Different Musics in Our Life

A Talk with Iranian Composers and Musicians, Tehran, 16 February 2020


The five musicians are members or friends of Yarava Music Group. They were born in the 1980s. The talk took place in a small café following an initiative of Joachim Heintz who also transcribed the talk. The subject was: Which different musics did you experience in your life, and how did you come to contemporary music.

A

I was not born in a musical family. I played guitar and electric bass in the age of ten to fifteen. And like other teenagers, I loved to play rock music. After I was accepted in the university, I started to play violoncello, and I loved it very much. In particular I loved to play Bach; his pieces for cello solo. and also Persian music was crucial for me. I always listend to this music in radio, television and with my friends, when they played Persian music in the university. I cannot analyze all the figures and ornaments in this music, but I really love it. And also, I am from a Turkish family, so I heard a lot of this music. Contemporary music is a way for me to combine different aspects of these musics.

B

I come from a religious family. I was born end of the 1980s; my family somehow banned music after the revolution. But I always loved to listen to music, in particular to traditional Iranian music. I started playing setar. After two years, my setar teacher presented me a recording of contemporary music. I looked at the video and I said to my teacher: What is this?!? I really was shocked. But he gave me more of this music, and told me a lot about this type of music. And for one year I only listened to contemporary music to distinguish this music from other types of music. After a year I went to a class of my teacher and he also presented me rock and metal music. When i was about twenty years old, there were the protests for another Iran. Rock and metal music fitted very well to it, because of the anger. This is one way for me to listen to music. On the other side are traditional and contemporary music. When I listen to them, this is like deeply thinking about spirit and materials of music. Metal music was fun, but I lost interest in it more and more. And I also listen to folk music of the different regions of Iran. Not only because of the music, but also because of the stories which are told in the texts. Nowadays I am most attracted by contemporary music. Because traditional music is about life in the past, but contemporary music is really connected with modern life, and also with technology. This is really interesting and important for me.

C

I started with Iranian music and were taught in it. I began with tombak when i was thirteen. I did not have any background before; I just listened to pop music. After nine month of playing tombak I started to learn santur, and I became more familiar with traditional Iranian music since then. I changed from tombak to santur because my uncle suggested me to do so. He had a santur, and he was my biggest supporter when I started with music.

Since I started playing tombak, I loved music. It was the most important thing in my life. I wanted to study music but my parents wanted me to study engineering. So I studied electronics, and besides I played santur and studied music in private classes. Nine years ago, I was introduced to Yarava, and I learned about contemporary music, for the first time. It was not shocking for me, but really interesting instead. Since then I loved contemporary music. Being contemporary is now my approach — in music, in life, in everything. So contemporary music is my music of choice.

In a period, I was also interested in rock music, especially Pink Floyd. I also listened to Iranian popular music, from its golden age in the sixties and seventies. So these are the most important musics in my life.

In contemporary music I love that it is about the sound as sound, and that there are no standard forms. Instead, we are free to choose anything.

D

I started with music when I was a real small child. My parents told me that I used pots to hit them and to transform them into percussion. My parents heard very different kinds of music: pop music, classical music, film music, traditional music. Fortunately, all of it was good music. For instance in pop music, we had a real good singer, his name is Farhad, and he is a really good singer and musician. And in traditional music, they listened to Shahram Nasari, another really good singer. For classical music, there was a cassette with pianist Sviatoslav Richter, playing Bach. So I heard such a lot of different music.

But when I was around eleven years old, my mum asked me: Do you want to go to music school? I said: no. But I bought a keyboard, and I played some pop music or film music on it. And in that time I heard so much rock and metal music. Like all of you Pink Floyd, and many others, and in metal music Metallica is my favorite band. When I was sixteen, one of my friends who played setar, told me: If you like, you can come with me and join me for my class. I said, no, no, I hate this music — it is only for old people. But finally I went with him. And his teacher was a really really amazing person. a very unique and crazy man, And although I really hated traditional music, I told him: I would like to come to your class. And the day after I went to the music shop and bought a setar. This teacher did not know music notation. He is not famous, but the atmosphere of his classes was really fantastic. He always taught at his home. We all were sitting in the hall, and we decided who is next. (If someone is in a hurry, he can be the next.) I also had a chance to listen to the students who learned already many years. What can I say — after one or two weeks I loved traditional music. And my teacher told me to listen to the recordings of Hossein Alizadeh who has so many different pieces. From that time until now I love his music and he is my favorite musician. Now I recognized that before I did not really listen to traditional music. That was the reason I thought it was boring and only for old people. Now I discovered the real music. And also, I always really loved mysticism and the sufi tradition. And I discovered now many relationships between traditional music and sufi practise.

I felt now that I am musician, and after one year I went to other classes, like music theory, solfege and harmony. Also, I learned other instruments, like tanbur, tar, tombak, and also discovered the maqam music. I went to one of the students of Alireza Mashayekhi for harmony class. And I saw that this teacher played guitar. I considered guitar a bad instrument, only for cheap pop music, and I was wondering: Why does my teacher play guitar? He played two pieces for me, and the next day, I went to a shop and bought a guitar ...

One day he invited me to a concert of his teacher. It was Alireza Mashayekhi's Iranian Orchestra for New Music. I went there, and I was completely confused. I could not understand: What are they doing there?!? It was really a big shock for me. But on the other hand, it was really interesting for me to see so many instruments which I also played, like setar, tar, tombak, but see them played in another way. In my next class with my teacher, I asked him about this music, and he explained something, and then played a piece pf mashayekhi which was in a cassette. It was electronic music. After two or three seconds, I told him: Oh something bad happened with the cassette! But he said: No, this is the music! And after this, I went to Mashayekhi's classes, and also went to Khajenouri's classes.

I still love and perform traditional music, but what is so important for me in contemporary music is that it is unlimited. In traditional music you always have your frame, and you move in this frame. But in new music, you have nothing which is set in advance. You can go anywhere.

E

My father and my brother played piano, so western classical music. I played guitar and I listened to classical music. but I did not like traditional iranian music because of its sense of death. I learned also violoncello but I did not like to play classical music. I liked to play jazz. In the university I tried to play jazz piano, and I always listened to jazz music. Once I heard Schoenberg's "Verklärte Nacht", and I thought: This is my music. So I tried to learn harmony and contemporary music, and I listened to a lot of contempoary music.