The tone system of the European Baroque period was also a 17 tone system. The flat and sharp notes were different, for instance: A sharp and B flat were not the same, like they are in the modern 12 tone system.
Thank you for this video. I appreciated how you encouraged the treatment of the quarter flats and sharps. It reminded me of how to treat bends when playing the blues.
That's a great video. Very clear, and a lot of information. I'm a jaw harp player myself, and the note system is rather strange (2 octave range, 8 notes on 1st octave, 16 notes on 2nd octave), and your video help me take some distance about the urge to fit into "modern occidental music". I've decided to make a video about it. Thank you for the inspiration and motivation !!
As someone with nearly no natural musical instinct, struggling to learn western systems, it's absolutely delightful to see a reminder that many of its conventions are arbitrary! I really appreciated this demonstration and explanation, and it's helping me get a more holistic grasp of how music is constructed, which then helps me understand how the human brain interacts with audio that it finds appealing (or not!). Lovely video, thanks!
@@farzadmilani Terry Riley and others were very influenced by it in the 70s. Unfortunely i dont remember any western composer being influenced directly by persian music. Or even indian. Arabic a bit.
Superchromal music! Further extensions could be ultrachromal, hyperchromal, or other fun adjectives like mondochromal (I avoid mega, kilo, and other prefixes that imply a power of ten relationship).
A purist might prefer 'hyperchromal', as that uses two Greek roots. If you wanted a Latinate term, it would be 'supercolorful', which is the direct equivalent of 'hyperchromal'. But instead, maybe a Persian term would be apt... any Persian speakers here to create one?
@@markop.1994 Sure it is, but in case of tetrachord-based musics like Persian, the place of perfect 4th and 5th intervals are crucial. None of the equal temperament except for 53-EDO (and obviously some higher divisions) cannot give natural values specifically for these two.
Thank you so much! Using colours is truly ingenious. Now I finally understand it. I think about expanding it to South Indian scales, though that's trickier.
Thank you for such an INFORMATIVE and culturally rich video. I would like to experiment someday with the tetrachords you just described. Love and respect from India.
Fascinating. Thank you. But would have loved you to have played some Persian music using a 17 note scale so we could hear it in action. Real missed opportunity.
One important question: as you explain the tetrachrds in a very very impressive manor, one thing about those is this, What are the equivalent to Western Keys? How many 'keys' and are they also made on each of the 17 tones?
@@friendtazo Good question! Theoretically, it's possible to modulate to 17 different keys, it the system is considered to be equally designed. But in practice, modulation could happen only to a fifth above or fourth below the tonic. Think if it as a traditional system (we're talking about the era before the 15th century), based on the structure of the traditional string instruments.
excellent! I explain the varied intervals of "Middle Eastern" music (eg Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish etc) as 3/4 tone music (to distinguish it from "microtones") which I find helpful for Westerners to begin to understand. Also, I like to introduce the semitone only variations of these maqam / dashgar systems as 3/4 tone extensions of the simplified 8 variations (4 major and 4 minor) found in modern Greek and other Balkan folk music.
The term I've seen used the most when it comes to "microtonal" music, is polychromatic. It fits well with polyrhythmic and polymetric things, language-wise.
Very interesting. I'm not super good in music theory, but I appreciate that someone can explain the things beyond the 12-tone chromatic stuff we are too used to hear. Also, my wife is Afghan so she has introduced me to her folkloric music which I guess follows with the 17-tone system. Big up
Great video! Persian music theory has always been complicated for me, as a Persian who grow up with western music. And there isn't many sources (or I couldn't find lmao) that explain them and the connections with western music system (like the similarities in modes like Rāje' and Phrygian) دمت گرم!❤🔥
It makes a lot of sense because in the case of both sound waves and light waves, the frequency affects the subjective experience and, at least in music (as I understand it?) the mathematical relationships between frequencies influence or dictate how notes sound together.
An interesting note about Newtons colour circle: The spectrum begins with deep wam red and ends with purple blue, the violets/magentas not existing as spectral hues (but only as psychophysical and perceptual hues). Meaning that the scale used by Newton is likely not a C major scale. But a scale that begins on red… on D: D dorian. Because I can’t imagine that he would ever have placed the hues that doesn’t exist in the spectrum first, but last.
@@gb747gb I'd say Mohammed-Reza Shajarian's (singer), Faramarz Payvar (santour player), and Mohammad-Reza Lotfi's (taar player) works are the most accurate ones. There're also a lot of other traditional music performers who sound really good.
Very interesting and well presented. I will definitely have to check out your research. I’m an academic in music as well. Mostly interested in ethnomusicology, however my background is in music therapy. But I use that mainly to teach, and make music accessible to anyone. To add to this, I think that the Blues, especially with bending notes explores some of the notes you have presented in your Persian explanations
@@PlayNowWorkLater Yes, I've already written a paper about the modal similarities between Persian music and blues. I'm going to revise and release it soon.
As a synaesthete, though not a lifelong synaesthete, I found this fascinating. I have absolute pitch, and I started experiencing synaesthesia after experimenting with music in base-16 (with sixteen tones in the octave). My colour associations are not necessarily consistent or even rational (e.g. a spectrum layout such as the one you present in this video). For example, my A is a sky blue, while my A three-quarters sharp (an A sharpened by three eighth tones) is a darker blue, somewhere between sky blue and ultramarine blue. Which as an association is counter-intuitive since we would describe the pitch as a 'brighter' A, but my colour association is darker because my ear says that it sounds kind of like B flat.
I grew up finding music containing notes not found commonly in “Western” music hard to listen to, and what was a breakthrough for me was falling in love with the “Filmi” (movie soundtrack) version of Indian music, especially Moh’d Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, and through that was introduced to Qawali and Indian classical music styles, and through that, to Sufi and Persian music. I feel that at some point in the past a hard movement to codify (in some western countries) exactly the current western Chromatic system and temperament was made, probably because our brains like to commit to and codify systems. Is there anything to my idea? Is there some cognitive or brain-function reason for why we become so attached to our specific scales and intervals? The current dominant form of temperament (tuning) in western music is arbitrary, some would say. There is a growing amount of experimentation in western music with other temperaments, which seem to me, a way of borrowing JUST A BIT of the tonal colors found in say, a persian 17-tone system’s color palette. I think your idea of color palettes is a very good explanatory idea.
Thanks for your comment and compliment! I believe being confined to tones and half-tones is a matter of cultural taste, as well as popularization of the piano.
This is fascinating thank you! I'm not familiar with Persian music, but since learning about microtonality in Indian music, I've often thought that twelve tones is too limited! I'm eager to learn more about Persian music and tonality.
Thanks for your comment! If you haven't yet, check out my other video with a practical example of the modes: th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=i2B2GI6BNbD2knCu
Great visuals, thank you very much! I wonder if Persian/Arabic style of singing is even learnable... I have always been stunned by ornate solos in Persian songs, but could never quite catch the guideline for their improvisations. Mosque verses and cultural surroundings must have an influence on the music, but sometimes it feels that the core of these strenuous quarter tones is in the blood and is incomprehensible.
My research is more based on Farhat's, Hedayat's, and Shirazi's treatises. Alghough in the older manuscripts, Segah and Bayat-e Esfahan are considered to be the same, under the title "Iraq", resulting to 7 genera, which is not completely correct in practice today. Similar minimizations might be considered in Talai's version.
Thank you for the presentation. I would have said augmented sharps and diminished flats (Bartok and Katchachuran already covered this). I would probably call the scale Augmented Chromatic scale. I also wrote a thesis on the absolute number of chords possible in a chromatic scale. I would like to work with you to take this idea to the next level.
This is so helpful! Both in identifying what the actual pitches are … but also in explaining why the quarter-tones don’t sound out of tune to me. Laid out visually like this, I notice that the blue notes from the blues scale are included amongst the 17 set. And not every conceivable quarter tone is used, just the ones with (what seems like might be) more useful functionality. I’m curious as to what the actual tuning of these pitches are, how consistent that tuning might be between players, and also how the pitches are described/named. (I bet they don’t use ABCDEFG or think of notes as “quarter” tones? Or do they?)
Thanks for your time and comment. There're actually different (theoretical / practical) pitch suggestions for the 17 tones. I'm going to explain them in the folowing videos. And yes! There's an alphabetic system (called Abjadic: A B J D H V Z etc.) to name the notes. This system is also very interesting, since each letter has a numerical value, which corresponds to the numeric value of the tones. Check out this article of mine if you're interested: historyofmusictheory.wordpress.com/2022/08/29/a-hybrid-abjadic-metric-notation-for-seventeen-tone-temperament-of-persian-music-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B4-%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%DB%8C-%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%82-2/
Very cool! As a westerner who has fallen in love with Middle Eastern music and picked up the oud, I have studied a little bit about both Arabic Maqam and Turkish Makam, both of which were heavily influenced by and derived from older Persian traditions, which were in turn developed from ancient Greek musical concepts... I know almost nothing about Persian dastaghs, however, and this was very interesting to see how they are both very similar, yet undeniably distinct from other modal traditions in the region. Also, while many of the names are the same or very similar, I was surprised they don't necessarily represent the same musical shapes... For instance, the first example you gave was a Mahour/Ushaq tetrachord, which you describe like the first four notes of a major scale-- there is an Ussak tetrachord in Turkish music as well, but it is more like the first 4 notes of a minor scale, but the second degree is a quarter flat (and often sinks further in descending phrases), very similar to jins bayati in Arabic music. Mahour/Mahur also exists as a Maqam/Makam (mode) in both Arabic and Turkish music, but I don't think it has its own "jins" or tetrachord-- in Arabic it's like a jins rast (neutral 3rd) pentachord with jins "upper ajam" (regular major) on top... Similarly, Buselik, rast, segah, iraq/irak, bayat, isfahan/esfahan are all different...Hijaz is always hijaz, though. Disclaimer: I have barely scratched the surface of these rich traditions, and know only the very basics,,,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, you're right about the name of the tetrachord genera (ajnas). My resource of terminology for the older maqamic titles was Qutb-ed-Din Shirazi's manuscript (14th century), which is itself a little different (in terms of the names) with the following Abd-ol-Qadir Maraghi's terminology. In Turkish/Arabic maqam collection, some of the titles are mispronunciations of the Persian words: for instance: Yekah, Dokah, Sikah, Jarkah, etc. are the Arabized version of 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-gah (Gaah means place and position, in Persian). Or another example is the pentachord NeyRiz (name of a city in Iran) which is transformed to the title "Nikriz" in Turkish music.
@farzadmilani very interesting, Farzad! Thank YOU for the content, and for taking the time to reply... Fascinating that many of the Arabic and Turkish names are bastardizations of the original Persian, and pretty remarkable that you're able to read the original 14th century manuscripts!! (It's an unrelated question, but is Modern Farsi similar enough that any Iranian could read and understand those manuscripts, or does it require specialized knowledge? English from that time is almost unrecognizable...) Is it also the case that nahawand/nihavend(/nawa athar?) are similarly lingustically related to/descended from Nava? Wish I could sit down and pick your brain, seems like it's chock full of stuff I find fascinating...
@@nicogetz The language is almost the same (they're all in either Persian or Arabic, using Abjadic script). There're some problems though which makes it a little difficult to read and understand the texts. For instance, you barely can find punctuations in the text. Or the musical terminology (except for the names of tetrachords and modes) is a little different that what we use today. Nawa/Newa is the same thing as Nava (a Persian word meaning "sound/tune"). But Nahavand (misspelled as Nihavend) is a name of a beautiful city in Iran, near Hamedan. I don't think these two words are related.
@farzadmilani That's so cool that you can read those ancient manuscripts in the author's original words! I imagine it's still a bit like reading Shakespearean English, in that the phrasing and dialect are obviously archaic and at times arcane... thank you for taking the time to reply and share your knowledge! Please keep making content! 53TET is an extremely complex way to divide an octave, especially when most of those "notes" will Never be used, but I understand some reasons why it was necessary for a codified formalism... your way of presenting 17 tones and letting the neutral ones 'float' is much easier to digest-- especially for people who are new to these concepts.
What a beautiful way of explaining :D I think the brains way of comparing intervals as fractions of the frequency works so nicely because it always makes sense of it. The closer the approximation to any simpler fraction, of course the fraction itself gets more "weird". For example 9000001/8000001 will still sound like a western whole tone (9/8). But it's the brain, putting the mathematically close, but inaccurate, intervals into harmony :) There is no one mathematically perfect system, so we all can just learn to love all the approaches to music there are :D Persian music feels good to me, and this is what matters. Also, it's the best comparison with the use of colors, since both are limited to our receptors (12000 frequencies against 3 colors) that we mix together by assumptions. If I'd have to explain what seeing is to someone blind, that would also be my way to go.
Very informative and pedagogic video. I'm an outsider to the subject and this sort of music, so I would appreciate to see examples of how this is used in practice. You refer to the maqam as persian music, but on wikipedia I've only seen it referred to as arabic. Is there an distinction, or is it just the same thing?
Thanks for your compliment. The Persian-Arabic modal system is intertwined to eachother. Many of the manuscripts of the Persian scholars is being written in Arabic language. And many musical terms in Arabic music (even today) is in Persian. I'm going to make more videos explaining different melodic examples.
@@farzadmilani I see. As someone mainly interested in orchestral film music, it seems to me that Western composers/audiences have a very specific set of tropes that make music sound Middle Eastern (you know, lots of half-steps and augmented seconds) but rarely ever these quarter notes. So I'm curious to learn more about what real Persian/Arabic music sounds like and how they approach music theory.
@@monoverantus Buy some! Or if you're skint, go on a TH-cam rabbit hole! It's wonderful music. Start on a search of Djivan Gasparyan on Duduk. Now, Djivan is Armenian, not Arabic, but the music is very similar. In fact, Duduk is used a lot in Persian, Turkish, and other countries' music. But the Duduk did originate out out Armenia, from the Apricot tree. I dunno, mate. It's one place to start.
@@monoverantus It's not that the "augmented second", albeit usually tempered differently than on the piano, is non-existent in Iranian, Arab or Turkish music, but it is definitely over-represented as the sole leitmotif of the Middle East within Western classical music, Hollywood, etc. In reality, Middle Eastern music went through a similar push towards higher chromaticism at roughly the same time that Western music did. However, in the context of Middle Eastern music, chromaticism constitutes not any given deviation from the diatonic scale, but instead more concretely the presence of the chromatic genus of tetrachord with its augmented second, similar to the concept described in Ancient Greek music theory. So it was as part of the elaboration of the rich modal framework that the music got more "chromatic". Still, across the Middle East, modes of the peculiar diatonic scale with neutral tones (3/4-tone steps) are more represented in the repertoire of most traditional musical styles than chromatic modes. But these sound completely alien to Western audiences, and they cannot be approximated on Western fixed-pitch instruments tuned in 12-tone equal temperament or be included in familiar harmonic progressions, which is probably why they aren't referenced.
We use colour to identify all sorts of things. Cable cores. Traffic lights. Emotions. And your colour progression makes sense to anyone with good colour vision. However, in common with so many things, as the differences between the shades reduce, when lighting or vision is less than perfect, they become less easy to immediately recognise. I find the colours and letters easy but the indicators of small tonal variations are much more difficult to read. For that reason, it could be useful to add another dimension of identification. For example, using the basic regular polyhedrons, maybe augmented by star-like pointed shapes. Perhaps a C would be a violet triangle? And D an orange square? With the D variants being changed somewhat - maybe a four-point star? Up to a point, the more distinguishing features the better. Even if, as individuals, we only use one or two of those features, having more isn’t really a problem unless it becomes overwhelmingly complicated. After all, coins, banknotes and postage stamps all have a large number of identification features ranging from extremely obvious (big numbers) to extremely subtle (hologram that only appears with specific lighting). We just use the ones that work for us.
Thanks for a super interesting video. I couldn't wait to get to the part where you played the extra notes and tetrachords. It's like suddenly viewing a new dimension I was unaware of. It raises questions in my mind. First, the frequency ratios - Pythagorean or equal temperament or something else? Second, does anyone make a keyboard with the extra notes? What instruments can play these notes?
Thanks for your time and comment! - I'm making another video about Pythagorean ratios and Persian music. It'll be out soon. - Yes, there're some keyboard out there with more than 12 keys in an octave. Not specifically designed for Persian music though. - Almost all of the traditional long-necked string instruments (tar, setar, kamancheh, baghlama, etc.) as well as many wind instruments (ney, sorna, karna, etc.) are capable of playing these intervals.
When singing or playing the violin, you actually distinguish between d flat and c sharp, etc, yielding 31 tones per octave: (7 diatonic x 3) + (5 chromatic x 2). There is an organ in Amsterdam with 31 tones per octave!
17 notes in total if you fix the root. But then if you want to shift tonic you / your instrument might need more. I play nay (intermediate), I can play the super chromatic scale in a few keys, but not all maqam for all tonics because I haven't practiced all possible fractional tones. Of course I can play a transposing Nay. But then the range shifts.... And, in maqam, the actual fraction depends on what you're modulating from. This is just scraping the surface.
Thanks! As a musician from a western kind of civilization, this topic interests me very much. So, it would be very helpful to also add some examples, as well as suggestions regarding what artists could we check. Thanks again! 👍
Thanks for making this video, what tips do you have for westerners who are trying to learn the 17 tone system, especially for trying to compose music using DAW's and for tuning neutral tones given what you mentioned that they do not always fall directly +50 or -50 between the western 12 tones?
It seems to be a system based part on mathematical ratios (chromatic) and the extra notes based on extra emotional content. Both side of the brain, logical and emotional. A more complete system.
@@The_SOB_II I disagree, for example 87-equal and 94-equal have very different sounds and flavors to them, and both support types of harmony not possible in just intonation
In the blues we play a pentatonic scale which is only 5 or 6 notes. But some musicians point out that black harmonicists play the blue 3rd slightly high. It's not the same as E flat, and I wonder if this counts as a quarter sharp..?
Yes, That's true! The blue notes are related to the neutral intervals in middle Eastern music. If you're interested, follow Gerhard Kubik's writings in this regard.
Woah amazing video, you've explained it so well! I was always wondering why I heard notes I couldn't play on my piano, makes so much sense now😂 Thanks!
@@farzadmilani Recently I worked for Kanun sound library. Amazing instrument so far. With your help, microtonal scales have more sense to me. Good job ! Keep in touch!
@@polymoog800 I'm happy to hear that. I'm curious to know about what you do in kanun sound library. If you're interested to chat, here's my email: farzad.milani@gmail.com
This is mindblowing, like emotional translation between civilisations. What i haven't got is how many steps need to cross whole octave, 22 or something else?
Thanks for your comment. If you mean "equal" steps, it needs to be 53 (a result of nine-fold division of a whole tone). I'll explain it later in a different video. Also, 24-ET (as an acceptable reduction) works for most of the modes.
@@farzadmilani I assume you meant "nine-fold division of the _wholetone"._ 53 TET has a 9-step wholetone and two different semitones that are 5 and 4 steps respectively.
What about 24 tones down , 24 tones up, i own persian ancient era plugin audio made by tarilonte, and may be you can explain what are those scales ? Your explanations about the persian 17 tones are very clear, thank you very much
Thanks for your comment. These 17 tones could be rendered in a 24-EDO systemb but the intervals would sound mechanical and unnatural. As I explained the size of the neutral intervals is not exacty a quartertone.
Great explanation! I took out my turkish bağlama to see if it follows this scale and it was almost the same, but with the tritone intact (F - F# - G ½flat - G). Wonder if it's a difference between persian and turkish music or if my movable frets just need adjusting lol
It should be the same (except for the size of neutral intervals) since the Turkish music theory is based on Urmavi's and Maraqi's 17-tone system. Also, there are a lot of songs in Turkish music repertoire of around 17th centurie, made by Persian musicians. That tritone fret has been added probably for modulation purposes. Persian practitioners usually do the same thing.
I love your visuals and explanation. But would have loved to have seen this with instruments and music. I still don't think I fully understand the Persian scales
if i have an obsession, this is it i color coded the 12 tone chromatic scale for myself in such a way that the circle of 5ths/4ths create a rainbow with the black keys all being a blue hue not sure how to incorporate my personal system into micro-tonal music, but what we have here seems to be a complete chromatic scale... or at least a more complete chromatic scale (as you call it)
The "altered hick" dirty blues scale is similar. Some folk and slide blues guitarists like Ry Cooder or even sometimes Dimebag Darrel draw from extended "colour pools" than whats limited by 12-tet chromatic scales. This folk and blues style seem to use the accidentals more as sympathies or grace notes. King gizzard are a good example of how blues influenced and mid eastern tonalities blend well (imo).
The Xenharmonic Wiki page on Arabic, Turkish, Persian music section nequal temperaments for maqamat mentions Margo Schulter's 17 note Turquoise17 scale, but unfortunately the link from that is dead.
There're different senarios for the 17 tones, but consider that the Equal Division of the Octave does not work in this case. The system is more based on the ratios from the natural harmonic series.
@@farzadmilani I know -- you have to scroll past a bunch of stuff about equal divisions of the octave to see where they talk about unequal temperaments, but then unfortunately the link they give to an unequal 17 note temperament (possibly a just intonation approximation) is dead.
You can find that scale on the Hyugens-Fokker scala archive (google findable). It doesn't seem like it is in just intonation, but it seems also that it can be "detempered" easily.
@@diegovideco Found the list with Huygens-Fokker, and saw that it contains some Persian tunings (not all 17 notes, but several are). That is a monster list -- I'll have to sift through the corresponding file later.
Thank you for sharing! This is so helpful for my western ears, giving ways to perceive music in ways i could not before. To continue the conversation you prompted, maybe the name of the scale could be named from a farsi equivelant of chromatic? For example رنگ scale? that way it is still a color scale, but the colors seen from your culture’s perspective. similarly, the chromatic scale would reflect its western perspective, shown through its word for color. this would give a format for other cultures to name and honor their unique perspectives on scales and modes while sharing the universal theory of sound as color with the global music community. this way we affirm the shared experience of music, and celebrate each others interpretations/understandings of it.
metachromatic ? heptadecatonic (after dodecatonic for chromatic scale) ? ultrachromatic ? Thank you for the video. Interesting how quatertone notes are everywhere but around the tonal note of the scale.
I'd be interested in seeing if you applied something like the circle of fifths or the various types of modulation charts to this if it would produce something a bit more different than expected, on account of the tritone being removed.
Perhaps call it Gradiental? Both because a color gradient is usually smooth transition and covers a larger amount of colors between tones, as well as it being a pun on Oriental
It is possible to play these tones on string instruments. Must add that many people do not have that fine ear to distinguish the difference between a half and a quarter half. Same with for example the BEST pianist in the world playing the finest music > average population without musical knowledge does not hear the difference if it were played by a GOOD pianist and sometimes even by a 'not too good' pianist. - Thank you for the explanation. This makes the Persian music so beautiful.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, obviously it's possible to play the neutral intervals with unfretted string instruments, even with brass and wind instruments using some unterations, and of course piano and other tuneable instruments.
This expanded my mind as a piano tuner because it breaks out of the very rigid tuning standard equal temperament, where every note is exactly the distance apart, resulting in grey, colorless scales and intervals. Also, Farzad and viewers, you may want to see my Theory of Pitch Psychology where I claim that our hearing is spectral, and tied emotionally to the these color energies. For example, love songs historically being constantly written in C, a note which I always associated with red (love, Valentine’s Day, etc.). C is like red, D is orange, E is yellow (a bright, flashy note), etc. Thanks for this enlightening video! Your, _Acoustic Rabbit Hole _
Many thanks for a very interesting and pedagogical video. I play mainly saxophone myself, and while I realize that saxophones are relatively new to Iran, I am wondering if you can suggest any Iranian music for saxophone (Eb, Bb & C) in standard notation (and where it can be purchased).
Thanks for your compliment! Actually, saxophone has been a common member of the wood section mostly in popular bands, at least since the 50s (if not earlier) in Iran. I'm not sure if there's any transcription of the Iranian songs specifically for sax. But if you're curios to listen to the tunes, you can find it in a lot of arrangements of Varojan, Erik Arcunt, etc., (performed by Googoosh, Ebi, etc.). Also, nowadays, maybe inspired by Arabic popular music, you can find sax, playing quartertonic modes as a solo instrument in Iranian pop songs.
Interesting, reminds me of ancient Greek music, the 'shades'. The chromatic and the super-chromatic being forbidden by Plato in his 'The State'. I wonder how the Persian scales are created. Does the (conjunct or disjunct) tetrachords are the same in a scale, or can you have different tetrachords in a scale.
Thank you. It pretty musch works the same as the Ancient Greek system. Yes, the two tetrachords can be different (sometimes even the ascending tetrachord is different than the descending, in one single scales)
Interesting. I’m done what colorblind, but I follow you. As a guitar player, this makes me want to explore the 17 note Persian scale via more detailed and meticulous string bending.
you should check out how this guy accomplishes this on guitar: th-cam.com/video/zGahJ-FaKjY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=51ZvH-RW5vRlwyWc it's not the 17-note persian system (he's Turkish), but he made a guitar than has moveable frets, so you can play whatever scales you want.
You could call it enharmonic modes, in relation to the ancient greek modes that used steps that couldn't be expressed in semitones. Two questions: What is the distinction between a large & small neutral tone? Are there rules for which tetrachords can be stacked together?
The Greek enharmonic tetrachord genus consists of quartartone intervals! We don't have any stepwise intervals smaller than semitone in Persian/Arabic/Turkish music. I'll explain the difference between two sizes of the neutral tones in a seprate video. There are a collection of melodic figures in Persian dastgah music (also in today's Arabic maqamat) that shows the possible good-sounding connection of the tetrachords. Usually musicians use those pre-designed models/figures to make a new music.
I love that one, too. I never knew it wasn’t in the chromatic system until today. When I first tried to play it on a keyboard, I was perplexed. Eventually, I came up with D Eb F# G - I thought the small neutral tone was a semitone and the plus tone was a minor third. Now I know why it sounded strange on the piano.
@@dragonfractal6361 Actually, the modern tuning of Hijaz is very close to the Western system in the related Turkish and Arab classical music traditions, and is even sometimes used in modern Persian music. The contemporary Arab classical and Turkish folk music traditions use the exact same intervals for Hijaz as on the piano. Likewise, the many musical traditions of the Balkans and Eastern Europe (e.g., Klezmer music) use the tempered Hijaz with its three-semitone augmented second all the time.
@@Zaphod313 Thanks for the information! Comparing variations of similar ideas in different cultures is so fascinating. The time I thought I could not get it quite right on the piano, I was trying to copy a specific song that had influences from Indian classical music.
Interesting way to describe the Persian tonal system. However, as soon as a 3/4 or 5/4 distance is played, both neighboring tones fall out of the system. While the change between major and minor scales takes place smoothly, you need an intermediate piece to prepare the ear for a change from 3/4 or 5/4 scales to 1/2 tone systems. This means that both systems do not exist at the same time as a color palette but as color materials such as colored pencils and watercolors. Although your explanation is completely correct, the comparison is a bit difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with it.
Thanks for your comment. If you're interested, here you can find an example of modulations between the tetrachord genera in a single excerpt: th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZKvsil0QdCFQCFXp
The tone system of the European Baroque period was also a 17 tone system. The flat and sharp notes were different, for instance: A sharp and B flat were not the same, like they are in the modern 12 tone system.
exactly!
Where could I read more about this? :)
Me, colourblind: red/blue, orange, orange, orange, orange, orange, green, green, green, green, green, blue. Three notes, easy. Just like the rainbow.
No worries! You got the idea. 👍
Savage
@@kirkstable Me? Persian music? 17-tone system? Which one exactly? 😉
@@farzadmilani all of the above
@@kirkstable Super! May I ask why?! 🤔
Thank you for this video. I appreciated how you encouraged the treatment of the quarter flats and sharps. It reminded me of how to treat bends when playing the blues.
Thanks for your compliment. You're right, there's a link between the blue notes and middle Eastern neutral intervals.
That's a great video. Very clear, and a lot of information. I'm a jaw harp player myself, and the note system is rather strange (2 octave range, 8 notes on 1st octave, 16 notes on 2nd octave), and your video help me take some distance about the urge to fit into "modern occidental music". I've decided to make a video about it. Thank you for the inspiration and motivation !!
That was fascinating. Even at 65, I'm not too old to learn something new.
Your visual slide showing notes as colored circles to compare systems made so much sense ❤
As someone with nearly no natural musical instinct, struggling to learn western systems, it's absolutely delightful to see a reminder that many of its conventions are arbitrary!
I really appreciated this demonstration and explanation, and it's helping me get a more holistic grasp of how music is constructed, which then helps me understand how the human brain interacts with audio that it finds appealing (or not!).
Lovely video, thanks!
🙏
Indonesia has 128 tones per octave. Microtonics are incredible!
Interesting
@@farzadmilani
Terry Riley and others were very influenced by it in the 70s.
Unfortunely i dont remember any western composer being influenced directly by persian music. Or even indian. Arabic a bit.
@@joaocorreia524 The Beatles and many others were Indian influenced..not sure about Persian but I'm sure some were.
@@gothfather1 yes, i remember there was an indian craze then
@@joaocorreia524 Check out Albert Roussel's ballet-opera, Padmavati for Indian influence. Also, Krishna, the 3rd movement of Joueurs de Flute.
Superchromal music! Further extensions could be ultrachromal, hyperchromal, or other fun adjectives like mondochromal (I avoid mega, kilo, and other prefixes that imply a power of ten relationship).
Good suggestion! Thanks
❤ love superchromal
31-tet is a super cool tuning system. 31 equal distant notes gives alot of just intonated harmonies and a ton of exotic chords too
A purist might prefer 'hyperchromal', as that uses two Greek roots. If you wanted a Latinate term, it would be 'supercolorful', which is the direct equivalent of 'hyperchromal'. But instead, maybe a Persian term would be apt... any Persian speakers here to create one?
@@markop.1994 Sure it is, but in case of tetrachord-based musics like Persian, the place of perfect 4th and 5th intervals are crucial.
None of the equal temperament except for 53-EDO (and obviously some higher divisions) cannot give natural values specifically for these two.
Thank you for this explanation. I have been enjoying Persian music lately, particularly Homayoun Khoram.
That's great!
That was amazing! Thank you so much for the insight. The chord knowledge was especially fascinating!
Thanks for your complement 🙏🏼
Awesome! Best explanation so far. I love Persian music system more than any other. Please do more videos. You've earned a new sub.
Thank you so much! Using colours is truly ingenious. Now I finally understand it. I think about expanding it to South Indian scales, though that's trickier.
Thank you for such an INFORMATIVE and culturally rich video. I would like to experiment someday with the tetrachords you just described.
Love and respect from India.
Fascinating. Thank you. But would have loved you to have played some Persian music using a 17 note scale so we could hear it in action. Real missed opportunity.
Thanks man! Sure I'll do.
Farsad, thank you! it is beautifully explained.
Thanks for watching
@@farzadmilani I appreciate your work. : )
One important question: as you explain the tetrachrds in a very very impressive manor, one thing about those is this, What are the equivalent to Western Keys? How many 'keys' and are they also made on each of the 17 tones?
@@friendtazo Good question! Theoretically, it's possible to modulate to 17 different keys, it the system is considered to be equally designed. But in practice, modulation could happen only to a fifth above or fourth below the tonic.
Think if it as a traditional system (we're talking about the era before the 15th century), based on the structure of the traditional string instruments.
@@farzadmilani Exactly.
excellent! I explain the varied intervals of "Middle Eastern" music (eg Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish etc) as 3/4 tone music (to distinguish it from "microtones") which I find helpful for Westerners to begin to understand. Also, I like to introduce the semitone only variations of these maqam / dashgar systems as 3/4 tone extensions of the simplified 8 variations (4 major and 4 minor) found in modern Greek and other Balkan folk music.
That's true. 🙏
The term I've seen used the most when it comes to "microtonal" music, is polychromatic. It fits well with polyrhythmic and polymetric things, language-wise.
Proper suggestion, thanks 🙏
That is very,very good explained.Thank you very much.I tried for 3 years to play the santur,but I faild.
🙏 I'd say keep working! It's not that difficult.
This was great, dear Farzad. Please do more videos regarding Iranian music theory.
Those of us who can think at a level beyond the simplicity of nationalist fervor have no trouble at all understanding this topic. You should try it.
@@artysanmobile Sure! Thanks for your support.
Very interesting. I'm not super good in music theory, but I appreciate that someone can explain the things beyond the 12-tone chromatic stuff we are too used to hear. Also, my wife is Afghan so she has introduced me to her folkloric music which I guess follows with the 17-tone system. Big up
Thanks man. That's interesting!
Great video, watching from Ireland 🇮🇪
Thank you
Great video! Persian music theory has always been complicated for me, as a Persian who grow up with western music. And there isn't many sources (or I couldn't find lmao) that explain them and the connections with western music system (like the similarities in modes like Rāje' and Phrygian)
دمت گرم!❤🔥
@@amirhoseinshams256 Thanks for watching the video 🙏🎼
It makes a lot of sense because in the case of both sound waves and light waves, the frequency affects the subjective experience and, at least in music (as I understand it?) the mathematical relationships between frequencies influence or dictate how notes sound together.
Yes, but there're some scholars who criticise the whole concept of color-note analogy being arbitrary!
An interesting note about Newtons colour circle: The spectrum begins with deep wam red and ends with purple blue, the violets/magentas not existing as spectral hues (but only as psychophysical and perceptual hues). Meaning that the scale used by Newton is likely not a C major scale. But a scale that begins on red… on D: D dorian. Because I can’t imagine that he would ever have placed the hues that doesn’t exist in the spectrum first, but last.
Nice. There are six Persian tunings built in to the free VST "Microtone 5000." Same with "Simple Microtonal Sampler." Works in most DAWs.
Great video. Would love a more in depth one about what a tetrachord is and why it is significant and some real life examples. Well done agha!
Mokhles 🙏 Don't miss my next video then!
Subscribed!
دمت گرم. یکی از مفیدترین ۸ دقیقه های زندگیم بود!
🙏
please, i need examples of songs where i can hear this beautiful system. any recommendations?
I'll make more videos explainimg the applications of the 8 tetrachord genera.
@@farzadmilani any specific songs or artists i can listen to that display persian music like this?
@@gb747gb I'd say Mohammed-Reza Shajarian's (singer), Faramarz Payvar (santour player), and Mohammad-Reza Lotfi's (taar player) works are the most accurate ones. There're also a lot of other traditional music performers who sound really good.
Thank you for a good introduction to the system.
It would have been nice to HEAR some music samples using 17 notes in the scale. Maybe a few harmonies
Don't miss my next video then!
Very interesting and well presented. I will definitely have to check out your research. I’m an academic in music as well. Mostly interested in ethnomusicology, however my background is in music therapy. But I use that mainly to teach, and make music accessible to anyone.
To add to this, I think that the Blues, especially with bending notes explores some of the notes you have presented in your Persian explanations
That's true! There's definitely a connection between the middle Eastern neutral tones and the blue notes.
@@farzadmilani cool! Blues has roots in African music. Have you come across anything there with microtonality?
@@PlayNowWorkLater Yes, I've already written a paper about the modal similarities between Persian music and blues. I'm going to revise and release it soon.
@@farzadmilani do you have links to your research?
@@farzadmilani Looking forward to this!
As a synaesthete, though not a lifelong synaesthete, I found this fascinating. I have absolute pitch, and I started experiencing synaesthesia after experimenting with music in base-16 (with sixteen tones in the octave). My colour associations are not necessarily consistent or even rational (e.g. a spectrum layout such as the one you present in this video). For example, my A is a sky blue, while my A three-quarters sharp (an A sharpened by three eighth tones) is a darker blue, somewhere between sky blue and ultramarine blue. Which as an association is counter-intuitive since we would describe the pitch as a 'brighter' A, but my colour association is darker because my ear says that it sounds kind of like B flat.
That's interesting! Thanks for sharing your observations.
I grew up finding music containing notes not found commonly in “Western” music hard to listen to, and what was a breakthrough for me was falling in love with the “Filmi” (movie soundtrack) version of Indian music, especially Moh’d Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar, and through that was introduced to Qawali and Indian classical music styles, and through that, to Sufi and Persian music. I feel that at some point in the past a hard movement to codify (in some western countries) exactly the current western Chromatic system and temperament was made, probably because our brains like to commit to and codify systems. Is there anything to my idea? Is there some cognitive or brain-function reason for why we become so attached to our specific scales and intervals? The current dominant form of temperament (tuning) in western music is arbitrary, some would say. There is a growing amount of experimentation in western music with other temperaments, which seem to me, a way of borrowing JUST A BIT of the tonal colors found in say, a persian 17-tone system’s color palette. I think your idea of color palettes is a very good explanatory idea.
Thanks for your comment and compliment!
I believe being confined to tones and half-tones is a matter of cultural taste, as well as popularization of the piano.
I would love a video like this going into the dastgah system… you illustrate it nicely 🙏 thank you for your effort
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This is fascinating thank you! I'm not familiar with Persian music, but since learning about microtonality in Indian music, I've often thought that twelve tones is too limited!
I'm eager to learn more about Persian music and tonality.
Thanks for your comment!
If you haven't yet, check out my other video with a practical example of the modes:
th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=i2B2GI6BNbD2knCu
magenta
fuchsia, red, orange-red
orange, saffron, amber
yellow, chartreuse
green, mint-green/teal
cyan, sky-blue, deep-blue
indigo, violet, purple
magenta
Thank you, great video!
Thanks for watching Tolgahan!
I love the application of colors to tones!
Great visuals, thank you very much!
I wonder if Persian/Arabic style of singing is even learnable... I have always been stunned by ornate solos in Persian songs, but could never quite catch the guideline for their improvisations. Mosque verses and cultural surroundings must have an influence on the music, but sometimes it feels that the core of these strenuous quarter tones is in the blood and is incomprehensible.
Thanks for your comment.
yes, that's true. Even for a middle eastern musician, delivering the pure correct ornamentations and delicacies is difficult.
Great video! Where can we read more about the 8 tetrachords? It’s so much more thorough than the four tetrachords of Daryoush Tala’i.
My research is more based on Farhat's, Hedayat's, and Shirazi's treatises. Alghough in the older manuscripts, Segah and Bayat-e Esfahan are considered to be the same, under the title "Iraq", resulting to 7 genera, which is not completely correct in practice today. Similar minimizations might be considered in Talai's version.
Thank you for the presentation. I would have said augmented sharps and diminished flats (Bartok and Katchachuran already covered this). I would probably call the scale Augmented Chromatic scale. I also wrote a thesis on the absolute number of chords possible in a chromatic scale. I would like to work with you to take this idea to the next level.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the video. I start loving persian music
This is so helpful! Both in identifying what the actual pitches are … but also in explaining why the quarter-tones don’t sound out of tune to me. Laid out visually like this, I notice that the blue notes from the blues scale are included amongst the 17 set. And not every conceivable quarter tone is used, just the ones with (what seems like might be) more useful functionality. I’m curious as to what the actual tuning of these pitches are, how consistent that tuning might be between players, and also how the pitches are described/named. (I bet they don’t use ABCDEFG or think of notes as “quarter” tones? Or do they?)
Thanks for your time and comment.
There're actually different (theoretical / practical) pitch suggestions for the 17 tones. I'm going to explain them in the folowing videos.
And yes! There's an alphabetic system (called Abjadic: A B J D H V Z etc.) to name the notes. This system is also very interesting, since each letter has a numerical value, which corresponds to the numeric value of the tones.
Check out this article of mine if you're interested:
historyofmusictheory.wordpress.com/2022/08/29/a-hybrid-abjadic-metric-notation-for-seventeen-tone-temperament-of-persian-music-%DB%8C%DA%A9-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B4-%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%86%D9%88%DB%8C%D8%B3%DB%8C-%D8%AA%D9%84%D9%81%DB%8C%D9%82-2/
Even the attempt to explain this concept is challenging. Thank you Farzaad.
🙏🏼
Very cool! As a westerner who has fallen in love with Middle Eastern music and picked up the oud, I have studied a little bit about both Arabic Maqam and Turkish Makam, both of which were heavily influenced by and derived from older Persian traditions, which were in turn developed from ancient Greek musical concepts... I know almost nothing about Persian dastaghs, however, and this was very interesting to see how they are both very similar, yet undeniably distinct from other modal traditions in the region. Also, while many of the names are the same or very similar, I was surprised they don't necessarily represent the same musical shapes... For instance, the first example you gave was a Mahour/Ushaq tetrachord, which you describe like the first four notes of a major scale-- there is an Ussak tetrachord in Turkish music as well, but it is more like the first 4 notes of a minor scale, but the second degree is a quarter flat (and often sinks further in descending phrases), very similar to jins bayati in Arabic music. Mahour/Mahur also exists as a Maqam/Makam (mode) in both Arabic and Turkish music, but I don't think it has its own "jins" or tetrachord-- in Arabic it's like a jins rast (neutral 3rd) pentachord with jins "upper ajam" (regular major) on top... Similarly, Buselik, rast, segah, iraq/irak, bayat, isfahan/esfahan are all different...Hijaz is always hijaz, though. Disclaimer: I have barely scratched the surface of these rich traditions, and know only the very basics,,,
Thanks for your comment.
Yes, you're right about the name of the tetrachord genera (ajnas). My resource of terminology for the older maqamic titles was Qutb-ed-Din Shirazi's manuscript (14th century), which is itself a little different (in terms of the names) with the following Abd-ol-Qadir Maraghi's terminology.
In Turkish/Arabic maqam collection, some of the titles are mispronunciations of the Persian words: for instance: Yekah, Dokah, Sikah, Jarkah, etc. are the Arabized version of 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-gah (Gaah means place and position, in Persian). Or another example is the pentachord NeyRiz (name of a city in Iran) which is transformed to the title "Nikriz" in Turkish music.
@farzadmilani very interesting, Farzad! Thank YOU for the content, and for taking the time to reply... Fascinating that many of the Arabic and Turkish names are bastardizations of the original Persian, and pretty remarkable that you're able to read the original 14th century manuscripts!! (It's an unrelated question, but is Modern Farsi similar enough that any Iranian could read and understand those manuscripts, or does it require specialized knowledge? English from that time is almost unrecognizable...) Is it also the case that nahawand/nihavend(/nawa athar?) are similarly lingustically related to/descended from Nava? Wish I could sit down and pick your brain, seems like it's chock full of stuff I find fascinating...
@@nicogetz The language is almost the same (they're all in either Persian or Arabic, using Abjadic script). There're some problems though which makes it a little difficult to read and understand the texts. For instance, you barely can find punctuations in the text. Or the musical terminology (except for the names of tetrachords and modes) is a little different that what we use today.
Nawa/Newa is the same thing as Nava (a Persian word meaning "sound/tune"). But Nahavand (misspelled as Nihavend) is a name of a beautiful city in Iran, near Hamedan. I don't think these two words are related.
@farzadmilani That's so cool that you can read those ancient manuscripts in the author's original words! I imagine it's still a bit like reading Shakespearean English, in that the phrasing and dialect are obviously archaic and at times arcane... thank you for taking the time to reply and share your knowledge! Please keep making content! 53TET is an extremely complex way to divide an octave, especially when most of those "notes" will Never be used, but I understand some reasons why it was necessary for a codified formalism... your way of presenting 17 tones and letting the neutral ones 'float' is much easier to digest-- especially for people who are new to these concepts.
What a beautiful way of explaining :D
I think the brains way of comparing intervals as fractions of the frequency works so nicely because it always makes sense of it.
The closer the approximation to any simpler fraction, of course the fraction itself gets more "weird".
For example 9000001/8000001 will still sound like a western whole tone (9/8).
But it's the brain, putting the mathematically close, but inaccurate, intervals into harmony :)
There is no one mathematically perfect system, so we all can just learn to love all the approaches to music there are :D
Persian music feels good to me, and this is what matters.
Also, it's the best comparison with the use of colors, since both are limited to our receptors (12000 frequencies against 3 colors) that we mix together by assumptions. If I'd have to explain what seeing is to someone blind, that would also be my way to go.
Good point! Thanks for your comment .
Would be great to hear some melodic examples within this video. But still very interesting
Thanks.
Check out my other video
th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=UV0cX92YAex0N8cM
Very informative and pedagogic video. I'm an outsider to the subject and this sort of music, so I would appreciate to see examples of how this is used in practice. You refer to the maqam as persian music, but on wikipedia I've only seen it referred to as arabic. Is there an distinction, or is it just the same thing?
Thanks for your compliment.
The Persian-Arabic modal system is intertwined to eachother. Many of the manuscripts of the Persian scholars is being written in Arabic language. And many musical terms in Arabic music (even today) is in Persian.
I'm going to make more videos explaining different melodic examples.
@@farzadmilani I see. As someone mainly interested in orchestral film music, it seems to me that Western composers/audiences have a very specific set of tropes that make music sound Middle Eastern (you know, lots of half-steps and augmented seconds) but rarely ever these quarter notes. So I'm curious to learn more about what real Persian/Arabic music sounds like and how they approach music theory.
@@monoverantus Buy some! Or if you're skint, go on a TH-cam rabbit hole! It's wonderful music. Start on a search of Djivan Gasparyan on Duduk. Now, Djivan is Armenian, not Arabic, but the music is very similar. In fact, Duduk is used a lot in Persian, Turkish, and other countries' music. But the Duduk did originate out out Armenia, from the Apricot tree. I dunno, mate. It's one place to start.
@@monoverantus It's not that the "augmented second", albeit usually tempered differently than on the piano, is non-existent in Iranian, Arab or Turkish music, but it is definitely over-represented as the sole leitmotif of the Middle East within Western classical music, Hollywood, etc. In reality, Middle Eastern music went through a similar push towards higher chromaticism at roughly the same time that Western music did. However, in the context of Middle Eastern music, chromaticism constitutes not any given deviation from the diatonic scale, but instead more concretely the presence of the chromatic genus of tetrachord with its augmented second, similar to the concept described in Ancient Greek music theory. So it was as part of the elaboration of the rich modal framework that the music got more "chromatic".
Still, across the Middle East, modes of the peculiar diatonic scale with neutral tones (3/4-tone steps) are more represented in the repertoire of most traditional musical styles than chromatic modes. But these sound completely alien to Western audiences, and they cannot be approximated on Western fixed-pitch instruments tuned in 12-tone equal temperament or be included in familiar harmonic progressions, which is probably why they aren't referenced.
We use colour to identify all sorts of things. Cable cores. Traffic lights. Emotions.
And your colour progression makes sense to anyone with good colour vision.
However, in common with so many things, as the differences between the shades reduce, when lighting or vision is less than perfect, they become less easy to immediately recognise. I find the colours and letters easy but the indicators of small tonal variations are much more difficult to read.
For that reason, it could be useful to add another dimension of identification. For example, using the basic regular polyhedrons, maybe augmented by star-like pointed shapes. Perhaps a C would be a violet triangle? And D an orange square? With the D variants being changed somewhat - maybe a four-point star?
Up to a point, the more distinguishing features the better. Even if, as individuals, we only use one or two of those features, having more isn’t really a problem unless it becomes overwhelmingly complicated. After all, coins, banknotes and postage stamps all have a large number of identification features ranging from extremely obvious (big numbers) to extremely subtle (hologram that only appears with specific lighting). We just use the ones that work for us.
Makes sense. Thanks for your suggestion. 🙏
Thanks for a super interesting video. I couldn't wait to get to the part where you played the extra notes and tetrachords. It's like suddenly viewing a new dimension I was unaware of. It raises questions in my mind. First, the frequency ratios - Pythagorean or equal temperament or something else? Second, does anyone make a keyboard with the extra notes? What instruments can play these notes?
Thanks for your time and comment!
- I'm making another video about Pythagorean ratios and Persian music. It'll be out soon.
- Yes, there're some keyboard out there with more than 12 keys in an octave. Not specifically designed for Persian music though.
- Almost all of the traditional long-necked string instruments (tar, setar, kamancheh, baghlama, etc.) as well as many wind instruments (ney, sorna, karna, etc.) are capable of playing these intervals.
Thank you very much! Those infos are great references for me.
🙏
When singing or playing the violin, you actually distinguish between d flat and c sharp, etc, yielding 31 tones per octave: (7 diatonic x 3) + (5 chromatic x 2). There is an organ in Amsterdam with 31 tones per octave!
17 notes in total if you fix the root. But then if you want to shift tonic you / your instrument might need more.
I play nay (intermediate), I can play the super chromatic scale in a few keys, but not all maqam for all tonics because I haven't practiced all possible fractional tones. Of course I can play a transposing Nay. But then the range shifts....
And, in maqam, the actual fraction depends on what you're modulating from.
This is just scraping the surface.
So beautiful ! 🌄 And a nice pedagogy effort, thanks !
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Thanks! As a musician from a western kind of civilization, this topic interests me very much.
So, it would be very helpful to also add some examples, as well as suggestions regarding what artists could we check.
Thanks again! 👍
Sure! I'll make more videos with a lot of musical examples. 🙏
Really interesting! Thank you 🙏
Thanks for making this video, what tips do you have for westerners who are trying to learn the 17 tone system, especially for trying to compose music using DAW's and for tuning neutral tones given what you mentioned that they do not always fall directly +50 or -50 between the western 12 tones?
Thanks! I have a free improv gig today, and will be trying to work these quarter tones in. Thanks.
I find free improv gigs to be the best venue for quarter tone exploration.
Wonderful video! It was be great to see a similar video for Turkish / Ottoman tonality
It's almost a similar system, except for the size of the intervals.
It seems to be a system based part on mathematical ratios (chromatic) and the extra notes based on extra emotional content. Both side of the brain, logical and emotional. A more complete system.
The entire pitches are based on the ratios from the natural harmonic series. I'll explain it in a separate video.
@@farzadmilani Is it just the upper harmonic extensions? You just go further?
@@yvesbajulaz Actually it's based on Pythagorean 3:2 paralleled with a generative ratio from either eleventh (11:8) or thirteenth (13:8) harmonics.
@@farzadmilani thx :-)
Thank You. You clear lot of doubts in my head. Can you make a videos explaining all the Maqams ?
I'm glad to hear that! For sure I'll do.
@@farzadmilani Thank You. Very Excited for the next video.
very interesting, I very much like this approach, as opposed to just making different equal temperaments
I agree, ETs are pretty limiting until you get to very high values, at which point you might as well be doing free tuning anyways
@@The_SOB_II I disagree, for example 87-equal and 94-equal have very different sounds and flavors to them, and both support types of harmony not possible in just intonation
In the blues we play a pentatonic scale which is only 5 or 6 notes. But some musicians point out that black harmonicists play the blue 3rd slightly high. It's not the same as E flat, and I wonder if this counts as a quarter sharp..?
Yes, That's true! The blue notes are related to the neutral intervals in middle Eastern music.
If you're interested, follow Gerhard Kubik's writings in this regard.
Woah amazing video, you've explained it so well!
I was always wondering why I heard notes I couldn't play on my piano, makes so much sense now😂
Thanks!
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Thank you! Very nice and useful for the musicians around the world.
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@@farzadmilani Recently I worked for Kanun sound library. Amazing instrument so far. With your help, microtonal scales have more sense to me. Good job ! Keep in touch!
@@polymoog800 I'm happy to hear that.
I'm curious to know about what you do in kanun sound library. If you're interested to chat, here's my email: farzad.milani@gmail.com
@@farzadmilani Just sent a mail. Please check the spam too 🙂
This is mindblowing, like emotional translation between civilisations.
What i haven't got is how many steps need to cross whole octave, 22 or something else?
Thanks for your comment. If you mean "equal" steps, it needs to be 53 (a result of nine-fold division of a whole tone). I'll explain it later in a different video.
Also, 24-ET (as an acceptable reduction) works for most of the modes.
@@farzadmilani I assume you meant "nine-fold division of the _wholetone"._ 53 TET has a 9-step wholetone and two different semitones that are 5 and 4 steps respectively.
@@Dayanto exactly! I edited the reply
@@farzadmilaniI'd like to see that video!
What about 24 tones down , 24 tones up, i own persian ancient era plugin audio made by tarilonte, and may be you can explain what are those scales ?
Your explanations about the persian 17 tones are very clear, thank you very much
Thanks for your comment. These 17 tones could be rendered in a 24-EDO systemb but the intervals would sound mechanical and unnatural. As I explained the size of the neutral intervals is not exacty a quartertone.
Very interesting video! Any chance we can have the mentioned dissertation for download? I'd love to read it.
Thanks for your comment! It should be accessible on McGill university's website in a few months.
Great explanation! I took out my turkish bağlama to see if it follows this scale and it was almost the same, but with the tritone intact (F - F# - G ½flat - G). Wonder if it's a difference between persian and turkish music or if my movable frets just need adjusting lol
It should be the same (except for the size of neutral intervals) since the Turkish music theory is based on Urmavi's and Maraqi's 17-tone system. Also, there are a lot of songs in Turkish music repertoire of around 17th centurie, made by Persian musicians.
That tritone fret has been added probably for modulation purposes. Persian practitioners usually do the same thing.
@@farzadmilani oh interesting, that makes sense! Thanks for the reply 😊
Sesqui-chromatic (combining form denoting one and a half) or Sester-tonic (means two and a half)
Very interesting! Thank you
I love your visuals and explanation. But would have loved to have seen this with instruments and music. I still don't think I fully understand the Persian scales
Check out my other video with a musical example:
th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9gmRWHFzrm9Z5zJb
First timer here. This is so good. Please make more music theory videos.
Sure! Thank you
if i have an obsession, this is it
i color coded the 12 tone chromatic scale for myself in such a way that the circle of 5ths/4ths create a rainbow with the black keys all being a blue hue
not sure how to incorporate my personal system into micro-tonal music, but what we have here seems to be a complete chromatic scale... or at least a more complete chromatic scale (as you call it)
The "altered hick" dirty blues scale is similar. Some folk and slide blues guitarists like Ry Cooder or even sometimes Dimebag Darrel draw from extended "colour pools" than whats limited by 12-tet chromatic scales.
This folk and blues style seem to use the accidentals more as sympathies or grace notes.
King gizzard are a good example of how blues influenced and mid eastern tonalities blend well (imo).
That's completely true. Also, Gerhard Kubic has done a good research on this topic.
The Xenharmonic Wiki page on Arabic, Turkish, Persian music section nequal temperaments for maqamat mentions Margo Schulter's 17 note Turquoise17 scale, but unfortunately the link from that is dead.
There're different senarios for the 17 tones, but consider that the Equal Division of the Octave does not work in this case. The system is more based on the ratios from the natural harmonic series.
@@farzadmilani I know -- you have to scroll past a bunch of stuff about equal divisions of the octave to see where they talk about unequal temperaments, but then unfortunately the link they give to an unequal 17 note temperament (possibly a just intonation approximation) is dead.
You can find that scale on the Hyugens-Fokker scala archive (google findable). It doesn't seem like it is in just intonation, but it seems also that it can be "detempered" easily.
@@diegovideco Found the list with Huygens-Fokker, and saw that it contains some Persian tunings (not all 17 notes, but several are). That is a monster list -- I'll have to sift through the corresponding file later.
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglio I was thinking about this file: schulter_shur17.scl
Thank you for sharing! This is so helpful for my western ears, giving ways to perceive music in ways i could not before. To continue the conversation you prompted, maybe the name of the scale could be named from a farsi equivelant of chromatic? For example رنگ scale? that way it is still a color scale, but the colors seen from your culture’s perspective. similarly, the chromatic scale would reflect its western perspective, shown through its word for color. this would give a format for other cultures to name and honor their unique perspectives on scales and modes while sharing the universal theory of sound as color with the global music community. this way we affirm the shared experience of music, and celebrate each others interpretations/understandings of it.
Nice suggestion, thank you 🙏
Amazing video, thanks 🙏🏻
metachromatic ? heptadecatonic (after dodecatonic for chromatic scale) ? ultrachromatic ?
Thank you for the video. Interesting how quatertone notes are everywhere but around the tonal note of the scale.
Yes, It's interesting!
I gotta turkish saz i can hit 17 tones like this. This color note system sounds the way it feels. Makes most sense.
I'd be interested in seeing if you applied something like the circle of fifths or the various types of modulation charts to this if it would produce something a bit more different than expected, on account of the tritone being removed.
Stay tuned with my channel. My next video is in this regard. It'll be released tomorrow.
Perhaps call it Gradiental? Both because a color gradient is usually smooth transition and covers a larger amount of colors between tones, as well as it being a pun on Oriental
Good one 🙏🏼
It is possible to play these tones on string instruments. Must add that many people do not have that fine ear to distinguish the difference between a half and a quarter half. Same with for example the BEST pianist in the world playing the finest music > average population without musical knowledge does not hear the difference if it were played by a GOOD pianist and sometimes even by a 'not too good' pianist. - Thank you for the explanation. This makes the Persian music so beautiful.
Thanks for your comment!
Yes, obviously it's possible to play the neutral intervals with unfretted string instruments, even with brass and wind instruments using some unterations, and of course piano and other tuneable instruments.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge around the Persian notation system!
Yek, Do, Se, Char! :)
😅🙏
As, in chemistry, "Per-" is used to mean "More" (Peroxide, Permanganate etc.), you might try "Perchromatic"?
That was nice. Merci!
This expanded my mind as a piano tuner because it breaks out of the very rigid tuning standard equal temperament, where every note is exactly the distance apart, resulting in grey, colorless scales and intervals.
Also, Farzad and viewers, you may want to see my Theory of Pitch Psychology where I claim that our hearing is spectral, and tied emotionally to the these color energies. For example, love songs historically being constantly written in C, a note which I always associated with red (love, Valentine’s Day, etc.). C is like red, D is orange, E is yellow (a bright, flashy note), etc.
Thanks for this enlightening video!
Your, _Acoustic Rabbit Hole _
Many thanks for a very interesting and pedagogical video. I play mainly saxophone myself, and while I realize that saxophones are relatively new to Iran, I am wondering if you can suggest any Iranian music for saxophone (Eb, Bb & C) in standard notation (and where it can be purchased).
Thanks for your compliment! Actually, saxophone has been a common member of the wood section mostly in popular bands, at least since the 50s (if not earlier) in Iran. I'm not sure if there's any transcription of the Iranian songs specifically for sax. But if you're curios to listen to the tunes, you can find it in a lot of arrangements of Varojan, Erik Arcunt, etc., (performed by Googoosh, Ebi, etc.).
Also, nowadays, maybe inspired by Arabic popular music, you can find sax, playing quartertonic modes as a solo instrument in Iranian pop songs.
in the hungarian folk music do you have also pentaton.
Interesting, reminds me of ancient Greek music, the 'shades'. The chromatic and the super-chromatic being forbidden by Plato in his 'The State'.
I wonder how the Persian scales are created. Does the (conjunct or disjunct) tetrachords are the same in a scale, or can you have different tetrachords in a scale.
Thank you. It pretty musch works the same as the Ancient Greek system. Yes, the two tetrachords can be different (sometimes even the ascending tetrachord is different than the descending, in one single scales)
@@farzadmilani Very interesting, that makes for very flexibel music with a lot of possibilities for expression!
Hyperchromatic?
Interesting. I’m done what colorblind, but I follow you. As a guitar player, this makes me want to explore the 17 note Persian scale via more detailed and meticulous string bending.
you should check out how this guy accomplishes this on guitar:
th-cam.com/video/zGahJ-FaKjY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=51ZvH-RW5vRlwyWc
it's not the 17-note persian system (he's Turkish), but he made a guitar than has moveable frets, so you can play whatever scales you want.
That's exactlly what I xwas looking for. Subscribed to your channel.
What about HEPTADECHROMATIC MUSIC?
Heptadeca- (meaning 17) + chromatic
The video actually starts at 4:18
great work! we need more melody examples!
Thanks! Check out my other video (i've explained one musical example), the thumbnail appears at the end of this video.
You could call it enharmonic modes, in relation to the ancient greek modes that used steps that couldn't be expressed in semitones.
Two questions:
What is the distinction between a large & small neutral tone?
Are there rules for which tetrachords can be stacked together?
The Greek enharmonic tetrachord genus consists of quartartone intervals! We don't have any stepwise intervals smaller than semitone in Persian/Arabic/Turkish music.
I'll explain the difference between two sizes of the neutral tones in a seprate video.
There are a collection of melodic figures in Persian dastgah music (also in today's Arabic maqamat) that shows the possible good-sounding connection of the tetrachords. Usually musicians use those pre-designed models/figures to make a new music.
The Hijaz tetrachord sounded the most pleasing to my ears!
I love that one, too. I never knew it wasn’t in the chromatic system until today. When I first tried to play it on a keyboard, I was perplexed. Eventually, I came up with D Eb F# G - I thought the small neutral tone was a semitone and the plus tone was a minor third. Now I know why it sounded strange on the piano.
@@dragonfractal6361 Actually, the modern tuning of Hijaz is very close to the Western system in the related Turkish and Arab classical music traditions, and is even sometimes used in modern Persian music. The contemporary Arab classical and Turkish folk music traditions use the exact same intervals for Hijaz as on the piano. Likewise, the many musical traditions of the Balkans and Eastern Europe (e.g., Klezmer music) use the tempered Hijaz with its three-semitone augmented second all the time.
@@Zaphod313 Thanks for the information! Comparing variations of similar ideas in different cultures is so fascinating. The time I thought I could not get it quite right on the piano, I was trying to copy a specific song that had influences from Indian classical music.
Hyperchromatic music is a beautiful beast!
Interesting way to describe the Persian tonal system. However, as soon as a 3/4 or 5/4 distance is played, both neighboring tones fall out of the system. While the change between major and minor scales takes place smoothly, you need an intermediate piece to prepare the ear for a change from 3/4 or 5/4 scales to 1/2 tone systems. This means that both systems do not exist at the same time as a color palette but as color materials such as colored pencils and watercolors. Although your explanation is completely correct, the comparison is a bit difficult to understand for those who are not familiar with it.
Thanks for your comment.
If you're interested, here you can find an example of modulations between the tetrachord genera in a single excerpt:
th-cam.com/video/PIlHb5GgjMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ZKvsil0QdCFQCFXp