Farzad Milani is a Persian musician, composer, producer, researcher, teacher, vocalist, pianist, adept microtonal quartertone accordionist, and holder of a master's degree in music theory from McGill University's Schulich School of Music. Farzad’s research area centers on the microtonal theory of Persian-Arabic-Turkish maqami/dastgahi music, along with its intricate harmonization practices.
His exceptional dedication has garnered him numerous prestigious awards both in the artistic and academic realms. Notable accolades include the title of "Best Accordion Player" in 2007 at the Maah Theatre Festival, recognition for "Best Fusion Album Arrangement" in 2017 at the Fadjr /Iran Music House Festivals, the Phyllis and Bernard Shapiro Music Theory Award in 2021, the Schulich Music School Graduate Excellence Award in 2022, the distinguished International Grant Competition Award in Music in 2023, from McGill University, etc.
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 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?
Check out this video of mine. I've explained one tuning suggestion for the 17 tones: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OjAEDnm6XD4.htmlsi=TdBSwcblKueA2ref
Thanks for watching. Actually I don't know. Maybe because I prefer to adjust the level of my intensity by direct monitoring. Also, that's the way I hold my online classes.
I believe it is important to realize that music comes from the culture, and is reflective of the minds of the people. Persian artistry, is also part of the deep spiritual consciousness that breathes through the earth's life. It is for me, when I listen to the mystical forms, is a dive into the atmosphere of nature, sunsets, and heat, walking in sands, the coming so close to death by lack of water, or the power of wind to blow through the body and the blood and make one inside out.
The chromatic scale in modern western music is equal temperament. That's a little artificial; I guess that's also a factor here - the notes you show as mapping don't precisely map? And is there a concept of temperament in Persian music?
Yes, that's correct. The intervals between the tones in the Persian system is not equal, while a 53-tone equal temperament gives acceptable approximations of the 17 tones.
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.
I don't think it's an exaggeration. He has been an instrument builder as well. He has even a collection of sketchd of weird instruments never manufactured.
Amazing videos you doing ,thanks for share this knowledge. maybe one day you have more time to analyse some more modes like in this video. thank you so much great work
Thanks. But i have a question : in my saz the 1/4 notes are in the 2, the 4, 7, 9 and 12 frets. So it is getting well. But if i use a capo (by example from C to D ) i could not have the same.
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.
It just sounds like you’re playing everything on a piano that is completely out of tune. Sorry, but it’s just not pleasant sounding to my western ears.
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 live in the Blue Mountains Sydney. There was a man who lived near me who wrote a lot about 31 tone systems. Bill Coates 1917 to 1997. "He gradually came to realise the impoverishing effects that confining ourselves to 12 equal notes to the octave has had on Western music. And, while appreciating the various ways in which shades of notes are treated in non-European musics, he decided to work towards extending our Western equal temperament from 12 to 31 notes in each octave. When he had come to understand that, mathematically speaking, 31 is the best of equal temperaments, he undertook composition in it. He made frequent visits to Holland, where support for 31 is strong; he often played on the 31-note, 2-manual organ at Haarlem (with 31-note pedals!); and commissioned and possessed an Archiphone - the electronic organ permanently tuned to 31 equal notes in each octave."
@@farzadmilani Yes and I learned from an interesting "Steven Jacks" video about the 12 tone system that even if you were to go past 12 tones in the european 2:3 harmonic ratio system, it takes a hefty 53 tones before you can reach a state of having meaningful harmonic equidistance of intervals again (and you can reach it again with some ludicrous hundreds of tones afterward, at which point I say might as well just yank your frets off!)
These lesson are wonderful! I hope to play Persian and Iraqi style oud one day. Would it be possible to have more song broken down like you did here with dastgah-e mahor, where you show the specific tetrachords being played and when they switched. Your analysis is very helpful! Moteshakeram!
Great video, thanks. I am wondering what king of tunings of the quarter tones are used depending on the mode played. If anyone can point me to some information would be appreciated.
Thanks for your comment. In theory it's combination of Pythagorean 3:2 tuning paralleled with an either 13-limit or 11-limit ratios for the neutral intervals. But in practice, the size of the intervals fluctuate according to different modes, or different geographical regoins, or even different schoolds, but in general they're more close to the ratios from the natural harmonic series.
@@farzadmilani Yes, I am writing my Master's thesis on a census of published biblical Hebrew melodies. I'm reconstructing their history of transmission and evolution going back 2000+ years. I recently moved out of the Redpath Museum and am now in the Stewart Biology west wing. I've co-supervised a student with Julie Cumming, though, at the School of Music. Different scale systems are interesting to me personally, because I'm curious about the realm of the possible in reciting ancient texts. (I've incorporated reconstructed pronunciation schemes and recitation rules, for example, and found measure and metre by experiment. But intonation remains a matter of my own native+acquired idiom, unless I'm lifting tones from my sources or from our low-res reconstructions which are still a work in progress.)
I would love to try this out on my synthesizer, i.e., to put this into a quantizer. Is there a good web resource that will list tetrachord pairs using quarter-tones according to the described systems?
Equal division of the octave in general does not work for Persian and middle Eastern music. For 22EDO specifically, two important values of P4th (491 cents) and P5th (709 cents) are too much deviated from the natural sizes (4:3 and 3:2 respectively). That's why this system is not favored.
Please continue teaching us Persian Music theory, I’ve always been intrigued but have never really found any solid learning materials in English(I don’t speak your language unfornately😢), thank you, subscribed! Btw, can you teach how to compose I this system?
@@farzadmilani oh, you have heard others call them as "quarter flat" or "quarter sharp"? If so that's interesting! Cool video btw, always good to educate about all cultures!
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.
