The Iranian Radif as Implicit Musical Knowledge
A proposed doctoral project, currently in development, on how the radif is learned, transmitted, and varied in practice — beyond what notation alone can show.
The Iranian Radif as Implicit Musical Knowledge: Ethnographic, Practice-Based, and Digital Perspectives on Dastgah-e Shur
Overview
The radif is often introduced as a fixed set of named gushehs. In practice, musicians do not learn it as a sequence of fixed melodies. Through work with teachers, repeated listening, imitation, correction, and performance, they learn to hear, remember, shape, and vary musical material.
This proposed project asks how experienced musicians recognise that a performance still belongs to a particular gusheh, how they explain or demonstrate that judgement, and how new phrases can emerge without losing the identity they recognise. It begins with a focused group of gushehs in Dastgah-e Shur.
Current status
This is a proposed doctoral project in development. It is not a completed PhD, a finished analytical platform, or an automatic system for recognising or generating music.
Rooted in practice
The project grows out of my own experience as a performer and teacher of Iranian classical music. That background gives me familiarity with the terminology, pedagogy, and performance conventions the research examines, and it is treated as a resource to be used reflectively rather than as a source of fixed conclusions.
Themes
- Oral transmission
- Embodied and tacit knowledge
- Teaching, memory, and correction
- Comparative performance analysis
- Variation across lineages
- Digital ethnomusicology
- Expert-reviewed documentation
Methods
- Semi-structured interviews and musical demonstrations with experienced musicians and teachers.
- Close listening and selective transcription, used as an analytical aid rather than a complete record.
- Comparative analysis of melodic contour, emphasised tones, cadence, phrase structure, ornamentation, and variation.
- Practice-based reflection and a research journal.
- Structured documentation linking recordings, interview passages, performers, gushehs, and annotations to their sources.
A conceptual map of Dastgah-e Shur
Dastgah-e Shurدستگاه شورRelationships proposed for study
- Performance
- Teacher–student transmission
- Phrase-level evidence
- Interpretation
- Digital documentation
Research map — conceptual, not a completed analytical system. Select or hover over a gusheh to trace its relationships. This diagram presents a proposed research structure; it does not recognise, generate, or judge music.
Proposed stages
- Stage 1
Foundations
Literature review, refining the research questions, confirming the case-study gushehs, and preparing ethics and data management.
- Stage 2
Pilot
Pilot interviews and analysis, and building the structure for organising evidence.
- Stage 3
Fieldwork
Interviews and demonstrations with experienced musicians, with transcription and organisation of the material.
- Stage 4
Analysis and writing
Comparative analysis, drafting the dissertation, and sharing results.
The proposed digital component
A structured research archive is planned to connect gushehs, recordings, performers, teachers, interview passages, phrases, and annotations, keeping each observation linked to its source.
It is intended to organise evidence and make interpretations traceable. It is not designed to recognise, judge, interpret, or generate Iranian music on its own; those judgements remain with experienced musicians. Any automatically extracted features would be checked and corrected by an expert before use.
Intended contribution
The project aims to give an ethnographically grounded account of how selected gushehs in Dastgah-e Shur are learned, recognised, and interpreted, and to model how such evidence can be documented responsibly. Its purpose is to make musical knowledge more researchable while remaining accountable to musicians and to musical practice.
Analytical Study of Abolhasan Saba's Improvisations: A Case Study of His Setar Recordings
Saba
Thesis cover to follow.
بررسی تحلیلی بداههنوازیهای ابوالحسن صبا — مورد مطالعاتی: آلبوم سهتارنوازی ابوالحسن صبا
- Degree
- M.A. in Iranian Music Performance
- Institution
- University of Art, Tehran — Farabi International Campus, Faculty of Music
- Completion
- September 2021
- Theoretical supervisor
- Mahmoud Balandeh
- Practical supervisor
- Massoud Shaari
The thesis uses close listening, transcription, historical sources, and technical analysis to examine Abolhasan Saba's recorded setar improvisations: how his right- and left-hand techniques, mezrab patterns, ornamentation, phrasing, and the influence of singing shape Saba's interpretation of the radif. The material studied is drawn from Dastgah-e Shur, Avaz-e Abu Ata, Avaz-e Afshari, and Dastgah-e Mahur.
It records details of technique and expression that written description or notation alone cannot fully capture. The thesis is the practical foundation for my current research, though the two are distinct: it analyses one master's recordings, while the proposed doctoral project would study living transmission among many musicians.
Technique glossary
A selection of terms from the thesis.
- Right mezrabمضراب راست
- Left mezrabمضراب چپ
- Rizریز
- Darabدراب
- Esharehاشاره
- Takiyehتکیه
- Kandanکندن
- Sineh-malسینهمال