 7 Xosrovani (modes), and 360 Dastan (melodies). Some of the modes were Kin-e Iraj (Vengeance of Iraj), Kin-e Siāvuš (Vengeance of Siāvuš), Taxt-e Ardešir (Throne of Ardešir), Haft Ganj (Seven treasures), Bāq-e Šahryār (Garden of the Sovereign), Sabz bahār (Green Spring), Rōšan Čerāq (Bright lights), etc. But as we understand from Indian music, the names of the modes and the melodies have little to do with their emotions that they induce (at least to model sensibilities) or the emotive content of the songs.

In this article, my focus is on the Dastgah (pronounced as das-gaw) music tradition in particular. This music tradition is relatively modern, developed after the Maqam system - popular in the middle-east region. The Dastgah musical form took shape in the with the advent of Qajar dynasty of Iran in the late 18th century. Although, this estimate purely based on the earliest written documents on the subject during the said dynastic rule^[1].

The Dastgah is a modal music system $-$ where the use of musical modes and melodies to express a musical structure and to establish a certain "mood"^[2].

Although there may have been many Dastgah musical structures in the early period, 12 seems to have been a standard. Again over the years, this distilled down to a 7 dastgah (dastgah-i-hafteh-ganeh) based on music performance and public acceptance. This 7 became standardized in late nineteenth century to early twentieth century.

The Dastgah is a loaded term indicating both a group of modes as well as the first mode in each group. Fir instance, the Dastgah-e Shur is the collection od modes under the shur as well the initial part of that collection. Therefore, when we say there are 12 Dastgah,it does not indicate that there are only 12 modes^[3].

The 7 dastgah are Shur, Mahur, Homayun, Chahargah, Segah, Nava, and Rast-Panjgah.

Eventually, few more were added - and were called avaz-dastgah or simply avaz. These are of varying numbers according to different musical sub-traditions but the well known ones are Bayat-i-isfahan (originally based on the Dastgah-e Homayun), dashti, Abu ata, Bayat-i-tork, and Afshari (considered derivatives of Shur). Here again, there are some disagreements between which of these are considered dastgah and which are avaz (song). In anycase, there are currently 12 dastgah-avaz in practice.

The relationship between the gusheh and the dastgah is complex and different musicians and music scholars have described in different ways.

The Music System

As Hormoz Farhat notes, in the turn of the twentieth century, many Iranian musicians and musicologists, regrettably, implicitly thought that the western 12-tone polyphonic music is superior and made attempts to invent music theories to make it compatible with harmonization - including developing orchestras for a largely monophonic musical tradition. This is not so far from the attempts of Ravi shankar, and Ravikiran in building orchestras and forcing harmonies for the Indian systems.

Radif is the generic name given to musical patterns, melodic models upon which extemporization takes place. It can be of varying lengths and yet even during improvisation, certain melodic features must be retained to give them identity.

Instruments

Santur, Nay, Kemancheh, tar, Setar, Zarb, daf, qanun, ud,

The Performance

If a musician or a group of musicians with a singer wanted to perform traditional Iranian music in its most authentic form, it would be the radif-dastgah tradition following a detailed procedural model: they would take one particular dastgah (collection of modes) and perform the radifs. The first radif is called the Daramad, while the rest are called Gusheh. The daramad is important as to establish the dastgah's identity. The daramad describes the the title mode of the dastgah collection. The Gusheh are performed in a fairly set order, with varying degrees of improvisation. Each of the Gusheh can be considered as a different mode within that Dastgah collection.

For instance, say one chooses the Dastgah-e Homayun for the concert. The typical flow would be - Daramad of Homayun, followed by a set of Gusheh - Salmak, Zanguleh, Nu'i, Morad-Khani, Gusheh of Bidad, Nashib & Faraz, Nowruz-e Arab, Naghmeh, Nafir, Farang, Gardunieh, Chahar-Mezrab, Nowruz-e Saba, Nowruz-e Khara, Nashib, Baghdadi, and Gusheh of Ozzal. The concert ends with a final return to Homayun^[4]. Different artists may exclude or include gusheh to the above list depending on their style and the length of the performance.

If a particular Gusheh gains more promience and allows more variations and explorations, it can become its down Dastgah (or avaz). An example of this is the Dastgah-e Abu Ata, derived from Shur. Another interesting Gusheh of Shur that is more promiment than other Gusheh but not yet considered its own Dastgah is the Bayat-e Kord.

daramad

kereshmeh

forud

What is the role of the rthymic instruments? How do they follow with the improvisations?

Glossary

Side opinion: One of the most prominent authorities on Iranian music Hormoz Farhat makes some interesting remarks in his book - "The Dastgah concept in Persian Music". Calling it Persian music (While it originated during the Turkoman Qajar dynasty), his regrets that Iran (which is historically the correct name for the region) is not being called "Persia" (which is the south central region in Iran) seems quite strange to me. It alienates all the other sub-Iranian ethnic groups. Iran has had a myriad of different kingdoms and dynasties from different groups like Parni (Parthian), Turkoman Qajars, Kurdish-Turkmen Safavis and so on, are they continue to live in modern day Iran.