This is a report of Ostad Lotfi's June 2002 trip to San Diego.

Ostad Lotfi had a concert and held classes in San Diego last year. The 2001 report is available here.

This year in addition to classes, we also had a 2-day seminar in Lake Arrowhead.
Due to limited time and the focus on instruction, this year there was no concert.

Our teamwork was better than last year, but still needs work.
Future plans, Responsibilities, Actions.

Many thanks to Ostad Lotfi for his time and patience, Ramin and Ashkan for their help in planning and traveling down here from the Bay Area, Parvin for traveling from Virginia to strengthen Shayda, Yasi & Farzaneh & Katayoun for all their help, Moin for the beautiful cabin, Houshang for Mr. Lotfi's lodging and furniture, and Moein & Mohammad & myself (Farhad) for making this trip possible!

If you would like to comment please email me.

11 students - including 3 from Irvine and 2 from the Bay Area - studied with Ostad for a total of 40 hours.
Additionally there was a beginning setar class and a beginning tar class.

15 of us spent 1 night and 2 days at a cabin in Lake Arrowhead. The plan was to be there Friday night, but a wild fire prevented us from going until Saturday morning.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were spent in lectures on aspects of Persian music.

Saturday night Ostad played a wonderfully sonorous Dashti solo on tar (accompanied in parts by Zarrin on daf) which ended perfectly abruptly when the bridge collapsed!

Sunday evening Ostad played an interesting Mahur on setar, in which he went to Delkesh (Shur) and from there to Esfahan! Later he mentioned this had been first done by Zarpanjeh (early 20th century tar master).

Each evening Ostad directed students in music-making. On Sunday, after all tuning to Mahur, Ostad instructed us to 1) listen carefully to each other (while gently strumming the open chord) and then 2) each play a phrase or two 'when the music came to you'. This created a nice atmosphere for making music, but we have to practice it to feel more comfortable doing it.

More pictures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Future Plans

Form a group (Shayda) in San Diego dedicated to promoting classical Persian Music. Work with other groups (e.g. PCC, Zaman, Darvak, ...) to achieve goals. Core group meet monthly to plan activities.

Strategies

• Invite masters of classical Persian Music (e.g. Hassan Kasa'ii, Jalil Shahnaz) over here for concert. This is the most effective way of promoting Persian Music.
• Invite literary scholars for lectures/classes, since Persian Music is so closely tied to literature.
• Organize poetry readings (English) together with music.
• Organize classes and more advanced students work with less experienced ones.
• Keep concerts, poetry readings, rehearsals, classes, parties, and picnics distinct and separate.

Responsibilities

Alex (research, lectures, university contact), Moein (logistics), Mohammad (concerts, finances), Farhad (education, overall coordination), Morteza (tar, Irvine), AmirHosein (setar, L.A.).
Each responsibility area can have it's own team utilizing students from San Diego, Irvine, and L.A.

Next year plan classes in the last half of May, coordinate with Dr. Peterman's World Music seminar (1st week of June), and organize a public concert towards the end of the seminar so that participants can attend.

Actions

• Networking
  • [ ] establish network of Shayda contacts throughout U.S.
    • [X] list of students in Southern California *
  • Update Shayda website
    • [X] contact Shahriar & Omid regarding update of Shayda website with latest info from each city
    • [ ] review and post Lotfi discography
  • [X] establish Shayda group

    Subscribe to Shayda
  • [X] establish contact with Amir in Swizerland and order Shayda books 1, 2, & 3
• 2003 plans including concert, classes, retreat/seminar, and SDSU World Music Workshop
  • draft
• Master concerts
  • [ ] start work on project to bring Ostad Kasa'ii to US for a concert tour
    • [ ] apply for visa
    • [ ] arrange university concerts
    • [ ] arrange other concerts thru Shayda network
• Local classes
  • [X] organize setar classes with AmirHosein & Shadi
  • [ ] organize tar classes / radif review sessions with Morteza
• Local performances
  • [ ] work on presenting Persian music and poetry in right atmosphere
  • [ ] regarding Darvak concerts at SDSU (for music appreciation students):
    • get the best players from around California
    • keep it short and interesting
      • split the 50 minute program between 2 groups, or 1 group and 2 soloists
      • play short pishdaramads
      • spice the program with short chaharmezrabs
    • recite English translations of poems together with music (good literal translations of Rumi by Reynold A. Nicholson and Annemarie Schimmel - see also http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hafiz)
    • leave folk music to folk musicians!
      • Each region (e.g. Khorasan) has a classical music which needs to be learned. There's also lighter 'folk' (village) music used for special occasions (e.g. weddings) which can't be directly imported into the classical tradition.
    • break up group rehearsals into section rehearsals (melody instruments, drums, voices)

Lecture summary

On Saturday, Ostad presented us a few topics to choose from:

1. General Theory of Persian Music
2. The Radif and it's origins
3. Rhythmic Cycles in Persian Music
4. Creativity in Persian Music

We were interested in all the topics!

A summary follows:

Up to about 100 years ago, theory and practice of Persian Music were separate: players did not have to know theory and theoreticians did not play. It is only recently that musicians are trying to formulate theory based on analysis of radifs and old texts (e.g. borhaan-e alhaan).

Radif is the grammar of Persian Music.

"Radif is the serial ordering of gusheh" although correct, is not a complete definition.
Radif is based on overlapping tetrachords ("daang").

Each tetrachord can hold several gusheh. Consider that Razavi and Gharacheh (in dastgah Shur) are in a high tetrachord, but have been transposed down an octave due to vocal limitations.

Each dastgah has it's own radif, which can encompass 2 full octaves.

Each dastgah has a main way "(raah") through the various gusheh and other secondary ways.
e.g. in Mahur (C D E F), the main way would be (F G A Bb) and a secondary way (F G Ap Bb).

Each dastgah starts on the 0th (zero) note (usually an open string) except Segah.

Each fret ("pardeh") has a name.
e.g. shur, rohab, sarang, salmak, dashti, mahur, razavi or gharache
e.g. mahur, daad, dashti, hesar, feili or delkesh, khaavaraan, neishaburak or tarabangiz

Shur is the mother of all dastgah since all others can be derived from it:

On Sunday the topic of discussion was "aan" (the present moment).

Iranian people connect with music thru melody. Simple, original melodies are often the most haunting.

How to create beautiful melodies? By being there in the present moment ("aan"). Knowledge increases the depth of the "aan" but is secondary to it. Having "it" means increased sensitivity, concentrating on the moment, and feeling everything deeply.

The same old melody (e.g. kereshmeh) played with "aan" can affect you deeply - even when technique is weak.

How to get "aan"? By spending time with people who have it. You don't have to ask questions, since it cannot be taught, but can be felt.

How to get knowledge? Find a good teacher. The first step is your desire (talab) to learn.
Shams said: "Keep what warms you, but discard what makes you cold".

Comments from participants

• I learned at Lake Arrowhead retreat that students/musicians felt much more need to communicate (musically) with each other and Masters without fear of being judged. We all want to bring our best to the table, but 'til then why not encourage our musician friends for their effort and courage to show up, and help them improve!