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So far as I know there is no documents mentioning to the notation of rhythms in the pre-Islamic era of the ancient Persia.
But after Islam many Persian musicians and scientists started to use a kind of syllabic notation for notating Persian rhythms.
This system of notation was called "atanin" method but nobody uses it today. Of course some musicians who are interested in
recreation of the ancient music of Persia, try to discover how to play those rhythms on today drums.
The first
notation for the tonbak was suggested by Ostad Saba, a very famous and great multi-instrumentalist of Iran who passed away
some decades ago.
Anyway, the first book who was published in Iran for the tonbak is the rudiments of tombak co-authored with some Iranian
musicians including the late maestro Hosain Tehrani, the very great master of tonbak and father of modern tonbak.
Ostad
Saba's method was one-lined system and it was developed by some other tonbak players like Ostad Eftetah and the others, but
Ostad Tehrani's book's method was three-lined method.
Today both the methods are used but the problem is that
in every method there is no standard for notating the finger patterns. Anyway, since the key is always mentioned in those
books, people don't have any problem in reading such books.
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