Understanding the rhythmic aspect of Iranian music is aided by understanding the rhythmic structure of
Persian poetry
Persian literature ( fa, ادبیات فارسی, Adabiyâte fârsi, ) comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Persian language and is one of the world's oldest literatures. It spans over two-and-a-half millennia. Its sources h ...
, the old Persian rhythmic cycles and the rhythmic characteristics of improvised and composed music. Analysis of more than fifty improvisations and pieces of composed music shows that the rhythmic organisation of ''gūsheh-ha'' and of musical genres in free metre, stretchable metre or fixed metre may be influenced by Persian poetic metres.
Music-related manuscripts from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries CE provide an opportunity to compare more than thirty different rhythmic cycles. The system of rhythmic cycles is no longer explicitly used in Iranian music but contemporary improvisation and composition reveals that their influence is still felt, as in current techniques of
tombak
The ''tombak'' ( Persian: تمبک), ''tonbak'' (تنبک), or ''zarb'' (ضَرب) is an Iranian goblet drum. It is considered the principal percussion instrument of Persian music. The tombak is normally positioned diagonally across the torso ...
performance.
This rich rhythmic vocabulary may bear ancestral relationship to the complex
rhythms of India and certainly is related to traditional rhythms of North Africa and
Ottoman Janissary and
Turkish drumming.
The most common
time signature
The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure ( bar), and which note va ...
s associated with the tombak are 6/8, 2/4, 4/4, 5/8, 7/8, and 16/8 times. Today the rhythmic ictus (beat or pulse) of the drum does not merely work as a
metronome
A metronome, from ancient Greek μέτρον (''métron'', "measure") and νομός (nomós, "custom", "melody") is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats p ...
but is usually woven into the main fabric of the music as if it were any other (melodic) instrument.
[CD by Mohammad Esmaili: ''Tombak Course']
Mahoor Inst.
,
See also
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Persian traditional music
Persian traditional music or Iranian traditional music, also known as Persian classical music or Iranian classical music, refers to the classical music of Iran (also known as ''Persia''). It consists of characteristics developed through the coun ...
Sources
{{reflist
Persian music
Asian rhythm