Charkh is one of many keywords when considering Iranian culture. In Persian,
Charkh initially means “a wheel”, and secondarily “firmament and fate”. In Iranian culture, “firmament and fate” must be regarded as “circulation”, and moreover, the Iranian view of life is often likened to “the wheel of fate”.
This concept of
Charkh is applicable not only for exploring the view of life of Iranian people in Persian classic poetry studies, but also for various fields in Iranology. For example, in Persian music studies, the concept of
Charkh, though not necessarily extending to being a view of life is, nevertheless, highly suggestive if only for its implications of “circulation”. In this paper, I illustrate how a
Charkh-like structure is reflected in performance type and in the musical structure of Iranian music, and how it exists in various scales as multilayers and interlaces in one performance. Finally, I clarify the Iranian way of listening, feeling and making music which is peculiar to a
Charkh feeling.
The
Charkh-like structure in Iranian music indicates the following temporal distribution of traditional melody types such as “change and recursion of tessitura and atmosphere”. Several traditional melody types, which constitute the mode of Iranian music, are, roughly speaking, performed from melody types, which take on lower tessitura, to melody types which take on higher tessitura. And after reaching the highest tessitura of the mode, it returns quickly to the tessitura and atmosphere of a base through a certain fixed melody type called “forud (down)”.
This “Charkh” structure is surely reflected in the performance type and musical structure of Iranian music, and exists on various scales in multilayers, and interlaces each other in one performance. There is, therefore, way of listening, feeling and making music peculiar to a “Charkh feeling” there. For example, when a performance is heard independently, it can be heard as a climax, and in a “Charkh feeling”, it turns out that its emotional expression is controlled for the following further climax. Moreover, the melody type called “forud” is recognized and felt not as a merely descending figure but as a “recursion” function that forms “Charkh”.
Namely, this “View of Charkh” has a very important meaning in the mind of the leading player during improvisation in terms of “what to do next?” In the world of traditional music, musical acquisition is not merely memorizing traditional melody types as a repertory but rather the acquisition of a “View of Charkh”. Even in improvisation for fun, a musician sets up a “forud” based on this “View of Charkh”.
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